It seems that one of the most interesting features of Advogato is the ability of allowing people certify one another. However, such mechanism works best when people that gets certified "pay back" the favor, certifying others as well...
The certification criteria concerns knowledge and dedication of each person to the free software cause. As a result, getting an initial profile from someone is made easier.
For some people, being certified is a good reward for the time they allocate for the free software cause. Who does not like having his/her efforts recognized? Also, when one gets certified, he/she will notice that someone out there is paying attention to him/her and his/her project(s).
For newbies, the benefits are even greater. Because everybody starts as an observer here in Advogato, being certified as Apprentice is a good start, boosting people to start participating free software projects (or to continue participating).
Besides all of the above, the certification scheme and association to organizations like Advogato help divulgating our cause to the world.
Well, it seems everybody knows all of that, so what's the point? The point is that it appears that people that get certified sometimes do not "pay the favor back". Well, I do not mean that they are supposed to do that necessarely (in fact, they are not), but if they did, I believe the certification system would be better used.
Indeed, if everybody in the "Recent people joining" list gets certified (at least as Apprentice, which is better than Observer) by some of the existing users, and if they are stimulated to "pay back", everybody benefits from the certification facility.
Of course, I am not saying we all have so much free time to sit in front of our computers certifying everybody we can, but if we come to think of it, why not certify two or three newbies a day? And also, we could certify some less recent users, say, every Tuesday.
The last point I would like to discuss is the "certification quality". If the user we are to certify works on a project, let's visit its page so we can have a better understanding of the user's knowledge. It would be obviously easier to simply repeat what other people said about the user, but that would not help much. Visiting the user personal web page would also help as well.
In order to make all of this easier, I suggest (if someone have not already) to create a feature like receiving a list of, say, 10 users a week we should certify. This would only be a suggestion, however, because people are not (and should not) be obliged to certify others.
Good certification to everyone!
I beg to differ.
People will certify other people based on the following (non-exhaustive)
list of criteria:
It was for people that think as you (and me) about this issue that I added to MyAdvogato the highlighting of people we have not certified back in the user's personal page. I take it as a matter of courtesy.
Nevertheless, many people do not give enough information to be certifiable in my opinion, that's why you are often not able to give that courtesy certification in practice.
I disagree with the criteria listed by Miod:
People around here should be certified according to the definitions, they have to do with work in free software, just that.
It was for people that think as you (and me) about this issue that I added to MyAdvogato the highlighting of people we have not certified back in the user's personal page. I take it as a matter of courtesy.
Nevertheless, many people do not give enough information to be certifiable in my opinion, that's why you are often not able to give that courtesy certification in practice.
I disagree with the criteria listed by Miod:
People around here should be certified according to the definitions, they have to do with work in free software, just that.
It was for people that think as you (and me) about this issue that I added to MyAdvogato the highlighting of people we have not certified back in the user's personal page. I take it as a matter of courtesy.
Nevertheless, many people do not give enough information to be certifiable in my opinion, that's why you are often not able to give that courtesy certification in practice.
I disagree with the criteria listed by Miod:
People around here should be certified according to the definitions, they have to do with work in free software, just that.
It was for people that think as you (and me) about this issue that I added to MyAdvogato the highlighting of people we have not certified back in the user's personal page. I take it as a matter of courtesy.
Nevertheless, many people do not give enough information to be certifiable in my opinion, that's why you are often not able to give that courtesy certification in practice.
I disagree with the criteria listed by Miod:
People around here should be certified according to the definitions, they have to do with work in free software, just that.
It was for people that think as you (and me) about this issue that I added to MyAdvogato the highlighting of people we have not certified back in the user's personal page. I take it as a matter of courtesy.
Nevertheless, many people do not give enough information to be certifiable in my opinion, that's why you are often not able to give that courtesy certification in practice.
I disagree with the criteria listed by Miod:
People around here should be certified according to the definitions, they have to do with work in free software, just that.
I think there should be another option : and that is the option
to cancel a certification after certifying a person ; -- )
This will solve many problems .
Just cert them as observer.
Another good reason to certify (or uncertify) someone is that you agree (or disagree) with their diary rankings. These can generally be found at http://advogato.org/rating/report/person For example, here's mine.
The criteria listed by Miod are good, because people that work on such useful projects deserve at very least a Journeyer certification.
But most apprentices are not ready to be so productive (despite most of them would like to), and yet they should be certified. The criteria listed in the article should be a fair starting point.
being certified as Apprentice is a good start, boosting people to start participating free software projects
Won't that just create a proliferation of Apprentices who've been
cert'd for nothing more than signing up for an advogato
account? That's what the Observer class is for, surely? When they start
contributing to a project in some way they're deserving of Apprentice.
