Can we optimize communities
summary
A two‑year Chan Zuckerberg–backed pilot supports NumPy SciPy Matplotlib and pandas with paid contributor‑experience leads and after one year shows concrete changes: new contributor meetings running across time zones, added Slack spaces, an inactive PRs policy and triage guides, experiments with gitpod and GitHub actions, and ongoing work on getbot automation. Measurement stays messy—Linux Foundation data shows 82% men in open source—but onboarding sessions and documented policies produce more repeat contributors and smoother handoffs.
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chapters (10)
- 0:00Introduction
- 7:27Contributor experience work
- 12:02Skills and activities of leads
- 16:55Grant progress and new contributors
- 22:19Measuring success in communities
- 26:41Diversity and inclusion metrics
- 32:01Improving open source communities
- 36:34Bounded rationality in optimization
- 39:46Leadership and psychological safety
- 44:16Q&A
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