Wikimedia Meta-Wiki

Badges

In 2011, Mozilla, the organization behind free and open source projects like Firefox and Thunderbird, unveiled a project to create an open architecture for badges on the Web.[1][2]

Unlike badges in online spaces like Foursquare or Gowalla, these badges are given in formal and informal educational contexts to represent practical skills learned. Using an open standard, these badges are able to be displayed anywhere on the Web, and include metadata that authenticates how, why it was given, and by whom. Think of them as a barnstar you can put on your resume.

This page is for brainstorming about how Wikimedia communities might implement badges under this system. Both technical and social issues should be considered.

How would badges work for Wikimedia?

edit

Issues to be considered:

  • The technical requirements for badge use, see technical documentation and source code
  • The mechanism for delivering badges on the projects. WikiLove?
  • Who could give badges and why? Would they be like barnstars, or would you need special documentation for achievements?
  • How can we describe open badges in order make it clear what they are (and are not) for?
  • How to ensure that the badges have an actual value. The skills the badges recognise need to be verifiable for people to want to use them in resumes.

What kind of badges we might give

edit

Open badges are meant to be for practical skills learned by someone. What kind of skills Wikimedians learn that might be applicable outside Wikimedia projects that people could and should carry with them?

Ideas:

  • Teamwork/collaboration
  • Copyediting
  • Article authorship/general writing
  • Fact-checking/referencing
  • Photography
  • Image editing
  • Videography
  • Bot or script coding
  • Extension coding
  • Patches/bug fixes implemented
  • Transcription (Wikisource)
  • Translation
  • GLAM specific badges for not only Wikimedians, but for those institutions to use (i.e. "image contributor" "Wikipedian-in-Residence")
  • Organising events
  • Presenting at events
  • Training others
  • Program-specific or role-specific badges (combo of skills applied to a given role) - for example Fellow, OTRS Agent, Campus Ambassador, Mentor, Mediator, etc)
  • Spreadsheets
  • Group leadership
  • Research (such as research performed on Wikipedia that is noted in the Signpost)
  • Research Review (such as Featured Article reviewers and Wikipedia research reviewers)
  • Mediation
  • Arbitration
  • Expert in a certain field

Discussions elsewhere

edit

Notes

edit
  1. ↑ https://wiki.mozilla.org/Badges
  2. ↑ New York Times story
edit
Retrieved from "https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Badges&oldid=25088277"