Title: Documentation Team Profile Badges Author: Milana Cap Published: January 8, 2020 --- [ ](https://profiles.wordpress.org/milana_cap/) [Milana Cap](https://profiles.wordpress.org/milana_cap/) 3:44 pm _on_ January 8, 2020   # Documentation Team Profile Badges This discussion is happening for a very long time without a concrete result so far. So let’s try to define our system and add results to our Handbook. This should avoid all misunderstanding in the future, at least for a while. Things to consider: * When does contributor get a “Documentation Contributor” badge? I think we should define this for every documentation team project. * When does contributor get a “Documentation Team” badge? * Are we going to remove “Documentation Team” badges due to long time inactivity etc? In this regard I think we agreed long time ago that “Documentation Contributor” badge will never be removed. * How often are we going to evaluate the state of badges? Every 6, 12 months? I’d also like us to take a look at [our team page](https://make.wordpress.org/docs/handbook/the-team/) as there are people who still don’t have even “Contributor” badge and are listed as a part of a team. Everyone are welcome to participate in discussion. Please leave your thoughts in comments section. ### Share this: * [ Threads ](https://make.wordpress.org/docs/2020/01/08/documentation-team-profile-badges/?share=threads) * [ Mastodon ](https://make.wordpress.org/docs/2020/01/08/documentation-team-profile-badges/?share=mastodon) * [ Bluesky ](https://make.wordpress.org/docs/2020/01/08/documentation-team-profile-badges/?share=bluesky) * [ X ](https://make.wordpress.org/docs/2020/01/08/documentation-team-profile-badges/?share=x) * [ Facebook ](https://make.wordpress.org/docs/2020/01/08/documentation-team-profile-badges/?share=facebook) * [ LinkedIn ](https://make.wordpress.org/docs/2020/01/08/documentation-team-profile-badges/?share=linkedin) * [Login to Reply](https://login.wordpress.org/?redirect_to=https%3A%2F%2Fmake.wordpress.org%2Fdocs%2F2020%2F01%2F08%2Fdocumentation-team-profile-badges%2F%23respond&locale=en_US) 1. ![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/8c89447051442fa67f733cd23f299ed361f51e5129ee4b00a1f5d83fc2178a09? s=32&d=mm&r=g) 2. [Milana Cap](https://profiles.wordpress.org/milana_cap/) 3:58 pm _on_ January 8, 2020 3. I’ll start. I like how #coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress., #metaMeta Meta is a term that refers to the inside workings of a group. For us, this is the team that works on internal WordPress sites like WordCamp Central and Make WordPress., [#polyglots](https://make.wordpress.org/docs/tag/polyglots/) get a contributor badge for a single contribution. This truly shows that every contribution is important. However, I don’t think that going to slackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform [https://slack.com/](https://slack.com/). The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at [https://make.wordpress.org/chat/](https://make.wordpress.org/chat/) and pointing on a typo should be considered as a contribution. So I’m having a dilemma here with what is the minimum effort to be considered as a contribution. 4. Also, I’d like to consider people who facilitate meetings and write meeting summaries as team members but I’d really hate to see people doing this just to get a badge and then disappearing. We already had these cases, so much so, that we are very careful with giving “Contributor” badges, which brought us to this situation in the first place. 5. With that being said, I’d review badges every 6 months. If team member doesn’t let us know about future or current absence (so, the case of disappearing) I’d say we should remove “Team” badge after 6 months of inactivity. If we do get informed about inability to participate (because we all have lives and things happen) I wouldn’t touch “Team” badge at all. 6. * ![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/9198356582655c54b1c2112dd1bbec77cdb92cf30d41aa6a2d246e6c08ea4ab0? s=32&d=mm&r=g) * [leogermani](https://profiles.wordpress.org/leogermani/) 2:46 pm _on_ January 13, 2020 * Good points. * I guess Documentation contributor badge is perpetual, while Docs Team badge needs to be re-validated every once in a while. * In order to define the minimum effort to get a badge, it would be good if we had an objective way to measure it. For example, 5 articles edited in HelpHub/ DevHub or any docs project? Something we can easily measure asking our database… * The weakness I see here is that, in order to edit an article, one must enter slackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform [https://slack.com/](https://slack.com/). The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at [https://make.wordpress.org/chat/](https://make.wordpress.org/chat/) and ask for permission, And this can be a big blocker and raises another question. Should we review who has permission to edit articles periodically as well? * ![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/937fa36961b5bdd18b73d4eb34b06d11cb13cb9f8c2f2e36e22ed5edfd5d11d7? s=32&d=mm&r=g) * [Akira Tachibana](https://profiles.wordpress.org/atachibana/) 2:48 pm _on_ January 13, 2020 * [@milana_cap](https://profiles.wordpress.org/milana_cap/) I have the same opinion and worries with you. We should give a Contribution Badge to anyone for any contribution, but our badge is not for the Pokemon Go. Though we don’t like, we might have some criteria such as 6 month contribution