Awards for best contribution each month [Approved]

I think we should consider small awards for “best PR”, “best documentation contribution”, “best new developer”. Perhaps on a monthly or bi-monthly basis.
The awards would be to encourage contributions. The size of the awards wouldn’t be large (perhaps a $200 gift voucher at an ardupilot friendly store?), but would be symbolic of our appreciation for the contribution.
I think it could work with PRs getting a label “Award Nomination”, and then we would look at the PRs nominated once a month and the funding committee would assign the award. It would be possible to give more than one award per month.
Comments welcome!

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Hi !
I was thinking about the same thing but with a smaller reward : something between 5 and 10 €, the price of a beer or some flowers for wife/husband that are waiting PR to be finish before go to sleep :blush:, or an ardupilot goodie. A little of space on ardupilot web site (don’t know if it is easy to do and maintain) for monthly contributor could allow some thankfulness !

I think it is a good idea and should bring more contributor.

Have you considered just putting someone’s picture on the front page and generally making a fuss of them as an alternative to giving them money? People take a lot of pride in their contributions and it’s not often that they are recognized. Of course we would like this recognition to be called the “LightWare High Performer of the Month” in exchange for a nominal commercial consideration being made to the ArduPilot project by LightWare ;).

I think it’s a good idea. I’d vote for the higher dollar amounts suggested by Tridge. I think the winner should get close to being able to buy a flight controller with the funds.

I also like the idea, although the value Tridge proposed may be a bit high if we do many awards. Also this thought of having the awards sponsored looks interesting and might allow the prize money to be higher.

Regarding the vote: although it may be harder to manage, I think the community should vote, maybe with a casting vote from the funding committee. It is a way to improve the community engagement.

I don’t think community voting will work beyond the first month as it would take too much admin.
I think for this to work it needs to be as light weight as possible in admin. So a label for PRs and issues in github is simple and any developer can set that label when they come across a really good piece of work. Then the funding committee (or a helper) looks at which PRs/issues have been tagged that month and makes the award.
The idea behind the $200 is as Randy says to give the contributor enough to buy a flight controller (or similar level of hw)

yes, promoting good work is a good idea, but it needs someone to write the article. So we need an editor to work on that.

It’s not possible to add some announces in this forum to afford this suggestions as Rc Groups or other forums have? only an idea. :slight_smile:

I’d like to propose something more specific now:

  • we add a label “Top Contribution” to our git repos, including both documentation and code repos, and on the issues lists
  • team members reviewing PRs or issues can label a “Top Contribution”
  • on a monthly basis the funding committee will review the “Top Contribution” labelled items and decide on awards
  • the ones where awards are given will be listed on a blog post on ardupilot.org
  • prize will be US$200
  • committee will be able to give out multiple awards in a month if appropriate
  • deserving contributions that don’t get an award will get an honourable mention in the announcement
  • companies who wish to sponsor the awards can do so, in which case the recipient will receive the contribution from the company, and the company will get recognition as the award sponsor on the announcement
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Some updates / thoughts:

  • we’ve got at least two partner companies that are interested in sponsoring the awards (i.e. additional hardware prize on top of the $200).
  • I think to keep admin low we should discuss and vote on the winner at the weekly dev call in the final week of each month.
  • winners should be posted as a blog on ardupilot.org, facebook, etc.
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this proposal has been approved by the funding committee and is currently being setup.
thanks to everyone for their suggestions!

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The idea behind the $200 is as Randy says to give the contributor enough to
buy a flight controller (or similar level of hw)

Perhaps it could actually be hardware some of the time? HW
manufacturers might be quite happy to put forward one of their devices -
LighWare have already chimed in on this thread.

Like the WWII pilots with the number of planes shot down on the side of their fuselage, I would like to see a badge that shows the number of bugs found. Make finding a bug, and having an idea implemented, be a badge of honor that carries forward. I think the acknowledgement is more motivating than a couple hundred bucks. This is why the military hands out metals and badges that are collected over time to demonstrate experience and commitment.