Stan Program Best Practices Badge?

The Linux Foundation has an impressive “Core Infrastructure Initiative Best Practices Badge”. You can go through a checklist and self-certify (through a very slick webapp).

Here’s what the badge looks like:

LF CII Badge

Perhaps Stan could borrow this idea? All that is needed is a badge and a more detailed checklist version of @betanalpha’s https://github.com/stan-dev/stan/wiki/Stan-Best-Practices (which is more of a Best Principles—such as Heed the Folk Theorem—than a list of highly specific practices which you can see with the CII badge).

I’d be uncomfortable handing out badges to people after
they fill in a questionnaire. It will make it look like
we approve of what they did.

I also don’t really see the point, but then maybe I’m too
curmudgeonly.

But if other people think this is a good idea and want to
manage it, I won’t get in the way. In fact, feel free to start
a business certifying people’s Stan apps as long as you make
it clear that it’s not the Stan project or the dev team doing
the certifications.

  • Bob

I like the spirit of the idea but I agree with Bob that it will seem like it’s a stamp of our approval when really it’s a quality assurance the user themselves is providing, so to speak.

If there’s some way it could be completely clear to an outsider that the badge is claimed by the user and not bestowed by us then I do think it’s a good idea. Seems likely to help the average readability of Stan programs. We could even require it for posting to stan users.

Jonah

jonah Developer
February 1
I like the spirit of the idea but I agree with Bob that it will seem like it’s a stamp of our approval when really it’s a quality assurance the user themselves is providing, so to speak.

Sort of like ISO 9000 in that regard. Does anyone still
do that?

If there’s some way it could be completely clear to an outsider that the badge is claimed by the user and not bestowed by us then I do think it’s a good idea. Seems likely to help the average readability of Stan programs.

I like the idea of a checklist. The problem is that it’s
too long for people to read.

It may be a stopgap until we get the pedantic/lint mode.

We could even require it for posting to stan users.

I don’t want to make it harder for users to ask questions.

  • Bob