Training Team Profile Badges

There has been a recent flurry of pull requests from people new to the Training Team. Most of these pull requests are fixing small issues with the lesson plans – and we have many of those! However, these contributors have not introduced themselves to the team in SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/. or participated in the team’s meetings. Their efforts are seemingly to procure the Training Team badge on their WordPress.orgWordPress.org The community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/ profile. That raises the issue of what the requirements are to secure those badges.

The Training Team would like to be more transparent and consistent and define the criteria for giving profile badges to people who contribute to our team.

Other WordPress.org Teams

Looking at how a few other non-code-focused teams handle their badges…

The 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. Team

“On your profile, badges are added based on your contributions to the WordPress project. There are two kinds of badges: contributor and team. The contributor badges are generally assigned to anyone who has contributed to a particular team. Meanwhile, the team badges are given to those who are active on their team. Each team can set its own criteria for who should get each badge. When possible, the meta team will automate badge assignment.”

(https://make.wordpress.org/meta/handbook/documentation/profile-badges/)

The Polyglots TeamPolyglots Team Polyglots Team is a group of multilingual translators who work on translating plugins, themes, documentation, and front-facing marketing copy. https://make.wordpress.org/polyglots/teams/.

The Polyglots Team requires ten string translations to earn their Contributor badge. The also have an “Editor” badge which is given when a person has Editor status on a [locale].wordpress.org site.

The Support Team

“We have official badges for Support Contributors and Support team members. For the moment being, these badges are awarded manually to active contributors. In the future, we hope to be able to automate that process, and then use the following criteria:

  • Support Contributor: You have contributed over 400 support replies.
  • Support Team: You have been promoted to Moderator.”

(https://make.wordpress.org/support/handbook/contributing-to-the-wordpress-forums/volunteering-in-the-forums/)

The Documentation Team

The documentation team is probably the team that is the closest to the Training Team in their responsibilities. They do not yet have criteria for their badges but are also working on this.

Recommendation for Discussion

One-time contributions are very welcome, but perhaps not the purpose of the badges. As a starting point for discussion, let’s consider the following:

  • Training Contributor:
    • Writing – You have developed an approved lesson plan from scratch or completely rewritten one that was out of date.
    • Copyediting / Reviewing – You have contributed 10 pull requests over a period of more than 30 days.
    • Testing – You have completed 3 testing feedback forms after using a lesson plan in an event.
    • Auditing – Review 3 lesson plans and create GitHubGitHub GitHub is a website that offers online implementation of git repositories that can easily be shared, copied and modified by other developers. Public repositories are free to host, private repositories require a paid subscription. GitHub introduced the concept of the ‘pull request’ where code changes done in branches by contributors can be reviewed and discussed before being merged be the repository owner. https://github.com/ issues for any needed changes.
    • Connecting – Make 3 workshop recommendations by combining existing lesson plans.
  • Training Team: You have admin rights on GitHub and/or the make.wordpress.org/training site.

Too easy? Too difficult? Does it deter people or encourage them? Is the “over 30 days” part a good idea? Thoughts? These criteria are up for discussion!