About two years ago Meta Trac ticket (note: please don’t continue in that ticket, this P2 is the more correct place for it) was opened about adding a WordCamp volunteer and attendee badges to WordPress.org profiles. A few weeks ago Taco did bring it back to the discussion and I promised to write a proposal to move this forward.
Profile badges are graphics that do show users contributions towards WordPress project.
It is suggested that we should:
- Give a badge for WordCamp volunteers
- Give a badge for WordCamp attendees
- Give a badge for Meetup attendees
Let’s dive into each badge for a second.
WordCamp volunteers
Technically giving a badge for WordCamp volunteers is probably the most easiest of the badges to give automatically. In coordination with WordCamp Meta team, we could find a way to track all volunteers and their WordPress.org usernames as we do for organisers and speakers too.
It’s also almost unarguable that WordCamp volunteers are contributing to the project, so they should get a badge. In 2017 there was a conversation about recognising volunteers in WordCamp websites, that ended up in conclusion that we should do that. At that time the discussion didn’t consider profile badges and as an end result using Admin Flags functionality was suggested.
WordCamp Attendees
This is technically more harder to do, because we don’t ask WordPress.org usernames when attendees purchase a ticket.
Sure we could add a field and ask that, but then comes the question when badge should be added to profile. When a ticket is purchased? Then what happens if that ticket changes owner, is refunded or attendee doesn’t show up. If we add the badge after attendee has marked as attended in Camptix, not all would get a badge because not all WordCamps do use the functionality to mark attendance.
It’s also arguable whether attending to WordCamp is actually contributing to the project and something from which they should get a badge.
In the Trac ticket @andreamiddleton pointed out that in 2014 WordCamp San Francisco worked out a way display event registration and attendance on the activity log. She suggested that we recognise attendees in that way instead of giving badges.
Meetup attendees
Technically this is the hardest thing to achieve, because Meetups live totally their own lives in Meetup.com and don’t have strong connection to WordCamp.org or WordPress.org systems. We don’t have a way to link Meetup.com profile to WordPress.org username for giving them a badge. Surely it can probably be done if team invests a lot of time on developing this feature.
The same discussion as with WordCamp attendees on their level of contribution to the project also applies to Meetup attendees.
The proposal
I’m proposing:
Badge for WordCamp volunteers
We should create a new badge for WordCamp volunteers and recognise them the same way as we do for organisers and speakers. Technical aspects need to be decided with WordCamp Meta team, but I’d create a new post type and re-use same functionalities that are used for organisers and speakers.
Log note for WordCamp attendees
We should start asking WordPress.org username during ticket purchase with an optional field in preparations to recognising WordCamp attendees.
I’m in favour of Andrea’s suggestion on showing the attendance on profile log instead of giving them a badge. Log note could be added after the WordCamp, in case the ticket changes owner on the first event day. Logic could be that everyone with a ticket does get the note unless there are at least a certain amount of attendees marked as attended when log note would be added only to those attendees.
What about Meetups and other event formats?
For Meetup and our other event format attendees, I would say it’s a too low-level contribution towards the WordPress project and technically too complicated to implement. Hopefully we can start recognising them at some point, but not for now.
Feedback
Read the original proposal and discussion on Meta Track ticket, there are good arguments and points. Note: please don’t continue in that ticket, this P2 is the more correct place for it.
Please share your feedback on the topic and especially on:
- Should WordCamp volunteers get a badge?
- Should WordCamp attendees get a badge or a note in their log?
- What things do we need to take into consideration in these cases?
Share your thoughts before 2020-08-13.
#attendees, #meetups-2, #recognition, #volunteers, #wordcamps