In support of nice digital artifacts as tokens of appreciation.

I submitted a review for a 70 page JMLR manuscript the other day, and they brought me to a page that expressed gratitude and gave me a zip file to download. I openned the zip and found a README.md file. The readme went:

# badges
I review for JMLR badges

Here’s the badge in question.

cute and/or cringe, seeing it sparked some 2000s internet joy in me.

It also reminded me of Alex Danco’s piece on how science, open sourced software, and startups benifit a lot from gift culture. The reciprocity and goodwill of gift exchange culture (rather than, say, the market of labor and capital) encourages risk-taking and genuine contribution.

Is this badge a gift? It signals that I’m participating in the community around scientific reciprocity, which i proudly displayed in this blog post for vanity. It does not compensate for the 6 hours I spent on it, but is nontheless fulfilling. Maybe one small reason for ML conferences’ disfunctional review system is the lacking of social credits given to reviewers? (I know review experience helps with visa & immigration, but that would not encourage service beyond the needed amount.) Can we start giving out little internet trinkets, unique each year, like ELO badges from games?

I look forward to seeing gifs for reviewers from more ML conferences.