Drupal contribution pain points: we need your feedback!

By emma.maria on 2 Jun 2016 at 21:40 UTC

Since its inception, the Drupal Community Working Group (CWG) has dealt with numerous issues related to contributor frustration and burnout. While disagreements are an inevitable (and sometimes desirable) part of the software development process, failure to resolve them in a positive and constructive way can lead to lingering frustrations that undermine people’s ability to work together. Sometimes, these frustrations have even boiled over into personal attacks on other contributors and other members of the community.

The Drupal 8 development cycle in particular resulted in an increased number of reported issues that threatened to undermine morale and productivity within the core development community. We are concerned that if the root causes of these kinds of issues remain unaddressed, they will continue to surface and ultimately result in fewer people who are motivated to contribute to the Drupal project.

In an effort to make the contribution experience as positive as possible for everyone, we are conducting a survey of Drupal contributors to help identify some of the sources of frustration and to gather input on how it can be mitigated in order to keep contributors happier (and to reduce the number of reports to the CWG). The results of this survey will help inform the development of resources designed to help future contributors deal with frustration and burnout.

We are not looking to solve technical issues, rather issues to do with working with other people. We want to better understand things like the scope of burnout during the Drupal 8 development cycle, what kinds of social barriers may exist to communication in the contributor community, and what kinds of organisational changes people feel should be made to improve the contributor experience.

We are accepting survey responses now until June 13. Our goal is to share the results of this survey and initial recommendations at DrupalCon Dublin in September. We would like as many Drupal contributors as possible to take this survey, so please do pass on the word!

Take the survey here:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1K9SwTa_pTnHYoT3ksRDndL2qR7CHbz75Qn-1tOG...

Comments

For clarity ....

yelvington commented 2 June 2016 at 22:22

the core development community.

... do you mean "core" as in "the Drupal core" or do you mean the more informal usage, as in the community of contributors who are most active (contrib, documentation, support)?

While we have a focus on

adshill commented 3 June 2016 at 11:12

While we have a focus on those developing Drupal 8 core (mostly as this is where the most chance of burnout can occur) we are of course happy to hear from any contributors for whom the topic is relevant from personal experience or from observation. Its open to all!

We want to hear from everyone!

gdemet

he/him

English

Chicago, USA

commented 3 June 2016 at 17:59

To be clear, we want to hear from everyone who has been involved in contributing to the Drupal project. The issues that we've had to deal with over the last year have often centered around disputes between core developers, but we are also well aware that there are issues within the contrib community as well, and we want to be able to address those as well.

If you haven't read our

Jaypan commented 2 June 2016 at 23:55

There is no link to a survey, so I'll put my comments here:

If you haven't read our thread on the gong-show it is attempting to contribute to Drupal.org, you should have a read through it: https://www.drupal.org/node/2536122

And here are my comments from another post: https://www.drupal.org/node/2522542#comment-10104236

The problem here is threefold. The first is that the volunteer base, is spread thin (as you have said), the second is that almost none of them use the forum, and therefore it is very low on their priority list, and the third is that the barrier to contributing in their stead, is near insurmountable.

I accepted a few years ago that the people who work on Drupal.org were not going to do much for the forums. So I as I mentioned in an earlier post, I decided to take care of it myself. What initially got me was that when I asked how to report spam, the process was a huge barrier to actually doing it - users had to find and go to the webmaster's queue, then post a new thread there. I couldn't understand how the people who were maintaining the forum would care so little about spam, as to not have a method of reporting it filled with such a barrier. But I don't like to be that guy who just complains, without providing a solution. And since I know how to develop for Drupal, I decided to do something fairly simple - add a link to nodes and comments that would link to the webmaster's queue, with the appropriate fields already filled out, so the user could just click submit. A two-click process to report spam, removing a large part of the barrier to doing so.

However, upon making that decision, I ran into the following barriers on developing for Drupal.org

Someone mentioned a module that contained all the DO enhancements (I don't recall what it was called). So I downloaded that, and made my modifications.

Upon submitting it, I was told that this was the incorrect method, and that I needed a Drupal.org staging environment. So I applied for and received one, then re-did all the work I had already done.

I created my patch, and submitted it. And waited. And waited. And waited. Then I started bumping it, and the infrastructure team got angry because I kept bumping the thread (I believe you may have even come into that thread to clean things up).

Finally after months, my patch was approved and installed.