etc… * ![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/6f505c6be9a951929a99becb6b413dcfa583a5ca3dd0f7320766fee1481f0f82? s=32&d=mm&r=g) * [Jb Audras](https://profiles.wordpress.org/audrasjb/) 2:57 pm _on_ January 13, 2020 * > With that being said, I’d review badges every 6 months. If team member doesn’t > let us know about future or current absence (so, the case of disappearing) > I’d say we should remove “Team” badge after 6 months of inactivity. If we > do get informed about inability to participate (because we all have lives > and things happen) I wouldn’t touch “Team” badge at all. * For “Team” badge, this sounds great to me. And I personally think contributors badge could be perpetual (just like in CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress., MetaMeta Meta is a term that refers to the inside workings of a group. For us, this is the team that works on internal WordPress sites like WordCamp Central and Make WordPress., Polyglots, etc). 7. ![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/0a5c28f71a3c3da0bfd1beb14973cdbe12af562e51666a1a04341bb27eab52cb? s=32&d=mm&r=g) 8. [Marcio Zebedeu](https://profiles.wordpress.org/marcio-zebedeu/) 7:38 am _on_ January 9, 2020 9. I agree 10. 1. There are several types of volunteers. Experienced and active volunteers and new and inexperienced volunteers. Experienced volunteers often get naturally worried, deciding and thinking about big changes._This causes minor flaws such as in the cited example ‘typing error’ to go unnoticed_. Errors such as these I believe, is only detected by inexperienced volunteers the search for their first contribution and a way of valuing would clearly be the distinctive collaboration –** following the same principle of the coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. “good-first-bugs”** – that will make it important and continue growing as a collaborator. 11. 2. A collaborator logically collaborates with a certain team. This team has a leader. This leader or leaders must however follow, observe the growth and strength of this collaborator in trying to integrate into the team and thus receive the badge. This integration should be facilitated, perhaps by appointing a mentor and not letting him find out how things work for themselves etc. 12. Facilitating meetings and writing a summary of meetings should be the result of being part of an equpe, a way to help the team achieve their goals and not personal interests and then disappear, however : 13. 3. an inactivity of 6 months without warning should instead result in the removal of the team badge, as it would make no sense to have a hundred users with team badge inactive. 14. Perhaps the ideal is to have a space in the docs manual explaining what is expected of a true team member, commitment, etc. 15. _translated into English through google translator e yandex translate_ 16. ![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/a7873a730eebbbf667e941eaefba2f3f16ee7fe49a5661507569ada7f46b94dc? s=32&d=mm&r=g) 17. [Birgit Pauli-Haack](https://profiles.wordpress.org/bph/) 5:15 pm _on_ January 13, 2020 18. What is a contribution? Starting a list: 19. * Fix an article * Create meeting notes * facilitate a meeting * own a project or part of it * reporting an issue on the comment form? * Creating a PR for GutenbergGutenberg The Gutenberg project is the new Editor Interface for WordPress. The editor improves the process and experience of creating new content, making writing rich content much simpler. It uses ‘blocks’ to add richness rather than shortcodes, custom HTML etc. [https://wordpress.org/gutenberg/](https://wordpress.org/gutenberg/) docs * user notes on code reference * write an article on HelpHub * update an article on HelpHub * migrate a page to DevHub 20. What else…? 21. Once we have a complete list: The next step would be to quantify any of the small( er) contribution. 22. For instance: 23. * one (1) new article gets a badge * report five (5) issues on a comment form. * create one (1) user notes on code reference * two (2) fixed articles 24. * ![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/8c89447051442fa67f733cd23f299ed361f51e5129ee4b00a1f5d83fc2178a09? s=32&d=mm&r=g) * [Milana Cap](https://profiles.wordpress.org/milana_cap/) 11:16 am _on_ January 20, 2020 * I like this, thank you [@bph](https://profiles.wordpress.org/bph/). * I think we should define these per project. Each project rep could write a list of ways to contribute and what would be considered as a minimum criteria for contribution badge. * I guess we’ll all have things like reporting an issue, fixing an issue etc. The difference would be I guess the number of contributions and/or quantity. * ![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/9198356582655c54b1c2112dd1bbec77cdb92cf30d41aa6a2d246e6c08ea4ab0? s=32&d=mm&r=g) * [leogermani](https://profiles.wordpress.org/leogermani/) 12:30 pm _on_ January 21, 2020 * I saw this discussion in the last meetingÇ * > @felipeelia pointed out the example of someone who noted an error on one > of the available docs and asked if they would be elligible to receive the > docs contributor badge. @bph noted that it’s a micro-contribution. Several > micro-contributions could lead people to receive a contributor badge. @felipeelia > pointed out that it would need to keep track of each contribution in a document.