Detailed findings from the Getting Involved survey

Demographic Profile

Most of the survey respondents identified themselves as Site Builder (68%), Developer (59%), Themer (34%) and/or Project Manager (29%). It is also worth noting that 73% of the respondents cited Drupal is a source of income.

Note: Respondents were given the option to select more than one area and hence the percentages add up to more than 100%.

1A: What's your role with Drupal?

1B: How many years have been been working with Drupal?

1C: Is Drupal a hobby or source of income?

1D: In what non-technical areas would you like to contribute to Drupal?

1E: What technical areas you would you like to contribute to Drupal?

What do people get out of contributing?

We asked non-contributors “What are your expectations from getting involved in the community?”, existing contributors “What is it that keeps you involved in contributing?” and to everyone “What are your motivations to get involved?”

For non-contributors, the top responses were

1. Satisfaction of contributing to a good project (27%)
2. Greater understanding of Drupal (22%)
3. Networking & new opportunities (16%)

For existing contributors, the top responses were

1. Helping others in the Community; being a part of the community (51%)
2. Personal benefit (32%)
3. The Belief in Open Source (27%)

Other responses from everybody include

1. Help to promote Drupal (11%)
2. Recognition (11%)
3. Benefit to business or personal financial incentive (22%)
4. Intellectually stimulating (19%)

Non contributors: What are your expectations from getting involved in the community? (18 responses)

• Satisfaction of contributing to a good project (27%)
• People derive happiness from contributing to Drupal!
• “I would just like to contribute. My expectations are already met by the free CMS I get, would just like to give back.” - P22
• Greater understanding of Drupal (22%)
• Gaining more Drupal experience
• Help to improve Drupal (16%)
• Networking & new opportunities (16%)
• Help to promote Drupal (11%)
• “Would like the Drupal CMS to power the entire web. Anything to help break through the FUD and prove Drupal as the enterprise CMS.” - P34
• Recognition (11%)
• Other responses include:
• Not sure (2)
• Someday create something worth contributing
• Work with the best drupal developers
• Getting my do profile to reflect my Drupal experience
• Responses that were eliminated because they were unclear:
• just a little direction
• "There was no option for ""sort of"", so I put ""no"" since I am not a person with a lot of nodes to my credit on d.o. My expectations are that it can be a little overwhelming and hard to coordinate PM contributions, so I have not forayed into that much. Where I have been most active is in promoting Drupal (among nonprofits and others), and in advocating for contribution from those who use it."

Non Contributor: If you want to get involved, what can improve this experience for you? (14 responses)

• Better information how to get involved (35%)
• Better information and processes for how PHP developer contributions, Better information and processes around non-technical contributions, more paths for novices, small/self-paced/manageable contributing options, clearer separation for those who write code and those who test patches
• Working with an experienced contributor (29%)
• Having a mentor and working alongside the best contributors to see what they do
• Other responses include:
• Myself (2 - 14%)
• I have no idea (2)
• Better Project Application Process
• Small, in person events
• A rising tide lifts all boats

When you started to get involved, what could have been helpful to you? (34 responses)

• Better content on drupal.org (59%)
• Getting started guide/ guide to switching to Drupal (5 respondents)
• "An easy checklist of things to work through to get started (currently we have a lot of documents all over the place - these have improved a great deal since I started in any case). Something similar to a company onboarding checklist would have been useful. - P50
• n00b contrib access points (5 respondents)
• overview of low-barrier entry points, novice tag
• Relevant and recent documentation (3 respondents)
• Curated documentation on major concepts (3 respondents)
• “A one-page how-to for saving a patch file, applying the patch, creating a patch and re-submitting the patch. Also, the first time I submitted a patch was FRIGHTENING. I had no idea what to expect in terms of testing (how to pre-test the patch so that it wouldn't fail and make me look like an idiot) and how the community would respond.“ - P53
• Better organization of Drupal.org (2 respondents)
• More findable content (2 respondents)

That personal touch (32%)

• Mentors, contact person, 1-on-1 help (9 respondents)
• “For example, an instant chat on d.o. into IRC where newbies can reach an expert”
• “I think a contact person for each entry point where someone can volunteer is vital because getting involved sometimes takes an email exchange or personal meeting. The contact person can be an Initiative owner, a lead project manager, some contact person. This contact should be highlighted whenever talking about volunteering is discussed on drupal.org. It might be helpful to put some wording around someone's position as a leader and state they can help suggest things to work on that will make an impact.” - P47
• Meeting people in person / in person training / collaboration (5 respondents)
• More organized code sprints, collaboration with others, local meetups