Even after that frustrating process, I decided to try to continue. I created some more patches, and submitted them. As I mentioned in an earlier post in this thread, one of the simple ones sat for four months without getting acknowledged whatsoever. And that was for something really simple - I had ideas for much, much more complex functionality, but with a response time of 4 months, any iterations would have taken years to get through before any functionality could be implemented. Others patches I made sat for even longer, and as far as I know, are still sitting there. I created a patch for ajax forum replies. We still don't have ajax forum replies. And I left it in a nearly completed state. It needed some work, but I gave up, and no one else ever bothered to even pick it up and try to complete it.

So as you can see, it's basically impossible for people who aren't part of the inner circle to contribute, and those who are part of the inner circle don't contribute. Which has led to this stale forum that was outdated a decade ago.

First off, I gave up on the process. My development server was shut down months ago (maybe even a year). It was a soul-destroying process. I was trying to do something, because no one else would, and I faced barrier after barrier, followed by being completely ignored.

Thanks so much for the

adshill commented 3 June 2016 at 11:14

Thanks so much for the feedback! We will add this into our processing but if you did have time to fill out the survey too then it would be great for your input to be fully integrated into that format. This issue has been brought to our attention and is an example of the kind of incidents we want to find out more about.

I filled out the survey, but

Jaypan commented 4 June 2016 at 03:22

I filled out the survey, but to be honest, I feel that the survey has a major issue with it. It only refers to development of D8, and people who have worked on D8. The Drupal community is so much more than just D8. It's been D6, D7 and D8, as well as Drupal.org, the forums, various groups. I am not an early adopter, so I haven't started working with D8 at all - but I have spent significant time contributing to the community, through contributed modules, patches for modules, patches for D6 and D7 core, and submissions to Drupal.org. But the survey made me feel that only D8 contributions matter, because every question was focused on D8. D7 is still a supported version, and at the very least I feel that questions regarding development should have included D7 in them.

As such my answers were pretty lacking. I had nothing to say for most of the questions.

I hear what you are saying

Jeff Burnz commented 4 June 2016 at 07:05

I hear what you are saying but the survey is specifically about developer burnout on Drupal core, that is the focus of this particular initiative. If you had worked on D8 you might know that your issues with forums pale in comparison with the fallout over some major issues, even entire D8 initiatives and that we lost a concerning number of very competent and high profile contributors who had been part of this project for many, many years.

I do not wish to minimise contributor issues that occur outside Drupal core, however we (as a community) have a problem with Drupal core contributor burnout, so this issue and the survey are the beginnings of an important attempt to try to fix that.

Sorry Jaypan but as much as I value your work in the forums, on Drupal.org (than goodness for the report spam link) and other contributions (Fancy login is great), this is, at least as I see it, specifically attempting to address core contributor burnout.

I know a bit about this - I was one of them after D7, I was utterly burned out and even got ill as a result and had to walk away from the community for about two years. I never fully recovered and contributed in only a minor way to D8 despite being one of the top 30 contributors to Drupal 7. This was almost entirely due to a personal breakdown with another contributor who became divisive, attacking and made life hell for a small bunch of us, at least one other very productive Drupal core contributor left the community for good after D7 also, again almost entirely due to this corrosive person making her life hell.

So, there are serious issues in core contrib, there are difficult people, very complex initiatives and systems in core, a huge workload and frankly I think many times far too over ambitious goals, and the constantly shifting goalposts of the project (for example the theme components initiative that now threatens to have two theme systems in D8, frankly it's D9 material, but never mind, pile on the stress and workload some more...).

I would say one other serious contributor issue missing is Contrib developers, and the horrible experience it was dealing with D8 - being told over 18 months ago that D8 was nearly ready and being asked to ready our contrib projects many of us did so, only to have the API's ripped out from under us and enter a year long effort to chase head. Terrible and the worst decision made of the D8 cycle. It cost me a huge amount of money and left me frustrated and angry.

Pimp your Drupal 8 Toolbar - make it badass.
Adaptivetheme - theming system for people who don't code.

I do not wish to minimise

Jaypan commented 4 June 2016 at 08:43

I do not wish to minimise contributor issues that occur outside Drupal core, however we (as a community) have a problem with Drupal core contributor burnout, so this issue and the survey are the beginnings of an important attempt to try to fix that.

