[OOTB-hive] Member Criteria, Voting and Badges

Sat Aug 16 22:27:33 BST 2014

I agree we have no need for privileges at the moment but the concern that
was expressed was distinguishing between fly-by-night people or spammers
and people who are actually known to others in the community. A vouching
system does that in a low-tech, low-pressure way.

The vouching system is not an assessment of someone's worth or
capabilities, it is simply a way to say, "I know who that person is because
I've interacted with them before."

Someone who is unvouched is not embarrassed or ashamed. On the contrary, it
may motivate them to get involved in the group and make a meaningful enough
contribution that they can then ask the person they've been working with to
identify them as a known contributor.

It is that simple and does not require much effort.

The way we vouch initially is that the board members simply click the vouch
button (or similar) and say how you know that person. Maybe you've
interacted with them on IRC. Maybe you've worked on a contribution
together. Maybe you gave a lightning talk or were on the same panel at a
conference. All that matters is that you have interacted with them in some
way.

Mozilla has recently moved to a three-vouch system which means three people
have to vouch for you before you are fully vouched. We could do the same.

I ask that the group strongly considers this as a way of taking what's in
our head ("Oh, I know who that is") and making it explicit. If we don't do
this or something similar, the group will be left open for
manipulation/exploitation by unknown/anonymous parties who may not have the
best of intentions.

