Contributor Recognition

[dm-murphy]

Title	Author	Date
Contributor Recognition	Daniel	August 7th 2022

Contributor Recognition

Summary

As discussed in the July 2022 Maintainer Meeting, we would like to find better ways of recognizing community contributors to The Odin Project. This issue opens up an async discussion with the staff on how to do so.

Motivation

• Currently we thank contributors on a PR and sometimes with Discord points but these are not very visible to the community at large
• Giving better recognition to contributors can help retain those contributors and encourage them to continue helping the project
• Members who see contributors getting recognized and valued may be more likely to make their first contribution to the project
• Contributors who get more involved may be more motivated for expressing interest in staff positions or being seen for staff positions

Suggested implementation

• We could add a Contributor Recognition section to our GitHub landing page and update the section on the main website
• On Discord we could make a new contribution-recognition channel or combine this with the current contribution-opportunity channel that shares opportunities and our appreciation
• In our GitHub PR templates, we could include a spot for sharing a Discord username so they might be better recognized on both platforms
• In the future we could link together TOP accounts with GitHub and Discord accounts to make a more automated process
• In the future we could give away swag like The Odin Project t-shirts, hats, etc. to major community contributors or for contribution contests (hackathons, etc.)

Drawbacks

• Time and energy to make the implementations

Next Steps

• This issue will be addressed again at a future maintainer and/or staff meeting
• No deadline for discussion or implementation has been set on this issue as the staff is currently discussing a number of other issues for the project