New Developers/Quarterly

New Developers Quarterly is a report covering activities, metrics, surveys and lessons learned in the Onboarding New Developers program during the fiscal year 2017-2018. This page lists previous quarterly reports and summary of key findings. To receive a notification when a new report is published, SUBSCRIBE.

July 2018, Issue 4
This report covers results from April to June 2018.

April 2018, Issue 3
This report covers results from January to March 2018.

January 2018, Issue 2
This report covers results from September to December 2017.

October 2017, Issue 1
This report covers results from July to September 2017.

Summary of key findings
Here is what we’ve gathered as key findings from the previous reports (formed through responses collected from 61 new developers and metrics data via Technical Community Metrics):


 * There isn’t much difference observed in the number of new developers we are drawing or retaining quarter over quarter. On an average, we attract 52 developers per quarter and retain 4.


 * Most new developers who get attracted to our projects are working professionals. However, students get onboard through our targeted outreach efforts via mentoring programs such as Google Summer of Code, Outreachy, and Google Code-in.


 * On an average, we attract very few (~22%) female and non-binary volunteer developers to our projects. However, in the quarter we participated in Outreachy, the same % was much higher (~33%).


 * New developers continue to struggle with the code contribution process. They experience more or less same set of challenges each quarter with understanding Gerrit, code-review, coding conventions, and missing documentation.


 * A lot of new developers feel encouraged to contribute to our projects through someone who they know in Wikimedia ecosystem, or by attending a technical event or workshop.


 * Former developers who were last active a year ago expressed frustrations with slow code review process. Though, the notably low response rate (4.8%) from former developers indicated their lack of interest in the topic, their frustrations with slow code review process were signs of demotivating them to contribute further.


 * Despite all of the challenges shared by new developers, the majority of them expressed satisfaction in contributing to Wikimedia. In addition, they also want to recommend it as a place for code contribution to their friends.