In addition to iterating upon the latest version of the Kin Score, I am spending a significant chunk of my day responding to providers who encounter the Kin Score for their company. I learn a lot from these encounters, as well as from the research I do into the different industries, areas, and bounded contexts I profile providers within.
In my engagements with providers there are generally four buckets API providers fall into when they come across their company, organization, institution, agency, or standards body and the Kin Score applied to it.
- Remove Us Immediately — Provide me some sort of formal and legal takedown of their profile.
- Silence and No Response — Ghost me after reaching out, or not respond when I reach out.
- This is our Road Map — Tell me they have added it to their team’s road map as a checklist.
- Here are the Changes — Submit a pull request on the repository with all of the changes.
I feel like it represents the spectrum well when it comes to the bar I have set with the Kin Score, which is based upon the bar I have been using in my storytelling over the years. It reflects why I created the score, to shine a light on those who want to do the work and those who do not. Those who are talking the talk and those who are walking the walk. When it comes to both APIs and with AI.
There is a formal process for delisting APIs now. Ignoring your listing does not mean it goes away, and it definitely does not mean it will get better. Using it as your road map and just spending the tokens to get the work done is what I intend with the many different facets I have baked into the Kin Score. It reflects over a decade of profiling APIs using the APIs.json format, and onboarding, or attempting to onboard with thousands of APIs, as well as the APIs I have baked into my operations and are still part of how I do business after all of these years.
