Not all bins are created equal
If you're a nerdy data analysis person you like to talk about "bins" of users.
CertifiedToRock.com has a scale from 1 to 11, but there are more 1s than there are 11s. The "bins" are not equal.
We really want to promote involvement in the project with this certification system. So, it's easy to move from a 1 to a 2. It's a little harder to move from a 2 to a 3 etc. This is about giving people success early so they become addicted to it.
But then going up the scale at the high end our goal was to make the scale into a useful distinction between levels of contribution.
The other thing about this is that we preloaded the site with a few thousand accounts, but nowhere near the number we hope to certify in total. And when you only have a handful of the number that you hope to eventually include there's no way to split them into exact sized groupings of folks. So, this first cut is a lot rougher than future cuts will be. In the future we will publish a distribution of how many people there are at each level, but not yet...
Suffice it to say: if you got a 5 or above you should feel really proud because you're among the best contributors to the project. And of course, as always, if you got a 1 you should be exited about that to (and hopefully excited to improve your score). We consider everyone with an account to be a Rock Star ;)
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Comments
Visual Communication, Widgets
First of all, three cheers, GVS.
I think in order for this site to scale, the message (namely, the "About" page and several of the criticisms) could be tailored for faster digestion, and stressing the "big" issues. My proposal is to create a video, slideshow, graphics / bold text / layout that visually communicates your points. The text is great for the first thousand / ten thousand people thata will see the site, but the arguments you make are fairly new to some clients, goverments, educational institutions, etc. I don't disagree with this course of action at this time. The mission is spot on, and I'm sure the algorithm is beyond reproach (at least until next week when you tweak it, and improve, and grow the metrics, etc - and I know you will do all of that and more).
Last, I REALLY want to have a widget I can embed on my site. My suggestion is a simple IMG tag (maybe ImageAPI can help?) that lets me show my score and be proud, but it can get updated if/when my score changes. While I'm at it, will there be an API, so sites like DrupalSN, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc can go grab my certification to rock?
In true Drupal style, I'm not making this comment without fully understanding that I may have to do the work I'm proposing myself. You know where to find me. :P
Embed will come
Thanks for the feedback Ryan, it's helpful. We definitely want embeddable widgets as well. There are a lot of planned features. We'll blog again about some of those in the near future.
Embedding ftw!
This would be (a) a most awesome feature, and (b) an easy way to get the word about this site spread throughout the Drupal world...
I would also suggest a 'Tweet this' button, and 'Post to facebook' button so people can share their certifications with the world via those means.
Would definitely use an
Would definitely use an embeddable widget.
API?
Any word on whether an API is doable? I'm doing some thinking about the DrupalCampTO website, and thought it might be nifty to ask for d.o usernames and list certification levels on the site (or name badges when the time comes). I could even roll up a feature to add to the COD support feature package, if it went over well.
I realize there are some down-sides, so maybe it's not the best idea -- hey, people will publicize it if they want to, right? But still, might be a cool.
Also, I changed my username way back in the day, and only the only the original is showing up on CTR -- will this fix itself when data gets refreshed?
Oh, and love the idea, in case it still needs to be said :)
now providing json
We're now providing json data about a user:
http://certifiedtorock.com/u/388787/json
Maybe you could use that to start making a widget?
Thanks for the positive feedback!
Username updates will come in January, or so.
Any news about a widget?
The web page of Drupal Con Copenhagen cph2010.drupal.org links profiles to certifiedtorock.com.
Before I recognized that I was not aware of this tool.
Unfortunately nobody sees the level of a person at cph2010.drupal.org unless he follows these links. It's time for a widget!
It would be great if there
It would be great if there were a "what this means" link when a rating comes up -- something like this:
1 - On the road to greatness.
2 - Distinguished contributions.
3 - Accomplished contributions.
4 - Outstanding contributions.
5 - Among the best of Drupal contributors.
6 - etc.
Also Ryan's suggestion for an embeddable widget would be awesome.
Drupal-related involvement
What about folks who have contributed more in the Ubercart realm and because it has it's own site, those efforts are opaque on d.o yet the results of their work wind up in releases on d.o, etc.? Is a user that has been very active in one of these Drupal sub-communities penalized for not centralizing their contributions to the community?
You're assuming it doesn't affect things
CTR doesn't publish its algorithm, so it's possible they've already accounted for this. It's possible they do or don't take into account your karma on IRC too, or your membership contribution$ on association.drupal.org, or your work on Drupal projects hosted on github / gitorious, or ...
There are many many spinoff projects and forums (forae?) of Drupal. CTR will have to draw the line(s) somewhere or they will never get any results. Because the algorithm is secret sauce, we won't know where those lines are, but the likely answer is that the closer you are to working on core Drupal aspects, the more likely you are to be within CTR's gaze :)
According to this tool, I
According to this tool, I score a 5.
So does chx.
Flattering, but I know I'm no chx - we're not in the same bin. Frankly, I don't know if automated testing really makes sense for anything but the most cursory glance at a user's activity. Perhaps a quantitative measurement, but not a qualitative one.
Do you lose points for
Do you lose points for missing some basic security stuff on sites you've built?
http://certifiedtorock.com/CHANGELOG.txt
http://certifiedtorock.com/install.php
Now, where's my guide for hacking Drupal 7.0 alpha 3, 2010-03-21 ?
That's not security
Anonymous, hiding those is not security.
No, Ben's wrong; hiding those
No, Ben's wrong; hiding those makes your site totally secure. In fact, it even makes it so you never have to upgrade your Drupal installation; since l33t h4x0rz can't figure out what version of Drupal your site is running if you hide CHANGELOG.txt, they aren't able to attack it. By the way, Anonymous, what's the URL of your Drupal site? I bet it's really awesome and I want to check it out.
It's doesn't make you secure,
It's doesn't make you secure, of course not. It's just keeping your head down.
Here's the discussion: http://drupal.org/node/79018