Drupal equivalent to the Yellow Pages (21%)

• Figuring out who is who in the community (5 respondents)
• “Who is in charge of core, infrastructure, drupal.org and other contributors?”
• Info on support channels (2 respondents)
• “Better knowledge of existing support channels (IRC, meetups, camps, etc). I think all of those were extremely helpful at times, but being ignorant about them when first starting probably led to more frustration than necessary.” - P12
• Easier way to find and select the best modules (2 respondents)

Other suggestions

• Feedback to my contributed modules
• Invisible n00b flag
• Create a sense of positive outcome to participation in the community

Contributors: What is it that keeps you involved in contributing? (37 responses)

• Helping Others in the Community; being a part of the community (51%)
• Giving back and helping others (9 respondents)
• “Just personal gratification of contributing to something bigger than myself, giving back/paying it forward from others who helped me previously, helping new people to have ah-ha moments to learn and grow." - P42
• Being a part of the community (6 respondents)
• The people in the community (4 respondents)
• “They're smart and funny and great to be around.” - P46
• Benefit to self (32%)
• Participants get personal satisfaction to contributing, learn new skills, network with peers, and have fun
• The Belief in Open Source (27%)
• Participants are motivated by their contributions helping the world, and believe in the open source model
• “Contributing code and documentation back to the community helps relieve frustration for someone else, teaches them something and helps make the community as a whole much better.” - P12
• “I believe firmly in open source and in particular in the community which drives Drupal. Just knowing that I am helping to ‘keep it alive’ is what keeps me doing it.” - P41
• Benefit to business or personal financial incentive (22%)
• Many respondents are paid to work with Drupal, so improving Drupal to make their clients and colleagues happy is an incentive.
• “Drupal is also profitable for me, and I want to be prosperous professionally.” - P57
• Intellectually stimulating (19%)
• People enjoy the problem solving, making interesting things, competing with other contributors, and sharing tactic knowledge
• Positive feedback from the community (8%)
• Examples include: direct thank yous, seeing their names in the commit logs, feedback and support
• Other responses include:
• The willingness to try new ideas out in contrib, peer pressure, belief in Drupal as a relevant application in modern web development, fucking bugs need fixing
• Responses that were eliminated because they were unclear: A sense that it's a closed club

What are the roadblocks to getting involved? (55 responses)

• Lack of information on how to contribute, what to work on or whom to contact (42%)
• Respondents want to know where to get involved and access to documentation, videos for this information.
• “There are so many different types movements and initiatives in the community as a whole. With many issues and tasks to get done in each. It's difficult to know where to begin.” (P18)
• Don’t have time (18%)
• “I don’t know enough technically” (16%)
• This set of respondents thought that they lacked Drupal technical expertise and hence they could not contribute.
• “I don’t want to wait until I am a ninja to help technically” (P33)
• Intimidation factor (13%)
• “There can be an intimidation factor if a lot of well-known people are involved. I wonder if I really know enough about some topics (e.g. HTML 5) to get involved. Especially given the first point about people being rude - am I going to be pointed out as a fraud or embarrassed for giving an incorrect or unpopular response?” (P14)
• “Don’t want to seem stupid” (P20)
• One other person also commented that is difficult to get the foot in the door if there are many big contributors in the interest line. (P14)

Want to talk/need guidance from mentors (13%)

• Not knowing people in the community –makes it difficult the technical and social aspects of it (P8)

Other responses include:

• Slow turn around time to get feedback/or to get committed (7%)
• “Contributing patches lingering in the queue is discouraging” (P36)
• Less friendly, not welcoming behavior towards contributors (3 respondents)
• Responses also included: Lack of motivation, lack of local groups (2 respondents), corporate culture attitude of not returning back to the community, the module maintainer did not respond, too much bike shedding on the illusion of participation, English being second language, IRC is inaccessible, lack of leadership, and lack of recognition.