Jeff

On Fri, Aug 15, 2014 at 4:11 AM, Oksana Kurysheva <okurysheva at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Hi Jeff,
>
> Thank you very much for your feedback.
> I'm not sure that we need "privileges" system. Who will decide that a
> person has earned a privilege? Who will vouch for the first "vouched"
> members? Alfresco company? We don't have a Foundation with independent
> leaders who can do it. And without it people who are not vouched can feel
> offended.
>
> In any case I like an idea of the "Board". We can elect 5-6 Board members
> by voting between all members. And we can re-elect Board members every year
> looking at how was it worked last year. These people will be responsible
> for the communication with Alfresco and external people, for keeping alive
> all activities, for helping with meetups organization, printing t-shirts
> (after we will have money from sponsors in the Order) etc.
>
> And I think that we still should think about internal roles. We have many
> tasks that should be done daily to maintain the Order. They may be done by
> Board members, but also other members can do it. Some ideas from my side:
> - Honeycomb keepers. After we form a list of requirements for add-ons,
> someone should approve requests, update info on the website etc. While we
> say "someone who has access will do it", it will never work.
> - Working with SI/freelancers and customers to publish info to the list of
> "approved/verified people" and to the list of success stories.
> - Googling for new technical posts and articles that have been written bu
> the Order members and not only, pushing these posts to the social networks,
> publishing updates what is new in the Order (activity feed)
>  - Bee Resources Managers: finding and inviting new members, keeping up to
> date members profiles, forming a list of inactive members in the end of
> every year to submit it for voting on expulsion.
>
> Also we should form teams for our major activities:
> - OOTB edition. Everyone can participate but 1-2 people should become team
> leaders and become responsible for the activity
> - Live instances (the same)
>
> And I think that we can find many other "internal" roles.
> Vouching system implies the formal structure. We don't have a formal
> structure, we have a meritocracy when everyone does something he or she
> can: write posts, develop add-ons, translate Alfresco to local language.
> Everyone can take the lead in some question. But we need a Board to
> organize this chaos to unite us.
>
> Best regards,
> Oksana
>
>
> On Fri, Aug 15, 2014 at 5:23 AM, Jeff Potts <jeffpotts01 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I think there is a difference between supporting and participating in the
>> cause and technical qualification.
>>
>> I think anyone who wants to should be able to say they are part of the
>> group and be listed. If we have a bunch of new folks who actually know very
>> little about the platform that is okay.
>>
>> Once we have that problem we can address it.
>>
>> One thing to go look at is mozillians.org (disclaimer: I contribute to
>> the project). Anyone can say they are a Mozillian and be listed, but only
>> "vouched" members have additional privileges. For example, as a vouched
>> Mozillian I get invited to semi-private meetings that mozilla conducts.
>>
>> A vouching system would be easier and perhaps more meaningful to set up
>> than achievements/badges although the two aren't mutually exclusive.
>>
>> Jeff
>>
>> On Aug 14, 2014, at 11:31 AM, Jan Pfitzner <jan at alfrescian.com> wrote:
>>
>> Hi,
>> I thinks it's a very critical question regarding the future of the ootb.
>> I think everyone who is a member of the alfresco community, e.g. has
>> written a blog post, answered some questions in the forum or has published
>> an addon likes to join the order. There are also some tweets on twitter
>> like "what? I'm not even listed".
>>
>> So, from my point of view there should be sth. like a board. The main
>> task for the board is organizing. It should be formed by a few people (e.g
>> 5) that are managing the ootb.
>>
>> But I'm also thinking that the ootb should be open to everyone. Everyone
>> should be able to join incl. a statement why he'd like to join and what he
>> would like contribute (addons, reviews, tutorials, docs ....). Imho a full
>> flavored badge system is a bit 'over-engineered' as there has to be rules,
>> maybe a automatism etc.
>>
>> I'm not sure about the listing freelancers topic. If the ootb-campaign is
>> successful then every alfresco freelancer or agencies likes to be listed as
>> we're talking about making money then.
>> I would prefer just a normal member listing without any commercial
>> backgrounds.
>> Cheers, jan
>>
>>
>>
>> 2014-08-14 17:45 GMT+02:00 Martin Cosgrave <martin at ocretail.com>:
>>
>>> Hi Bees
>>>
>>> I have been buzzing around with aviriel and douglascrp in #orderofthebee
>>> - you really should join, it's lovely and sunny and there are lots of
>>> flowers to drink nectar from.
>>>
>>> We were discussing what it means to be a member of the order, and what
>>> limits to set on membership.
>>>
>>> Personally I feel like anyone who wants to be a member should be
>>> allowed. I think aviriel prefers some kind of minimum qualification.
>>>
>>> We discussed using 'gamification' to differentiate members, in much the
>>> same way Stack Overflow does, by giving out qualifying badges. What badges
>>> do you think we could have. We discussed "founder bee" for the original
>>> members and "father bee" for Jeff Potts and possibly John Newton if he
>>> joined. What other ideas?
>>>
>>> We also need to think about voting. Who can vote? And what are they
>>> voting for?
>>>
>>> I'm going to bee lazy, and rather than summarise the conversation I'm
>>> just pasting it below for you to have a look at it.
>>>
>>> Buzz buzz, and remember, you can't spell beer without "bee".
>>>
>>> marsbard
>>>
>>>
>>> <aviriel> marsbard: douglascrp: what do you think about
>>> categorization/adding roles for the people?
>>> <douglascrp> I think it's good
>>> <douglascrp> but I have no experience on this "community" thing, so I
>>> don't know how to do that, or how it would be better organized
>>> <aviriel> douglascrp: but do you know what role can you have in the
>>> Order?
>>> <douglascrp> I like to read, a lot, so I think I could select and send
>>> texts I think would be useful
>>> <marsbard> if roles are obvious and people are stepping up for them then
>>> no problem but I wouldn't force it, ppl may want to contribute without a
>>> specific role
>>> <douglascrp> marsbard, I agree
>>> <douglascrp> I could help on that and on addons tests and, again,
>>> recomendations
>>> <douglascrp> select and publish content, not creating it, but filtering
>>> it
>>> <douglascrp> did you get what I tried to explain? lol
>>> <marsbard> yes I think so
>>> <aviriel> marsbard: yes, but if we have more than 30-40 people, we
>>> should understand who does what.
>>> <douglascrp> I don't know if you have the bob's fast food there, but
>>> their employees have a kind of a "sign" on ther id cards, that tell what
>>> they do, or what they are trained to do
>>> <marsbard> all I'm saying is that not everyone will have a role. of
>>> course some people will have defined roles
>>> <aviriel> I afraid of a number of newbie freelancers who want to join
>>> the order just to say "I am a member of the Order, I can make any project".
>>> So I want to filter people on the stage of joining. For example by
>>> requirement "Show what did you do for the community"
>>> <douglascrp> aviriel, got that, but I think that is another subject,
>>> right? who can become a member
>>> <aviriel> yes, it is
>>> <aviriel> I mix subjects
>>> <douglascrp> and how about create different kind of members? members and
>>> "simple followers"?
>>> <marsbard> I'm not sure that there is a 1:1 between members and
>>> freelancers, I think if it would be too complicated to have every
>>> freelancer as a full member that wanted to be in a directory
>>> <marsbard> I guess I am echoing what douglascrp said
>>>
>>>
>>> <aviriel> douglascrp: everyone wants to become a member. If we allow
>>> "members" and "followers" then everyone tries to do meet minimum
>>> requirements to become a member. And do nothing after that.
>>> <aviriel> So I think that everyone can be a member and vote. But not
>>> everyone will participate in Order administration (internal activities). So
>>> if you write blog posts sometimes - you are a member. If you build OOTB
>>> edition or review add-ons to add them to Honeycomb, then you are a member
>>> of Board of the Order or what is the correct name of the Order
>>> Adminsitration..
>>> <marsbard> these are interesting issues that we will need to think about
>>> <aviriel> marsbard: and we should think about them quick
>>> <marsbard> in which case, maybe we make everyone a member like you say,
>>> but getting into our freelance directory will require qualification
>>> <marsbard> also we probably do need to have core admin as a separate
>>> group
>>> <marsbard> if people want to join just to be part of the order, I think
>>> that's great
>>> <marsbard> as they contribute maybe we can recognise them with badges
>>> <aviriel> marsbard: yes, you got why I want to use badges
>>> <marsbard> eg "10 blog posts" badge etc.
>>> <marsbard> yeah I like it, like "gamifying"
>>> <marsbard> I'm thinking like Stack Overflow (or other stack exchange
>>> sites)
>>> <aviriel> after it we will need more complex website, not plain html
>>> <marsbard> yes it could start getting difficult
>>> <aviriel> people with 2-3 blog posts and 1 obsolete add-on are
>>> "community members", but we cannot say them "you cannot join the order" if
>>> we want to see them in the community in the future
>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>
>>
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>
>
> --
> С уважением,
> Оксана Курышева
> <okurysheva at gmail.com>
>
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