To badge or not to badge, that is the question!

[je-hal]

Dear SAP community,

excuse my mood for being silly in the beginning of the new year. As the subject suggests, I'd like to get your feedback about the badges we introduced for the Open Documentation Initiative. We introduced one for valuable content contributions, and one for valuable feedback - in that order:

Contribute contentProvide feedback

Over time, different opinions came up with regards to the badges, for example:

• We should have yearly badges (introduced last year).
• We should maybe even have a mission badge, for example, rewarding frequent feedback givers. 
• We should forget about badges completely.

Now is the time for you to have a say in this. Do you appreciate to get badges for documentation feedback? Would you even like to earn a mission badge? Or do you feel indifferent about badges since your main incentive is to improve the documentation? 

About 130 users earned at least one of our badges. 👏 I'd love to notify all of them, but since mentions are restricted to 20, I randomly picked some of them:
@BaerbelWinkler @gregorw @iwona_hahn @Radoslav @ravicondamoor @srmuc69 @ceedee666 @dellagustin @WRoeckelein @idefix @fwilhe @martinstenzig @michaelcz @NHingerl @nicoschoenteich @Nikola_Simeonov @raeijpe @Rwitte @svenkohlhaas @vivian_venter

Notified or not, you're all welcome to share your opinion by replying to this blog post, thank you!

Jens & DJ

PS: Can you map the following lines to the corresponding songs?

Badge, HOAR, what is it good for?!
All I ever wanted, all I ever needed, is here in my badge
Buddy, you're a boy, make a big badge / playing in the street, gonna be a big man someday

[thomasP]

I'm in favor of the badge system. It's a great way to recognize contributions and encourage ongoing participation. Yearly and mission badges for frequent feedback seem like excellent ideas. While some might focus solely on improving documentation, badges add a fun, rewarding aspect to our efforts.

P.S.

1. "War, huh, what is it good for?!" from "War" by Edwin Starr.
2. "All I ever wanted, all I ever needed, is here in my arms" from "Enjoy the Silence" by Depeche Mode.
3. "Buddy, you're a boy, make a big noise / playing in the street, gonna be a big man someday" from "We Will Rock You" by Queen.

[je-hal]

@thomasP : Thank you for your feedback and thanks a lot for pointing me to Edwin Starr's version of "War", which must be the original one. I had the Franky goes to Hollywood version in mind - the one I grew up with - now I struggle to decide which one I like more. 😀

[WRoeckelein]

Hi,

I am also in favor of the badge sytem!

And regarding the lyrics lines, well, I grew up with the Bruce Springsteen version of War and while the original version is a masterpiece in itself I woud like to point out to the live version featuring Bruce AND Edwin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7GBMX0rTEc

Regards,

  Wolfgang

[dellagustin]

Hi, when I contribute to things, it is mostly for the value of the contribution itself, but getting a badge as recognition is nice.

What I'm not super fond of, is that I checked my badges and there seems to be a badge for everything, like first login, first kudos given, first reply, and so on. If you constantly receive rewards, they may feel pointless.

Yearly badges are nice. Mission based badges might backfire into over gamification (people do stuff only for the badge, not for the intrinsic value, may lead to low quality contributions).

[Rwitte]

My two cents on this are that like already mentioned my main incentive is to improve the documentation. However, I personally like badges and yearly ones are totally fine 🙂 I would also this mission based badges are a bit too much.