Properly Recognizing Contributors in Large Open Source Projects

Ensuring contributors feel appreciated is essential to the success of any open source project. In its 20+ year history, there have been over 5,400 unique contributors listed on the Credits pages for each version released. But even as one of the largest current FOSS projects powering 43%+ of the Internet, this number is inaccurate and low.

Have you ever considered what a contribution actually is? Where does it come from? Who is contributing and how? How are contributions tracked? What does recognition mean to contributors? And why is the number above lower than it should be?

Come learn about the types of recognition the WordPress project currently has, where the blindspots are, what the challenges are at scale, and what’s being done to overcome these obstacles in order to ensure every contributor feels appropriately recognized to create a more stable supporting community.