D8 does not exist in a vacuum. We have a problem with contributor burnout across the board, and while it's good to get started (and I'm glad to see this survey as a part of that), focusing entirely on D8 to the point of literally ignoring everything else is not going to fix the community as a whole.

Yeah, sure its not a vacuum

Jeff Burnz commented 4 June 2016 at 10:08

Yeah, sure its not a vacuum but no one really thinks it is.

From my perspective D7 or earlier is not really part of it because this issue is about new development - thats where the arguments and issues can really flare up...

Pimp your Drupal 8 Toolbar - make it badass.
Adaptivetheme - theming system for people who don't code.

From my perspective D7 or

Jaypan commented 4 June 2016 at 10:26

From my perspective D7 or earlier is not really part of it because this issue is about new development

New development can be by anyone, and those who have contributed to D7 will likely contribute to future development as well - after we get comfortable with D8. But our experiences have been completely discounted from this survey - if we haven't yet contributed to D8, our opinions don't appear to matter, as every single question referred to contributing to D8. And the questions asked for the most part were about, in your words, new development. Therefore the contributions by any member of the community who has contributed, whether it be to D6, D7 or D8 should have relevance to *new development*. That's why I feel the survey was lacking - only the thoughts of those who are early adopters seem to be given any value, anyone who is not an early adopter has been left out of the survey altogether.

Regarding your post specifically, you have said that *from your perspective, D7 is not a part of it. For others of us, D7 is. Why should one perspective take priority over another?

Yeah, but every survey needs

Jeff Burnz commented 4 June 2016 at 11:34

Yeah, but every survey needs a scope. If there are issues with other versions or areas of Drupal, lets do a survey of those particular users/contributors also, no issues there, but this issue is well scoped and I think the questions are good, although I am thinking about them before I provide feedback, I have four years of thoughts to ruminate over.

Pimp your Drupal 8 Toolbar - make it badass.
Adaptivetheme - theming system for people who don't code.

Yeah, but every survey needs

Jaypan commented 4 June 2016 at 11:51

Yeah, but every survey needs a scope.

Yes, and the scope of this survey is regarding people who have contributed to the Drupal project. Why do only people who have contributed to D8 count? Why shouldn't the thoughts of those who have contributed to D6 and D7 matter? Why shouldn't the thoughts of those who have submitted modules matter? Why should their (our) experiences be left out?

Nobody's experiences are being left out

gdemet

he/him

English

Chicago, USA

commented 4 June 2016 at 12:16

As I said earlier, we want to hear from everyone who has contributed in some way to the Drupal project; this survey is by no means limited to core contributors.

We deliberately framed the questions in the context of the Drupal 8 development cycle because we want to focus on issues that have impacted contributors most within the last five years.

_

WorldFallz commented 4 June 2016 at 15:30

...because we want to focus on issues that have impacted contributors most within the last five years.

There are many issues that have impacted contributors during the last 5 or so years that have almost nothing to do with d8 or are in any way tied to any particular version of core.

By framing many of the questions with D8, you're already skewing your results. Which is fine if that's the intent-- but you indicate that its not. Therefore the results will not be what you seek.

In any case, I did complete it.

There are many issues that

Jeff Burnz commented 5 June 2016 at 01:46

There are many issues that have impacted contributors during the last 5 or so years that have almost nothing to do with d8 or are in any way tied to any particular version of core.

And how do they (non core issues) help us understand core contributor burn-out? Are you a core contributor? Have you experienced burnout while working on Drupal core?

By your logic doesn't every survey in the world skew it's results, sorry but criticism doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

Pimp your Drupal 8 Toolbar - make it badass.
Adaptivetheme - theming system for people who don't code.

And how do they (non core

Jaypan commented 5 June 2016 at 01:49

And how do they (non core issues) help us understand core contributor burn-out? Are you a core contributor? Have you experienced burnout while working on Drupal core?

I'm a core contributor, and I've experienced burnout while working on Drupal core.

But apparently the survey doesn't think my experiences are relevant to the survey.

How so?

Jeff Burnz commented 5 June 2016 at 01:59

How so? I mean yes we want to know about D8, but not all the questions are about D8, I burned out on D7, I did not think the survey in any way ignores my feedback, however that was years ago and though my close experiences with D8 the issue of burnout has become critical, not least of which is the sheer size of the code base now (and complexity) and we need to maintain contributors over years and years. E.g. it is now impossible for a single person to know all of Core, I doubt that has happened before.

