Badges vs Attestations - clarification & possible directions #167
Description
Badges vs Attestations - clarification & possible directions
This issue captures and summarizes a discussion about the role of badges in The Guild and how they relate to attestations.
Context
- Badges were initially envisioned as peer-to-peer recognition (people giving badges to others).
- Skill-related badges were also meant to act as a CV / skill discovery surface.
- In practice, engagement with pure P2P badges has been low.
- Most badges today are issued by The Guild and tied to contributions.
- The Guild already relies on EAS on-chain, but the product semantics are not fully clarified yet.
- There is interest in using badges for reputation, participation/gamification, and social sharing.
Conceptual framing (technical vs product)
Low-level attestations (factual)
- Atomic, factual statements, typically represented as EAS attestations.
- Things that happened or can reasonably be verified.
- Examples: PR contribution, code review, event participation, skill endorsement.
- Low-level and factual by design.
High-level attestations (badges)
- Higher-level, user-facing representations built on top of one or more low-level attestations.
- Designed for profiles, discovery, CV-like views, or sharing.
- Represent an interpretation or aggregation, rather than a single fact.
Note: from a technical standpoint, both low-level and high-level attestations may be implemented using EAS.
The distinction here is primarily semantic and product-level.
Two complementary kinds of badges
1. Fact-based / computed badges
- Derived from verifiable signals (PRs, reviews, scopes, labels, activity over time).
- Grounded in real contributions and demonstrated skills.
- Can act as strong reputation signals.
- May evolve through levels (e.g. beginner → expert, bronze → gold).
2. Peer-attributed badges
- Preserve the original peer-recognition vision.
- Voluntarily given based on trust, judgment, or appreciation.
- Support the social and cooptation aspect of The Guild.
A clear distinction between these two types (UX + semantics) seems important.
Open questions
-
External contributions
Probably shouldn’t be excluded, but shouldn’t be automatically included either.
What matters is whether they are recognized and attested within The Guild. -
Sources of truth
GitHub signals seem like a pragmatic starting point, without aiming for perfection. -
Product direction
How badges should support participation, learning, reputation, and sharing.
Related Issues (non-exhaustive)
Attestations: #48, #47, #130, #32
Badges: #69, #122, #58, #64
Architecture / tokens: #55, #72
Profiles & discovery: #49, #98
Analysis: #126