Hello Eric,Too true. My perspective on this matter is colored by the fact that everyone on this mailing list is very open and complimentary to each other, so I have a hard time seeing that happen here. I certainly don't want to do anything that would change that environment. As with any useful metric, it would require refinement over time, to prevent spoofing (I hope this isn't ever necessary), and to adjust for the relative value of contributions (size of patch, for example). The point of the recognition, I think, is to provide a compliment and encouragement to any and all that contribute, not necessarily to perfectly correlate with some abstract notion of the value of contributions. If anything, my suggestion was intended to be more inclusive than what we do now.
I was thinking about some kind of metrics, too. Not as advanced as yours, of course :-) But then I felt that a ranking is not the best approach. It may lure people to use tricks just to improve their ranking.
So perhaps as a refinement, then, take something like the ranking I suggested earlier, compute the order and then divide into three groups - high, medium, and low involvement (or four, with the bottom fourth not actually recognized officially?). This would prevent people from "competing" to be first in the ranking, as people would just be recognized by which group they fell into.
After watching my spouse do grading of her student's papers, I think in the end there is always a necessary "fudge" factor involved in something that effectively looks like grading. That fudge factor that might push someone either up or down. For example, someone might come in late in a beta cycle with a key patch, and do so quickly, promptly, and correctly. Someone would have to invoke the judgement for an appropriate recategorization, perhaps the person doing the release?There should be something that indicates the kind and volume of contributions, sure. Like "that many mails", "that many bug reports", and so on. But instead of trying to compute a ranking from it, I would prefer a randomized order, with the kind and volume of contributions listed for each person. Maybe with some "hall of fame" into which the major contributors can be voted.
Somehow I feel that the social issues should not
be tackled with a purely technical solution.
cheers,-Eric.
Roland
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