Do you think that burnout on earlier versions are relevant to the issues encountered in D8? Do you understand what happened during D8 and how unique it was in terms of a Drupal major version? Let me offer a small example, no previous version contains as much vendor code, or as many languages and formats, or such dramatic API changes (repeatedly) over the years. No previous version included the appointment of initiative leads, nor the numbers of paid developers.

Personally in ten years developing for Drupal I've never witnessed such high developer attrition or such heated debates ever before.

Pimp your Drupal 8 Toolbar - make it badass.
Adaptivetheme - theming system for people who don't code.

How so?

Jaypan commented 5 June 2016 at 01:59

How so?

That's a question that should be asked by the survey.

I mean yes we want to know about D8, but not all the questions are about D8, I burned out on D7, I did not think the survey in any way ignores my feedback.

The majority of the areas in which I felt burnout where expressed in terms of D8, and therefore I could not answer them.

_

WorldFallz commented 5 June 2016 at 15:33

Are you a core contributor?

If you consider having one tiny patch accepted and committed, then yes. But wow, the tone of that question speaks volumes-- as if no one else has a right to an opinion.

Have you experienced burnout while working on Drupal core?

Nope, because I've experienced so much burn-out and soul crushing discouragement trying to contribute to the drupal project, that I haven't had the fortitude to pursue contributing to core.

If you burn the community before they can even become core contributors, i think you have a bigger problem imo. There will always be burn-out. That's part of development. It happens all the time. It's not even open source specific really. However, if you dishearten and discourage potential core contributors before they can even get there, you'll dry up the pipeline in a hurry which will in turn cause more core contributor burn out as a simple matter of math. Less contributors + more work = burnout.

By your logic doesn't every survey in the world skew it's results

Of course. The trick to getting a survey right is contructing it in the proper direction to get the appropriate results while not artificially inflating the result you want. That's generally why professional surveys are constructed by entities outside the interested parties. It's called survey science.

no matter, though. The message has been delivered loud and clear once again-- the only contributions that matter, or that anyone is interested in improving, are to core.

No matter that many non-core contributors probably spend many many more hours contributing to the community than the majority of pass-through core contributors (i'm not talking about you or any of the major contributors here, just the drive bys). Hours upon hours removing spam from drupal.org, wrangling the webmasters issue queue, assisting users, etc. I venture to say that jay has spent far more hours on developer support than anyone realizes (just peruse the type of development support he provides via his tracker if you doubt it).

Pop into IRC and usually all you hear are crickets-- unless of course, you're asking about core. Pop into the dev forum and you'll almost always get high quality professional level development support within a day or so of posting.

The irony of using the forums to solicit feedback from core developers in the middle of the repeatedly discouraged and destroyed attempts to improve them is rather amusing.

Sorry if that's acerbic, but this post to the forums is like a fork in the eye to every forum contributor after the fiasco of the last few months (just read the issue linked in jay's sig). It's unbelievably tone-deaf.

We are listening

gdemet

he/him

English

Chicago, USA

commented 5 June 2016 at 19:07

I am hearing that some people who are not core contributors feel marginalized by this survey, and it's clear that we could have worded some of the questions differently in order to make our intent more clear. As we've said before, we welcome all contributors to respond to this survey, whether or not they've contributed to Drupal core.

Our goal is to get a full understanding of the issues that are leading to frustration and burnout in the Drupal community, and this survey is just one of the tools we are using to do that. If you feel that the questions asked don't adequately address the issues you've seen or experienced, we encourage you to provide your e-mail address in response to the last question so that we can follow up with you directly. You can also reach out to us at drupal-cwg@drupal.org if you have something you'd like to share with us in the meantime.

Several of the responses we have received already have touched directly on the frustrations that people have experienced when trying to contribute to Drupal.org, and we're also aware of various issues regarding community contributions to Drupal.org that have been escalated to the CWG over the last couple of years. While we don't have the power or authority to solve all of these issues, we can (and will) make sure they're reflected in any recommendations we make as a result of the research we're doing.

Those questions have been

Jeff Burnz commented 4 June 2016 at 12:24

Those questions have been addressed.

Looking at the survey (which I have now completed), looks like most questions are not version specific and pretty generalist, I see about half the questions are about D8 which makes sense given this is most fresh in core developers minds, e.g the past 4 or 5 years etc.

Pimp your Drupal 8 Toolbar - make it badass.
Adaptivetheme - theming system for people who don't code.