At XpUniverse, Kent came up with an off-the-wall idea, the Ward Rating or Degree of Wardness (or WardNumber on this Wiki). He designated Ward as 0, and rated people who had paired with Ward as 1, people who had paired with people who had paired with Ward as 2, and so on. You wrote your Ward Rating on your conference badge. JosephPelrine noticed an interesting phenomenon and, together with AlanFrancis (and much beer) came up with an (just slightly) crazy idea.

By the end of the conference, there were quite a few folks walking around with their chests puffed out proudly, showing that their Ward Rating of 3 or 4 or more had gone up a notch or two, since they had the chance to pair with others who had more experience. Since JosephPelrine considers XP to be an orally transmitted tradition, he found this to be a GoodThing.

A few other thoughts occurred to him:
	* An XP Fest (analog to OOPSLA's design and code fest, but without the excess baggage) took place, and the participants built real software for a real, non-profit organization
	* Both tennis players and chess players go to tournaments to play against others in order to increase their ranking.

So, putting this all together, JosephPelrine and AlanFrancis had the following idea: why not organize some kind of XP Fest at conferences , where folks can come along and pair with others on non-profit projects, while at the same time, in a sense of collaboration rather than competition, they have the chance to raise their Ward Rating. It would also help us as a community, since we get more people introduced to the "real" XP. We're going to need that in a few years, when XP finally takes off, and everyone will want to ride the bandwagon ;-)

- JosephPelrine
----
Is this just another ErdosNumber?  ''Yes. Same concept.''

Obviously.  Therefore it is neither off-the-wall, nor original.
-----
I think the Ward rating came from DaveWest.  It was in a paper of his named ''Enculturating Extreme Programmers.''  The paper was in the proceedings.  It's good.  Well worth a look.
----
''Is this also a way of perhaps GettingStartedWithXp for the JustaProgrammer?''

----

Excuse me, but can someone explain to a Bear of Little Brain why one would want
to '''increase''' one's rating?  The goal of the Erdős number game was to have
as '''low''' a number as possible.  Indeed, the definition was such that it was
impossible to raise your number; you could only lower it (by co-authoring with
people who were themselves closer to Erdős).  Likewise, if you have paired with
Ward, isn't your Ward Rating permanently 1, regardless of whatever you do later?
Please explain.  Thanks.

''You assume 1 < 2 < 3...  I think, in this case, 1 > 2 > 3''

Yes, there's a difference between increasing the ranking and increasing the number. But ''improving'' or ''enhancing'' would probably be a clearer term.

''My KiboNumber is 1.  --NickBensema''
----
WardNumber, WardNumberInManyProgrammingLanguages