Contributors

Data Collection Strategies

As indicated below, some contributor information is available via software such as GrimoireLab and Augur.

Surveys and Interviews: Some contributor insights are less easily obtained from trace data and may require additional surveys or interviews with community members or event registrations. Sample questions include:

• Which contributors do not typically appear in lists of contributors?
• Which contributors are often overlooked because their contributions are more “behind the scenes”?
• Who are the community members you work with regularly?

Surveys with Likert scale or matrix formats can also provide insights into contributor activity levels.
Sample questions for community members:

• Likert scale [1-x]: I am contributing to the project.

• Matrix survey item: How often do you engage in the following activities in the project?

  • Column headings: Never, Rarely(less than once a month), Sometimes (more than once a month), Often(once a week or more)
  • Rows include: a) Contributing/reviewing code, b) Creating or maintaining documentation, c) Translating documentation, d) Participating in decision making about the project’s development, e) Serving as a community organizer, f) Mentoring other contributors, g) Attending events in person, h) Participating through school or university computing programs, i) Participating through a program like Outreachy, Google Summer of Code, etc., j) Helping with the ASF operations (e.g., board meetings or fundraising)
• Aggregators: Collect contributor names from collaboration tools, such as source code repositories, issue trackers, event registrations, mailing lists or any other tools a project uses.
  • Count: Total number of contributors during a given time period.
• Parameters:
  • Period of time: Start and end dates for the period in which contributions are counted (default: forever).
• Data Sources: Contributor data can be collected from collaboration platforms like GitHub, GitLab, IRC, blogs, and forums, or from tools like GrimoireLab and Augur.

Filters

By location of engagement. For example:

• Commit authors
• Issue authors
• Review participants, e.g., in pull requests
• Mailing list authors
• Event participants
• IRC authors
• Blog authors
• By release cycle
• Timeframe of activity in the project, e.g, find new contributors
• Programming languages of the project
• Role or function in project

Visualizations

1. List of contributor names (often with information about their level of engagement)

Figure 1: List of contributors and engagement

2. Summary number of contributors

Figure 2: Summary number of contributors

3. Change in the number of active contributors over time

Figure 3: Change in the number of active contributors over time

4. New contributors (sort list of contributors by date of first contribution)

Figure 4: List of new contributors