NOTE: This page describes a recognition program that ran from March 2015 to November 2015. These recognition badges are no longer being awarded.

MDN Recognition Programs

Recognition programs for MDN content contributions are described on public wiki MDN Recognition page.

This page describes the processes that support these recognition programs.

Only MDN admins can award badges, because it requires knowing the user's email address. Please use the appropriate nomination form to record badge awards, so that we can correlate badge awards to MDN profiles.

MDN Starter Badge

MDN community members can nominate themselves or others for this badge, using the MDN Starter Badge nomination form (shortlink: http://mzl.la/mdn-starter-badge-form). This form feeds into the MDN Starter Badge spreadsheet.

MDN Star Badge

MDN community members can nominate themselves or others for this badge, using the MDN Star Badge nomination form (shortlink: http://mzl.la/mdn-star-badge-form). This form feeds into the MDN Star Badge spreadsheet.

MDN Contributor of the Month

An MDN Contributor of the Month is selected from the users who have received MDN Star badges in a given month. The selection decision is made at the first MDN Community meeting of the following month.

Recognition Procedures

Reviewing badge nominations

1. View the nominations spreadsheet for the type of badge you want to review.
2. Look for nominations that have an empty cell under Approved?.
3. Review the contribution, decide whether it merits the badge.
4. In the Approved? column, enter "Y - IRCnick" for approved badges or "N - IRCnick" for rejections (where "IRCnick" is your IRC nickname).
5. If you reject the nomination, enter a reason in the Reason for rejection column.
6. If you approve the nomination, award the badge (see below), and enter the link to the awarded badge in the Awarded Badge column.

Awarding badges

NOTE: On badges.mozilla.org, only the badge creator (Janet Swisher) can award these badges. This procedure is documented for transparency.

Once you have decided to award an MDN badge, do these steps to award the badge.

1. Go to the user's MDN profile page (from the MDN user column of the nominations spreadsheet).
2. Click the Admin button the profile. (You must be an admin in order to see this button).
3. Copy the user's email address from the admin panel.
4. Go the badge page on badges.mozilla.org.
5. Paste the user's email address into the Emails field.
6. Enter an explanation in the Explanation field, for example, "For improving the <link> page on MDN by adding compatibility info."
7. Click Issue badge awards.
8. Copy the link for the newly awarded badge.
9. Paste the badge award link into the Awarded Badge cell for this nomination in the spreadsheet (see above).

Vouching an MDN Star contributor

Every user who receives an MDN Star badge should also be vouched on https://mozillians.org The vouch does not need to be done by the same person who awarded the badge. In fact, it would be preferable for the person who nominated the badge awardee to also vouch them, if the nominator has vouching permission (i.e., 3 or more vouches of their own). It can also be a mentor or someone who has worked closely with the awardee. The vouch text should be based on the explanation for the badge.

1. When you award an MDN Star badge, decide who should vouch the awardee.
2. If it is not you, ask that person to vouch the awardee, and give you a link to the mozillians.org profile containing the vouch. Follow up until the task is completed.
3. If you are the one vouching a user, search for the user's email address on mozillians.org.
   1. If necessary, click Advanced Options and select "Include non-vouched".
   2. If you still can't find the user, click Invite this person and fill out the form.
4. Enter a reason for vouching the user. This should be based on the explanation given for awarding the MDN Star badge.

Selecting a Contributor of the Month

1. In the MDN Star nominations spreadsheet, select the nominations that were approved in the preceding month.
2. Copy the rows to a new tab of the spreadsheet, and label the tab based on the month, "Monthname 'YY".
3. In the agenda for the MDN Community meeting, add a discussion item about choosing the Contributor of the Month, and include the link to the spreadsheet.
4. In the meeting, discuss which, if any, of the nominations seems like the best candidate for Contributor of the Month.
5. If one is selected, note that fact in the meeting notes.
6. Write a blog post in the about:community blog about this contributor, and why they were chosen. It can be short, a couple of paragraphs.
7. In the agenda for the next Mozilla Weekly Project Meeting, add the person to the "Friends of Mozilla" section, with a brief explanation, and a link to the blog post.