Gamerification in the Community

[Valorie Zimmerman]

On Mon, Dec 8, 2014 at 2:30 PM, Svetlana Belkin <belkinsa at ubuntu.com> wrote:
> All,
>
> In the other thread (the one about the connection), the karma and Open
> Badges was brought up.  These are forms of gamerification and, if we improve
> on what we have, we can motivate more people to get involved and contribute
> to the project and the OS.
>
> We already have the karma system in LaunchPad(LP) which is great for
> developers and programmers.  But is also for questions and answers and bug
> tracking.  I don't think that needs to change but...
>
> What needs to change is for those who don't directly deal with what the
> karma system is used for.  Well, maybe even for the ones who do things on
> LP.  As Ben said is Open Badges.  I see these badges has a way to show of
> where the contributer has been in, event-wise, and also, for what they have
> done within the Community.
>
> And as Charles said:
>
> On 12/08/2014 05:26 PM, cprofitt wrote:> We have that with:
>>
>> - askubuntu.com - badges and reputation
>> - launchpad   - karma
>> - forums      - cups of coffee
>>
>> What has been lacking is a 'common' metric for all areas.
>
> That's also the problem.
>
> Also wxl told me this on IRC:
>
> "[17:13]  21  < wxl >   21 [17:58:35] belkinsa: i see two problems. one is
> how to keep your major contributors. two is how to get contributors you
> don't already have. they're totally different issues.
> [17:13]  21  < wxl >   21 [17:58:53] belkinsa: i think gamification and/or
> some sort of meaningful rewards are what will motivate the latter.
> [17:13]  21  < wxl >   21 [17:59:09] belkinsa: i think the former are more
> concerned about the levity they have to steer the project"
>
> We should discuss this also.
>
> [1]http://openbadges.org/
>
> Thank you.
> --
> Svetlana Belkin

I think it is worthwhile to look at the Fedora project and how they do
it, because they have built already an entire system as webapps. And
of course it is free software.

The part I especially liked was that the badge designs were themselves
done by contributors, which of course earned them design badges (or
whatever they call them; can't recall if it is badges or what).

I'm not that familiar with Fedora, but heard a talk where this system
was the basis of the community involvement topic of the hour session.

Valorie