Contribution Dashboards measure several data points of information that we consider important for the contribution health of Drupal, and hence Drupal Innovation.

NOTE: last update January 2024

Contributors

Unique individuals and their credits

Unique individual credits and credits year over year

Explanation: In this chart we measure the number of unique individuals who have received a contribution credit in a given year. Contribution credit is granted by project maintainers when closing issues, and more than one individual or organiation can receive credit for the same issue.

Interpretation: We see a strong increase in credits given since the contribution system was created in 2016, but relatively level growth in the number of individuals. This reflects a few causes:

  • Broader adoption and use of the credit system by the community.
  • Greater investment in existing contributors allowing them to contribute more.
  • Some amount of 'credit-flation' as more types of activities are granted credit over time.

This means we're doing good work to create incentives for existing contributors and the organizations who sponsor them, but that we still need to do more to improve the entry point to contribution.

Unique organizations and credits

Unique organizational contributors and their credits year over year

Explanation: This chart measures the organizations that individual contributors attributed their work to when making contributions. It includes the unique number of organizations year over year, as well as the total credit they have received.

Interpretation: The number of organizations contributing has had significant growth over time. We see this supported also by growth in the Drupal Certified Partner program, and anecdotally in conversations with partners asking for support in creating a contribution culture. We've also had anecdotal reports of an increase in sponsorships of existing contributors.

We can use this as a measure of organizational engagement in the community.

New users making at least 1 contribution in their first year

New users with a contribution in the first 12 months

Explanation: This chart shows how many Drupal.org users made at least 1 contribution within the first 12 months after registering for an account on Drupal.org. The data is segmented by the year the user registered, but the window for contribution is 12 months from registration date. Because of the 12 month contribution window, data for 2023 is not yet complete. For example, a user who registers in July of 2023 and makes their first contribution in February of 2024 should be counted in the 2023 data, but we will not have a complete picture until Jan 1, 2024. 

This chart helps is one measure for the 'conversion rate' of Drupal.org users to contributors. In particular, it helps us understand how many people are able to join the community and make a meaningful contribution within a reasonable timeframe. 12 months is still a long time horizon but, as we will see in later charts, the historical time to first contribution in the Drupal community is much larger.

Interpretation: We see a year over year decline in new users who are able to contribute within their first year, especially during the COVID years. Without Drupal Camps and DrupalCon, where much of the new contributor onboarding takes places, we should not be surprised. The increase in 2022 suggests that the return to in-person events and camps made a big difference, as did some initiatives in that year focused on contributors. 

We will continue to use this as a metric to measure the success of efforts to recruit new contributors.

 Time To First Contribution

/files/average-time-to-first-contribution-by-registration-year.png

Explanation: This chart graphs new users in a given year against how many days after creating an account it took before their first contribution. There are some important caveats. By definition, more recent years can only count a shorter horizon to time to first contribution. This means we must be careful with interpreting this chart. The time to first contribution for more recent users will rise over time. It would be best to only draw conclusions from at least 3+ years ago, but we have a limited dataset to work with as the contribution credit system was only created in 2016.

Interpretation: With the caveats above about how to interpret this chart, we can make some inferences. The most obvious one is that the time to first contribution is very, very long in Drupal. However, even if we limit ourselves to looking at 2020 and earlier to try and reduce the impact of recency in our data set, it does seem like the time to first contribution is going down. 

Did you know? 

Contributions to strategic initiatives and core issues are worth the maximum amount of contribution credit.

Disclaimer: Measuring contribution is a complex problem, and Drupal.org has decades of historical data. These dashboards are presented with our best current understanding, but will be revised over time to provide the best information we can to help the community make the right decisions about Drupal's future.