At that point you might even say the project leaders have some
responsibility to certify them (assuming the leaders see value in the Advogato system), but I think it's wrong to suggest anyone
deserves a cert without contributing anything.
(Aside: is it bad
etiquette to ask someone to go to your advogato page and
certify you, if you've made contributions to their project?)
If everyone gets an Apprentice cert just for joining, then Observer becomes "someone who only signed up yesterday" and Apprentice becomes "someone who's been here for a couple of days"
I also think cert'ing everyone who cert's you is wrong, I agree with Miod's criteria. I've only certified a small number of people - one I know in person, and the others I know from lurking on the dev lists for a few projects I use and am interested in. I've cert'd significant people on those projects whose work I respect, trying to follow the guidelines. But I wouldn't expect those people to even recognise my name (especially on projects where I've never even posted to the list, let alone contributed!) so why should they cert me?
[...] being certified as Apprentice is a good start, boosting people to start participating free software projects [...]
I'm not sure where this idea came from, but I don't think certifying people will encourage them to work on free software, any more than giving away academic certificates at random will encourage students to study hard.
Ok, it seems that one of the discussion points is when Observers should be promoted to Apprentices. As a starting point, let's consider the description taken from http://www.advogato.com/certs.html.
An apprentice is someone who has contributed in some way to a free software project (...)
From the citation above, it looks reasonable to expect that someone should contribute to a project before being certified as Apprentice. But the original text adds:
(...) An Apprentice spends a significant amount of time learning the craft of software development, whether by hands-on practice, academic study, or careful observation.
If that is the case, how should we certify someone that has not contributed to any project yet, but is spending his/her time as in the citation above? If this person does not currently contribute to any project, but write diary entries, read and reply articles, and seeks information about projects and the Free Software Cause, such attitudes could be understood as careful observation.
Also, some observers have degrees in Computer Science, Mathematics, Electrical and/or Electronic Engineering, and so on. That's academic study, isn't it?
Yet others work for their companies, and are likely to have attained knowledge by their everyday tasks, which could be considered hands-on practice.
But there are many people that meets neither of the requirements above. Those are the ones I believe that should be certified as Observers. Of course, it may be very difficult to figure out whether people meets any of those requirements to deserve a certification. Some of them did not register their home page in the subscription form when they joined, neither provided personal notes about their activities. I seldom certify them.
Indeed, certifying people at random in exchange for nothing but joining might cause what Redi stated, a proliferation of apprentices. But we should be cautious about the opposite cenario: many observers may meet the Advogato's criteria for apprentices (as I exposed above). If left as observers, such people would be classified the same way those who know nothing about programming or do not intend to contribute, but have signed in anyway (say, for example, just to look around). If that's the case, as Redi said, This would leave no distinction between Observer and Apprentice. Gotcha! ;)
As a final remark, I would like to accept the fact that certifying people is not granted to make them work for the cause, as tk stated. In fact, I admit that this point should have been explained better in the article. Sorry about that. I believe that observers can be encouraged to work if their efforts in learning are recognized by some certification (just a few should do). Of course, this "prize" would come naturally as the observer contributes. But maybe it would be better to certify as apprentices the ones who seem to be spending time with learning (just to give him/her some credit for that). If the person then contributes to some project, then he/she will deserve further certification. If not, he/she would remain with the initial certification. The people that meets neither criteria should then remain as observer.
I think observers have a real place in Advogato.org, and i think it is as respectable as other certs. Fortunately, human is not made of *one* dimension and it eventually confers respect to observers in all the mystery of their silent work. Also, i think a systematic dual certification is not a good thing since it can convey to an overstatement of each part, playing the game of mutual gratefulness instead of really certifying for an appreciated work. Third, in spite of being glad to get lambda or lambda++ cert, i admit that i find the duration to go from 'observer' to 'journeyer' is a little bit too short (to me) compared to the way i understood Advogato.org's Definiton. See : one little project posted on freshmeat and some patches from time to time would make me a journeyer ? mmm.. i don't think so. Well, yhis is a personnal thought. I think a journeyer is *needed* by the community. For example, i deeply respect people on IRC who gives say, 1 hour a day, to help other people to better understand the software they advocate; while they can be 'observers' in spite of the time they give.
I agree that observers have their role, but I fear that the ones you mentioned may be classified the same way as those that do not do so much. I would certify the observers that help people like you said as apprentices, just to make the distinction I mentioned above.
This could lead us to ask ourselves whether only four certification levels (observer, apprentice, journeyer and master) would suffice to make the relevant distinctions among the Advogato members. I think so, but not sure. Maybe it would not be worth making a more complex system.
