"Badges? We don't need no stinkin' badges!" (from Mel Brooks' 1974 Western Blazing Saddles)

[Eric Moore]

> However, now that we are changing Thunderbird's governance model, we
> need to find out if the Thunderbird community thinks it is worthwhile
> to implement Thunderbird Badges and if the community is able and
> willing to run the program for themselves in the long term. If the
> community likes the idea and wants to move ahead, we will do all the
> preparation and set up the technical aspects and then hand the
> program over to the community in the fall.

My impression is that the only people who want badges for Thunderbird
are Mozilla employees. I don't see the point. It might also be divisive
as I suspect some of those badges would never be awarded to somebody who
contributes in unofficial communities such as MozillaZine and GeckoZone.

>> Additionally, I was also thinking since the last one that I should
>> maybe host a workshop for add-on authors with a focus on Thunderbird
>> add-ons, either a "getting started with Tb addons" or a "exchanging
>> experiences for authors of existing add-ons". Or maybe one about
>> Monetization in Tb-Addons. Comments about what you think would be most
>> desired by the community, or best help the (Thunderbird) cause?

>Great ideas ! We did that at the last mozcamp, and during Fosdem, I'm
>not sure it triggered new extensions bt I like the idea. One thing that
>we might also work on is making the documentation for add-ons authors a
>bit better. Jen will be onsite so we might also during the workshops
>take notes on what needs to be improved documentation wise.

Rather than badges, I suggest a focus on encouraging people that already
contribute in some way to get more involved by removing obstacles they
might encounter. It might help to open up and distribute information
that is made available only at mozcamp or Fosdem. For example make
videos of some of those workshops available (and easy to find by
somebody who never heard of either of them).

The introduction in
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Extensions/Thunderbird points
you to a Add-on Builder that uses the the Add-on SDK. Every post I've
seen about using Jetpack with Thunderbird says its still too limited to
be useful. Supposedly the statement about Thunderbird compatibility was
removed from install.rdf due to the lack of testing.

A tutorial that shows you step by step how to build a trivial add-on
would help somebody make sense of the scattered documentation. A short
guide comparing Thunderbird Standard Library, STEEL, Jetpack, XPCOM/XUL
and when each approach is appropriate might help. My impression is that
the barrier to entry is a lot higher than it has to be. The best analogy
I can think of is the current documentation caters to C++ programmers
while ignoring users who can program in VB. We need both. (its an
analogy about skill sets, I know VB is not supported)

Any chance of getting a FLOSS manual on how to write a Thunderbird
add-on to supplement whats in MDN?



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[Kent James]

On 8/9/2012 5:24 PM, Eric Moore wrote:

My impression is that the only people who want badges for Thunderbird are Mozilla employees. I don't see the point.

Anne presented some of these ideas at the weekly Thunderbird video conference a few weeks ago, and my initial comments were much like yours. My impressions were that this is something akin to t-shirts that we give people to persuade them to work a little harder for free on Mozilla projects.

But as I thought about it some more, my attitude has changed. As I understand it, open badges are attacking a very different problem.

As people develop in their professional careers, they collect a series of verifiable achievements that can be used to introduce themselves to potential employers or clients - or simply to their colleagues. When I read resumes (and I have probably read tens of thousands over my career), I am always looking for little signs of excellence that show ability and motivation outside of the norm. Certain activities fit well here: colleges issue degrees, technical organizations like Cisco and Microsoft have certification programs, some groups have achievement awards. Regular jobs also provide a verifiable record of experience. But "volunteered for Mozilla" is not really in the same class currently. Open badges, done well and with integrity, could provide an alternate form of credentials that would recognize achievement and ability in activities performed at Mozilla.

So the ideal of open badges is to provide defined, verifiable credentials that would be added to other credential programs. Personally I think this is a worthy goal in general (particularly since the costs of college education have gotten out of control, and technical innovation in education and recognition is sorely needed). I am at a point in my career where I don't think that I would be motivated by badges, but I suspect that there are others would be.

rkent

[Roland MoCoWin7 Tanglao]

+1 on Eric's great Western Blazing Saddles reference! One of my favourite movies!
and I agree with what Kent wrote!

I asked Mozilla Foundation Badge Expert Peter Rawsthorne for his feedback and here's what he wrote:

START OF PETER RAWSTHORNE'S EMAIL THREAD ON BADGES

Subject:	Re: could you please chime in on this TB badges thread on tb-planning?
Date:	Mon, 20 Aug 2012 07:10:37 -0700 (PDT)
From:	Peter Rawsthorne <pe...@mozillafoundation.org>
To:	Roland MoCoWin7 Tanglao <rtan...@mozilla.com>

Roland, I just wanted to chime in on this google group thread. First off, I get (and, in some ways, agree with) what Eric and Kent are saying. Badges mean

different things to different people, and people have different motivations. What I think 
is most important is that we don't know what may motivate another, but recognition is one 
of those things that is pretty universal (to different degrees) as motivation for 
people. Particularly, the open source / open contribution communities.

The other thing that I find interesting about open badges is how both the criteria and 
evidence are baked into the badge. So when somebody has a badge others can really take a 
look at what the badge is about and what it took to earn the badge. As Kent said, people 
later in their career may not be so interested in a badge, but those starting out wanting 
to get some "swagger" and have verifiable public recognition, the badge is a great thing...

Thanks for forwarding this thread along...

Be Well...

Peter

----- Original Message -----
From: "Roland MoCoWin7 Tanglao" <rtan...@mozilla.com>
To: pe...@mozillafoundation.org
Sent: Friday, August 10, 2012 1:27:56 PM
Subject: could you please chime in on this TB badges thread on tb-planning?

https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!topic/tb-planning/84Sv_qvNsio [1-25] 

OR 

let me know your reaction and I'll reply :-) 

I prefer the former because I am lazy! 

have a great weekend, Peter! 
...Roland 

END OF PETER RAWSTHORNE'S EMAIL THREAD ON BADGES