This page provides additional background and implementation details for the Contributor Dashboard Pilot. It explains how the pilot works, clarifies what is in scope, and provides context beyond the Make announcement post. It is not a final specification, and details may evolve during the pilot phase.
Background & Community Context
The Contributor Dashboard Pilot builds on earlier community exploration and discussion around contributor visibility, engagement, and sustainability across Make teams.
- Previous exploration: WordPress Contribution Health Dashboards (2024 experiment)
The pilot also responds to long-standing community requests for:
- Better visibility into non-code and community contributions
- Clearer understanding of contributor journeys over time
- Cross-team insights into onboarding, engagement, and retention
What the Pilot Is (and Is Not)
What this pilot is:
- An exploratory, learning-focused effort
- A way to test a shared Contributor Ladder across teams
- A dashboard that visualizes aggregate contributor activity patterns
- A foundation for improving contributor experiences and support pathways
What this pilot is not:
- A replacement for Five for the Future
- A new contributor ranking or scoring system
- A comprehensive record of all contributions
- A change to how contributions are currently defined or credited
Contributor Ladder Overview
The pilot uses a shared, behavior-based Contributor Ladder to describe patterns of participation over time:
Connect Contribute Engage Perform Lead
See the Ladder stage definition here.
Key principles:
- The ladder is behavior-based, not role-based.
- Stages describe patterns of participation over time, not contribution value.
- Progression is not required or expected.
- All contribution types and all contributors matter.
The ladder is used as an analytical and learning tool, not as an evaluative or ranking system.
Funnel & Drop-Off Analysis (Conceptual Overview)
In addition to the ladder view, the pilot explores funnel and drop-off analysis to better understand contributor progression and retention.
At a high level, this analysis looks at:
- How contributors move between ladder stages over time
- Typical time spent at each stage
- Where progression slows, pauses, or stops
This analysis is based on aggregate activity patterns, not individual assessment, and is intended to surface system-level insights that can help teams improve onboarding, support, and contributor experiences.
Data Sources & Contributor Activity Signals
For the pilot, we use a limited set of contributor activity signals already available within WordPress.orgWordPress.org The community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/ systems, such as:
- Support activity
- Translation activity
- Event-related participation (where applicable)
These signals are intentionally limited for the pilot phase and are selected to validate the ladder and dashboard approach. Additional signals may be explored in future phases as feasibility, data quality, and alignment become clearer.
Technical Approach
The pilot dashboard is built using a custom WordPress pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party. with an activity-based data model.
- Contributor activity is ingested in batches via a shared APIAPI An API or Application Programming Interface is a software intermediary that allows programs to interact with each other and share data in limited, clearly defined ways.
- Activity records are stored in a structured format
- Activities are mapped to Contributor Ladder stages
- Aggregate queries power dashboard views and insights
This approach allows the pilot to move forward without introducing new infrastructure or external dependencies and aligns with current WordPress.org MetaMeta Meta is a term that refers to the inside workings of a group. For us, this is the team that works on internal WordPress sites like WordCamp Central and Make WordPress. systems and constraints.
Detailed technical notes and examples are documented in GitHub.
Hosting & Infrastructure
During the pilot phase:
- The dashboard is hosted on Pressable to support development, testing, and iteration
- Following the pilot launch, the dashboard will move to WordPress.org infrastructure in a future phase
Timeline & Milestones
Pilot Launch Target: End of February 2026
| January 2026 – Import historical data and initial implementation | – Import data from the activity history available on WP.org – Align the plugin’s contributor activity data model with existing WordPress.org activity systems – Document ladder thresholds for pilot teams – Implement contributor activity mapping and ingestion logic – Establish the initial dashboard structure and data views Milestone: Initial dashboard available using historical contribution activity. |
| Early February 2026 – Testing & Review | – Validate Contributor Activity data delivered by Meta – Review and test ladder progression logic across pilot teams – Identify and address data gaps, inconsistencies, or unclear signals – Refine dashboard layout and visual presentation based on testing feedback – Prepare pilot launch communications Milestone: Pilot dashboard passes internal QA |
| Late February 2026 – Pilot Launch | – Finalize dashboard functionality and visualizations – Launch the multi-team pilot dashboard – Publish the pilot launch announcement Milestone: Pilot launched – End of February 2026 |
Get Involved
Whether during the pilot or after launch, feedback and collaboration are always welcome.
- Join the conversation in #contributor-dashboard on SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/ to ask questions or share ideas.
- Follow development on GitHub and open an issue if you notice a bug, inconsistency, or improvement opportunity.
