#fedora-flock-openqa: I contributed! But what now? - Speaker: Bhagyashree (Bee) Padalkar (bee2502)

Meeting summary

1. Introduction (jflory7, 09:02:59)
   1. Talking about improving contributor retention rates in Fedora contributor community (jflory7, 09:03:16)
   2. Who am I? A data freak! Spends most time in Fedora CommOps working on community-oriented metrics (jflory7, 09:03:52)
   3. Analyzing fedmsg data and how contributors interact, and what we do in the field impacts our project (jflory7, 09:04:27)
   
   
2. What are we talking about? (jflory7, 09:04:34)
   1. Newcomer on-boarding is important, but retainment is critical (jflory7, 09:04:48)
   2. Using data analytics for improving contributor retention (jflory7, 09:05:02)
   3. === Contributor Onboarding and Retention (graph) === (jflory7, 09:05:53)
   4. fedmsg started in 2013, so no data available past that (jflory7, 09:06:08)
   5. Short-term contributor: Did a little bit, were active for around for three months, then left (jflory7, 09:07:45)
   6. Long-term contributors: Stayed active after initial period (jflory7, 09:07:52)
   7. Note about 2016: Inactive members were huge number because of spam attacks in recent months, which affects skew (jflory7, 09:08:15)
   8. Inactive contributors: Have not done anything in Fedora beyond registration (jflory7, 09:08:26)
   9. (Actually, there is a lot more specific criteria about how activity, short-term / long-term is measured, but these are detailed in the slides) (jflory7, 09:08:54)
   
   
3. Contributor On-boarding and Retention (jflory7, 09:09:56)
   1. Around 50% of contributors are classified as "short-term", who contribute for three months and depart (jflory7, 09:11:16)
   2. More than 5,000 new FAS accounts created annually (excluding spam accounts) (jflory7, 09:12:47)
   
   
4. Contributor Survey (jflory7, 09:12:58)
   1. 16 participants, looking at what made them stay as contributors (jflory7, 09:13:34)
   2. None started as Red Hat employees, some are now (jflory7, 09:13:40)
   3. Diverse areas of contributions to range of areas in Fedora (jflory7, 09:13:55)
   4. All intended to remain as long-term contributors to the project when they became active (jflory7, 09:14:26)
   5. === Community matters === (jflory7, 09:14:42)
   6. Not just about loving your work, but a strong FOSS community makes people stay (jflory7, 09:14:58)
   7. Some cited four foundations, a sense of giving back to the community, and constant learning also made them stay (jflory7, 09:15:12)
   8. === Community Ratings === (jflory7, 09:16:24)
   9. === Inspire. Interact. Feedback. === (jflory7, 09:18:56)
   10. Encourage newcomers to speak up in IRC, meetings, and mailing lists (involve newcomers and give them a voice) (jflory7, 09:19:26)
   11. Assign action items (creates sense of responsibility early on) (jflory7, 09:19:36)
   12. Feedback process (IRC karma and Fedora Badges put to good use!) (jflory7, 09:19:48)
   13. https://fedorahosted.org/fedora-badges/ticket/409 (jflory7, 09:21:27)
   14. Interns matter! Whether Outreachy, GSoC, Red Hat, focus on ways on making them stay past their internship (jflory7, 09:22:24)
   
   
5. Onboarding is Important (jflory7, 09:23:44)
   1. Need for mentors, much debated issue, not as feasible (jflory7, 09:23:54)
   2. CommOps has been helping create a defined on-boarding process for different Fedora teams (jflory7, 09:24:15)
   3. === On-boarding Master Ticket === (jflory7, 09:25:16)
   4. https://fedorahosted.org/fedora-commops/ticket/34 (jflory7, 09:26:34)
   5. General on-boarding badges for all sub-projects: (jflory7, 09:26:54)
   6. Licensed to Push (Pagure), hot topic (mailing lists), etc. (jflory7, 09:27:07)
   
   
6. Studying other long-term Fedora contributors (jflory7, 09:27:23)
   1. Patterns in activity of long-time contributors: consistency > activity (jflory7, 09:27:49)
   2. Consistency should be measured / valued perhaps more than short, intense bursts of activity early on in a contributor's "lifecycle" (jflory7, 09:29:22)
   
   
7. Impact of attending Fedora events (jflory7, 09:29:30)
   1. Meeting community in person at events (jflory7, 09:29:37)
   2. Performed some data analytics understanding impact of attending events like FOSDEM and contributionactivity (jflory7, 09:29:57)
   3. Not only great for newcmers but also lead to increase in activity in attendees (jflory7, 09:30:09)
   4. https://networksfordata.wordpress.com/2016/03/08/fedora-at-fosdem/ (jflory7, 09:30:32)
   5. Long-term activity from FOSDEM 2014 badge scanners: noticeable trend from pre- and post-FOSDEM contributions (jflory7, 09:31:52)
   6. Q: "What did you use to measure activity specific from FOSDEM 2014?" (jflory7, 09:32:36)
   7. A: Using the Fedora badge for FOSDEM 2014 enabled us to look at these contributors (jflory7, 09:33:02)
   8. Trend also continued at FOSDEM 2015 (jflory7, 09:34:07)
   
   
8. Conclusion / Open Discussion (jflory7, 09:34:18)
   1. What to take away: community matters for retaining contributors, defining and refining on-boarding series, encourage interactions and create a feedback mechanism (jflory7, 09:35:33)
   2. Individually: attending Fedora events, engaging in mailing lists, IRC, meetings, etc., and look for consistency over just activity (jflory7, 09:36:08)
   3. Shout-out to skamath for helping generate these statistics! (jflory7, 09:36:29)
   4. https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1ANub0RZtqnLaBDzpiQRUkZdnf7n75Pn9H16gb0wZg68/ (jflory7, 09:40:25)

Action items

1. (none)

People present (lines said)

1. jflory7 (84)
2. zodbot (6)
3. skamath (4)