After all these replies, I have reconsidered my initial opinion about this issue. Indeed, systematic bilateral certification may not help much, but for those who think like fxn and me, if we certify people regardless they work in a project of our interest the ones that certified us before should be a good starting point.
Thanks you all for the insights about the issue.
There is nothing "bilateral" about certification.
I certify names I recognize from developer lists that I follow. Many of which where I only lurk, so there is no reason why they in return should recognize me.
To take an extreme example, everyone knows Alan Cox and should be able to certify him as "master" without any further investigation. This doesn't mean Alan in return should waste his valuable time investigating everyone in order to certify them back.
Before I get to the point, I would like to propose a premise that says that when we certify people, we´re doing them a small favor. That sounds reasonable, once we are spending our precious time to certify people as accurately as we can, based on the info they provide us.
Based on that premise, I believe that some people could feel compelled to repay that small favor, certifying back those that took a bit of their precious time to investigate them. I am used to certify people back, in order to repay that favor. After I wrote the article, I noted some people have certified me back, which means they probably agree with me. This does not mean I expected them to. In fact, I did not, but I am grateful for the time they spent with that.
Fortunately, people like Alan Cox and many others are very devoted to the cause. As a result, there is no time at all to spend in certifying people back. At this point I agree with abraham that certification does not need to be bilateral... I guess the main reason behind that is the fact that such devoted people would rather acknowledge the certification by continuing their efforts and their work, which are better than any certification.
Based on that premise, I believe that some people could feel compelled to repay that small favor, certifying back those that took a bit of their precious time to investigate them. I am used to certify people back, in order to repay that favor.
I thought the certs are supposed to create a web of trust, not a
circle of back-scratching self-promotion?
(I'm tired and I'm playing Devil's Advocate, so apologies if I sound
overly critical or argumentative!)
I like to go through the list of people who have certified me from time to time, trying to figure out where they know me from, and if I know them. The folks that I know, I try to certify. I went through most of the list of people who had advogato accounts at the time that I joined, so that I could find people I knew, and to certify them. It takes some diligence, but I keep at it so that the certifications here are meaningful. So when I certify people who have certified me, it's not about back-scratching, more about finding what new people I know have finally joined advogato.
We are not talking about forming a club, or certifying gratuitously in my opinion. We may consider certifying people in return, and we are not expected to do so necessarily. Some people do, some don't, but I think considering certifying back is, at least, legitimate.
Once in the page of a person, the seriousness and subjective-but-intended accuracy of your certificates (or lack thereof) is independent of why you got there.
I am not sure if some peoply think that I suggest repaying the cert in the same level. I do not. When I certify someone as Journeyer, if this someone wants to certify me back, I do not expect (neither I want) them to certify me back as Journeyer if I do not deserve it. Just the fact of spending time investigating me is great, even if they decide not to certify me back at all.
In the other direction, if I think I should be certified as Journeyer and someone else certifies me as Apprentice, I will not complain "Hey, I certified you as Journeyer, so I want you to cert me back as Journeyer too", neither I will "avenge" the "bad cert" certifying that person as Apprentice if I think he/she deserves more.
Because of that, I am not saying that we should use the cert system for self-promotion purposes, as noted by redi and groom. When I joined Advogato I feared some people could play that dirty game, but fortunately, as far as I know, such bad thing did not happen yet.
But I admit I might have not written my comments as clear as they were supposed to be, given that English is not my native language.
The people I certify have all made valuable contributions to projects I care for (that is why I certify them), so they have already paid me far more than necessary for the "gift" of certification.
i believe to add oneself to a new project is never a random act. People should learn to observe the change in that aspect when certifications and ratings have drawn all the attention.
That's the spirit, abraham. We have, then, the full circle as something like:
Step 3 seems highly dependent of each one's opinion, so we are likely to find many people who prefer "paying back" their own way. I do not expect we will reach a consensus about this specific point.
I have noted you agree with me when I say that the free software itself is the best "payment"... But back certs are always welcome. :)
That's the spirit, abraham. We have, then, the full circle as something like:
Step 3 seems highly dependent of each one's opinion, so we are likely to find many people who prefer "paying back" their own way. I do not expect we will reach a consensus about this specific point.
I have noted you agree with me when I say that the free software itself is the best "payment"... But back certs are always welcome. :)
That's the spirit, abraham. We have, then, the full circle as something like:
Step 3 seems highly dependent of each one's opinion, so we are likely to find many people who prefer "paying back" their own way. I do not expect we will reach a consensus about this specific point.
I have noted you agree with me when I say that the free software itself is the best "payment"... But back certs are always welcome. :)
I don't think it's right to certify someone just because they certified you. There is no rule of etiquette for that. It's good manners to say "you're welcome" when someone says "thank you", but you don't say "no, thank you" unless you mean it.
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