What are the benefits and challenges of using gamification to reward open source contributors?

Gamification can provide the boost many people need, but it also has potential downsides. For instance, creating a leaderboard for open source contributions might lead to unintended consequences, as seen in October when thousands of people started pushing LeetCode solutions to GitHub. Here are two key issues with gamifying open source: Lack of Funds: Open source typically relies on voluntary contributions from developers in their free time, and it's challenging to provide financial incentives for every contributor. Lack of Support: Even with funding, there's a risk that the focus could shift from mutual support to competing for rewards, potentially undermining the collaborative spirit of open source projects.

-Benefits: Boosts motivation and engagement with rewards and recognition. -Challenges: Risks of promoting competition over collaboration and creating unfair reward systems. -Balance: Must align with community values and complement intrinsic motivation.

Les logiciels libres, développés par des bénévoles, sont innovants et flexibles mais rencontrent des défis. La gamification peut motiver les contributeurs, assurer la qualité et promouvoir une culture positive grace à des incitations, des retours et de la reconnaissance.

Gamification can enhance open source software (OSS) projects by attracting and retaining contributors through engaging challenges and rewards. By fostering a positive and inclusive culture, it motivates participants to improve code quality and security while enjoying the collaborative experience.

-Benefits: Increases engagement, fosters community, and enhances skill development through rewards and feedback. -Challenges: May lead to unhealthy competition, potentially overlooks intrinsic motivations, and requires careful design to align with project goals. -Implementation: Must balance rewards with meaningful contributions and support collaborative culture.

La gamification des projets open source augmente la participation, l'apprentissage et la rétention. Elle offre des objectifs, récompenses, rétroactions et défis. Elle favorise l'interaction sociale, souligne les contributions et récompense l'engagement à long terme.

-Challenges: Risks include ethical concerns, technical issues, and potential clashes with existing community values. -Risks: Can lead to manipulation, introduce bugs, or create internal conflicts and resentment. -Considerations: Must be carefully designed to avoid undermining intrinsic motivation and maintain the project's collaborative culture.

Take care that the incentive structure that you create encourages the proper behavior. If you have a misalignment, (e.g. you prioritize the quantity of pull requests over quantity) burying maintainers in needless reviews. If you do sweepstakes, hackathons, kudos points etc. make sure to give the proper time designing the project not to be too heavy to administer or too vague. One easy way to destroy community is to be accused of favoritism or other insular activities. Make sure that gamification looks outward to expand the community not just reinforce a small group of insiders.

Bien que bénéfique, la gamification des projets open source comporte des risques : problèmes éthiques, techniques, culturels. Elle peut manipuler, violer la vie privée, créer des conflits et nuire à la motivation intrinsèque.

Une gamification réussie de l'open source nécessite une planification soignée : définir des objectifs réalistes, comprendre les besoins des contributeurs, concevoir des éléments de jeu pertinents et effectuer des tests/évaluations réguliers.

Des projets open source comme Drupal, Habitica et CodeCombat utilisent la gamification pour motiver leurs contributeurs avec des badges, points, rangs, quêtes, récompenses, succès, clans et tournois.

It had not occurred to me that gamification would matter on the open-source projects of mine. I am basically a solo developer providing code in the open. It is not something that requires an open-source founded project of collaborators and contributors. From my perspective, gamification seems to be an additional burden. I want for others to be able to build my software and also test their use of it, those successes being the rewards. I also want to provide supporting information that encourages that, especially in learning how to report experiences and also how to troubleshoot. I do enjoy the reward/achievement systems in computer games. But even then, building a game I am working on or teaching with should be its own reward.