Responses that were eliminated because they were unclear: Access, Project application process and “When I have a particular problem that needs to be fixed”

What are your motivations to get involved? (55 responses)

• For Drupal and it’s community (40%)
• Want Drupal to succeed (9 respondents)
• To give back to the community (4 respondents)
• To make the community better (7 respondents)
• To be a part of the community (2 respondents)
• Helps me to grow professionally (Knowledge + Networking) (25%)
• Gain Drupal knowledge (7 respondents)
• Contribute technically to modules that my business depends on (5 respondents)
• Networking to get more business (2 respondents)
• Be known and get recognition (13%)
• Helping others (11%)
• “Knowing your work is helping thousands or millions of people worldwide” (P46)
• Socializing and engaging with other members (9%)
• Other responses include:
• Fun, Enjoyment, to know if Drupal is the right platform for me and my clients (2 respondents), Addictive, not to be seen as “leech”, to provide better web experiences and joining forces with other Drupal people and Drupal companies.

Do you ever go to the “Get Involved” page? (56 responses)

It is worth nothing that of the 18 non contributors who responded to the survey only 2 respondents visit the ‘Getting Involved’ pages. Most non contributors (10) do not go to those to the pages whereas a significant amount (6 out of 18) confessed that they rarely visit the section. The pattern was repeated for contributors as well, with only 18% visit the section.

What do you think about the existing community structure? (45 responses)

The majority, almost half (48.9%) of the respondents used a negative term to the existing community structure. Respondents thought the existing structure was fragmented, chaotic, not great and could use improvements.

• Lack of visibility with respect to information and resources. Two respondents would like to have a welcome pack. (7)
• There is a barrier between the “in” and “out” crowd (4). One participant mentioned that “D.O. has ghetto-izing effect”
• Respondents made a joke and commented “There is a structure?” (4)

Other responses include: the structure was based on legacy and not ideas, and there were very few people at the top and many more at the bottom. With respect to decision making process, a few respondents complained that the top contributors do not delegate and decisions were made in private.
Additional responses: want handholding, IRC can be snippy, had the perception that a lot of camps were fighting within and want to know the contact person.

Positive responses include: (16)
Active, Friendly, Nice, Sufficient, Very Nice, Getting better with D8 initiatives, Getting better, Wonderful, Great, Developer stuff very clear, Better than profit world, Fantastic, Community makes the structure powerful, Great, Fine, Fine, Good mix of various professionals

Neutral responses include: (7)
Fairly Free/ Amorphous (3), Minimal structure that works sometimes and sometimes it does not work, Works at local levels better (2), and seems to work

35.6% of the respondents had positive reaction to the structure whereas the remaining 15.6% where neutral about it.

What does a “community leader” mean to you?

Moderates discussions/issues (9)
Offer guidance (9)
Carves a plan for the community (6)
Takes initiatives (5)
Encouraging (5)
Knowledgeable (4)
Attracts new talent (4)
Communication (3)
Helps getting things done (3)
Charismatic (3)
A mentor (2)
Organizes events (2)
Evangelizes Drupal (2)
Unites the community (2)
Doer (2)
Makes everyone comfortable (1)
Patience (1)
Dedicated (1)
Polite (1)
Peer among a team of people (1)
Takes administrative tasks (1)
Positive (1)
Balanced (1)
Someone who is involved for a while (1)
Delegates (1)
Listens to the needs of the people (1)
Allows others to grow (1)
Enthusiastic (1)
Available (1)
A good example (1)
Who stands out (1)

Can you give some examples (of a community leader)?

Besides Angie (8) and Dries (3), respondents also acknowledged the following as community leaders: Catch, Chris Pilakas, Crell, Dave Reid, Eaton, Fabrice Bellard, Gabor Hojtsy, Greg Dunlap, Jennifer Hodgdon, John Albin, Kieran Lal, Klausi, Mark Sonnabaum, Moshe, Paul Irish, Randy Fay, Stella and Xjm. The respondents also acknowledged the D8 initiative leaders, Palantir, Lullabot, leaders in each area of the Drupal Project, people who creates surveys like these and Barack Obama.

What areas of Drupal community do you think need the most contributions?

Documentation (12)
D.O. (7)
Usability/ UX/ Design (6)
Code Development (4)
Drupal Core (3)
Mentoring (3)
Internationalization (3)
Code review and support issue (2)
Installation profiles/ Distributions
Everywhere (2)
Marketing (2)
Project Management (2)
Framework initiatives (2)
IRC
Accessibility
Patch review
Support forums
Content creator experience
More local groups and support at different levels
Up-to-date video tutorials
Demos about strength of Drupal
Showcase
Easy to follow site recipe
Easy, concise, effective information
Training
Mobile
HTML
CSS3
WYSIWYG
Code testing
Architectural Decisions
Newbie ramp up process
Consistency