[core-workflow] Tracker workflow proposal

[Antoine Pitrou]

On Tue, 22 Apr 2014 07:06:53 +0300
Ezio Melotti <ezio.melotti at gmail.com>
wrote:
> 
> I'll also suggest another related (and "controversial") idea.  People
> like to reach goals: if they address the 3 issues in their queue they
> have reached the "empty queue" goal.  Addressing 3 of the 5 issues
> isn't quite the same thing.
> I've seen this concept being exploited in three main ways:
>   1) badges/trophies/achievements;
>   2) competitions;
>   3) streaks;
[...]
> 
> While I understand that probably most of the core devs would be
> against similar things, this might motivate new users and make them
> "addicted" to the tracker, while making their experience more
> enjoyable, and the example I linked show that similar things exist
> even in these environments (and not only on the micro-transaction
> based smartphone games :).  People who don't care about this
> (different people are more or less competitive) could just ignore it.
> OTOH this might have a negative side-effect if users start closing
> issues randomly just to get the "100 closed issues" badge, but this is
> not difficult to avoid.

Not difficult how? In any gamification system, people will work towards
getting new rewards / awards, not towards making meaningful
contributions.
I think something like the Twisted high scores is acceptable (since it's
quite un-serious), but starting displaying awards will really bias how
people contribute (with a definite emphasis on quantity over quality,
IMO).

(it's the same reason I'm rather ambiguous on the whole idea of
sprints)

I think trying to ensure we actually *thank* people goes a long way
towards achieving the same goal, but without the bias.

Regards

Antoine.