Karma will become a part of your typo3.org user account before the end of 2019. It is a way to measure and visualize your contribution to the TYPO3 project and community. We hope it will encourage involvement through gamification that is rewarding for both you and your employer.
First question is, where do you draw the line? At first read, this seems limited to code contributions. But is it? Sprints are mentioned: will this e.g. include design sprints? Proofreading an article (on typo3.org) seems to get you karma, too.
What about the following, vital contributions to the TYPO3 eco system?
Providing support at Slack
Providing support at Stack Overflow
Providing support at a forum
Writing blogs
Making videos
Writing extensions and helpers of any kind
Sponsoring meals for sprints
(and more)
Would you consider these karma worthy?
And how would you track above contributions? Quality? Quantity? This would be similar to your problem with code contributions, if not much more difficult. Do we need a Karma Officer who evaluates each contribution?
After all, you intend to measure âcontribution to the TYPO3 project and communityâ, which doesnât end with the official teams and committees. Some people have committed themselves, their expertise and (in some cases personal) time for more than 10 years without writing a single core commit.
Depending on the destination, at some point, you could exclude a part of the TYPO3 community for contributing âthe wrong wayâ.
It is not limited to code contributions. Every kind of contribution should count. This is important in order to make the community welcoming to everyone, also non-coders.
Yes to all except sponsoring. Sponsorship is another great way to contribute, but I think itâs important that you canât pay your way to karma.
We want to avoid misuse, thatâs for sure, but I like to speak about fairness rather than quality. Quality is also subjective. A first-time contributor may have a lot to learn, but needs encouragement.
I donât think weâll need a Karma Officer, but we have to make adjustments and learn from our experience.
For example, a team leader will be able to add karma to everyone who attended a sprint. The karma earned from a sprint is predefined and canât be changed by the team leader. That means the first-timer who spent the entire sprint learning the ropes will get the same amount of karma as the experienced participant who got a lot done. Thatâs not karma for âsame quality deliveredâ, but itâs fair because itâs âequal effortâ.
(Of course, you can rate effort, but I think that would be overly complicated to handle.)
If every contribution counts, there shouldnât be a âwrong wayâ to contribute. It may take time to get every area covered. Core contribution is only one part of a much larger picture.
although I really like Karma in general, contributing is more than to measure code (and even more than just measuring core code). Itâs about participating in events, writing blog articles, helping out others on StackOverflow. This is Karma for me. So itâd be good to work with TYPO3 Karma as like we do in slack, where people give claps/shoutouts to others for their support etc. âKudosâ buttons ;).
Iâm more for personal âkarmaâ than automatic generated statistics karma out of GitHub or whatev.
If we find a fair way to give personal âmanualâ karma, Iâm all in. Maybe it is possible? Iâm just afraid that it wonât be fair because it tends to weigh long-term contributors higher than beginners. Karma is supposed to encourage more contribution, after all.
Letâs say a TYPO3 beginner creates a pull request for the first time. The code is ugly and breaks half the rules, and wonât be merged as isâbut itâs still a contribution. Can we be sure it will receive the (disproportionately high) amount of claps and shoutouts to reflect the effort and encourage the new contributor to continue contributing?
Do you think we could find a way to make it a reliable gauge?
I think yes. As an option, it would not be bad if statistics were used on extensions in working projects with LIVE status. That is, downloaded and used in real projects. You can give Karma to anyone who gives statistics about the projects implemented and the extensions used in them. And also give karma to those whose extensions are used.
I think Karma should be treated as motivation. That she fascinated and motivated to participate. Therefore, perhaps such ideas still:
Karma for additions to extensions: a) a database that is relevant and interesting to users; b) layouts and designs; c) sliders and more.
Performing tasks from the community list. That is especially to reward those who make the necessary extensions for the community. You need to have such a list, since different developers can execute, but to admit the best extension.
Development of technical specifications. Good technical assignment is always a valuable source of information.
Initiative improvements. Improvements in other peopleâs extensions - optimization, quality improvement.
Bonuses for market activity. For example, because the site is transferred from WordPress to TYPO3.
I miss the mentioning of supporting TYPO3 by organizing (or helping to organize) any events. from usergroup to TYPO3camp. Not the sponsoring but contributing your own time and work.
And also as speaker on any event. so the milage may vary as speaker about a general subject on a TYPO3 event or about TYPO3 on a foreign event.
And aside of automatic counting we also should enable to give individual thanks / kudos which compute to karma points. e.g. if anyone wants to thank someone for individual (unpaid!) help not visible to everyone.
Also push the focus to the possibilities to give individual thanks / kudos to someone in different ways like âbeersâ in slack, âreputationsâ on SO, âŚ
And we probably need to prevent abusage.
(SO has some interesting mechanism to avoid or at least restrict reputation abuse)
One important part of the TYPO3 universe is not just âinspiring people to shareâ but also âhelping othersâ. I see people doing this a lot - giving excellent support, answering questions, just helping others. At the sprints or initiative weeks - some people spent a lot of time just teaching others the ropes or helping someone else with their project.
There may be the danger that if only visible results are measured, doing actual altruistic helpful things wonât get you any karma. That would be a shame. And actually the opposite of what I consider karma-worthy.
So, I think the idea is interesting but there are lots of ways this can go wrong and actually get you the effects you donât want in the long run.