@ > bph added that normally each contributor could keep track of it and let the > Team know, when the threshold is reached. * In my opinion, a contribution must be something: - we can objectively measure and keep track of (so edits in the database are easier) - something people actually get done (not just reporting) * So in that case, only reporting an error in the slackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform [https://slack.com/](https://slack.com/). The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at [https://make.wordpress.org/chat/](https://make.wordpress.org/chat/) channel would not count as a contribution for a badge. But if the person actually corrects the issue, then it counts. * We only have one thing to solve here: * For someone to actually contribute to DevHub or HelpHub, he/she must have a user with permission to do that. Are we ok to just grant privileges to anyone who pops up in the channel asking for it? If not, the barrier to contribution is pretty big. 25. ![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/82e9a51f6e6724d0f49489c10f8ef90d6b15434208f92d35d46ce7c2c09fa132? s=32&d=mm&r=g) 26. [Felipe Elia](https://profiles.wordpress.org/felipeelia/) 5:55 pm _on_ January 21, 2020 27. I’ll leave my 2 cents here and after thinking about this for a while, I guess I’ll be a dissonant voice. 28. It seems we’ve reached a consensus about **Team Badges**: regular reviews, keep it synced with [our team page](https://make.wordpress.org/docs/handbook/the-team/) and that is it. 29. For **Contributor Badge**, I know I’ve agreed with most we’ve already discussed during our last meetings but on second thought, **I guess we should give the badge right away**, even if the user just pointed a small typo or something. The reasons for this are: 30. 1. Even for small typos, it required some effort: the user had to join slackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform [https://slack.com/](https://slack.com/). The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at [https://make.wordpress.org/chat/](https://make.wordpress.org/chat/), find the right channel, share it there and wait for some feedback. 2. If we decide to give the badge after X contributions, we’ll have to keep track of those and that will demand more time/processes/workflows 3. We don’t have THAT many occurrences of people reporting errors. We have, let’s say, 1 per week? That would mean 52 new people with the badge (if one different person reports an error). It seems a reasonable number for me. 4. As pointed by [@leogermani](https://profiles.wordpress.org/leogermani/), to actually fix the problem, people would have to have the necessary access, which could bring us some problems in the long run. 31. The main con here seems to be giving the badge and then seeing the person never get back (what obviously could happen after 5 contribs). For that, I’d say coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. and metaMeta Meta is a term that refers to the inside workings of a group. For us, this is the team that works on internal WordPress sites like WordCamp Central and Make WordPress. work exactly like that (1 patch = badge). Also, we could create a canned reply calling them to really join the team: 32. “Thanks for the contribution, X. That comes with a nice badge to your profile! But the work isn’t over, we hope you join us in our next meeting and keep up helping. See you next Monday!” or something like that. 33. Thoughts? 34. * ![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/a7873a730eebbbf667e941eaefba2f3f16ee7fe49a5661507569ada7f46b94dc? s=32&d=mm&r=g) * [Birgit Pauli-Haack](https://profiles.wordpress.org/bph/) 3:10 pm _on_ January 27, 2020 * I like this idea by [@felipeelia](https://profiles.wordpress.org/felipeelia/)– shows generosity. It is in synch with “every little thing helps” call for of contribution to open-source. For the right person, it will also create a motivation to do more, now that they earned the badge, and people feel seen. The on-boarding of new contributors, it most important to make people feel welcome and interactions like this would certainly fit the bill. Now that we know their username, we also could pingPing The act of sending a very small amount of data to an end point. Ping is used in computer science to illicit a response from a target server to test it’s connection. Ping is also a term used by Slack users to @ someone or send them a direct message (DM). Users might say something along the lines of “Ping me when the meeting starts.” them on slackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform [https://slack.com/](https://slack.com/). The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at [https://make.wordpress.org/chat/](https://make.wordpress.org/chat/) if there is a ‘docs’ sprint going on of if a review is needed etc. * And yes, putting a number of contributions to these micro- contributions, would put a burden to someone on the team to keep track of it, with very little benefits. * Sorry, Felipe – not so contrarian after all ### Leave a Reply 󠀁[Cancel reply](https://make.wordpress.org/docs/2020/01/08/documentation-team-profile-badges/?output_format=md#respond)󠁿 You must be [logged in](https://login.wordpress.org/?redirect_to=https%3A%2F%2Fmake.wordpress.org%2Fdocs%2F2020%2F01%2F08%2Fdocumentation-team-profile-badges%2F&locale=en_US) to post a comment. # Post navigation [← Summary for Docs Team Meeting 6th January 2020](https://make.wordpress.org/docs/2020/01/06/summary-for-docs-team-meeting-6th-january-2020/) [Agenda for Docs Team Meeting 13th January 2020 →](https://make.wordpress.org/docs/2020/01/13/agenda-for-docs-team-meeting-13th-january-2020/)