DrupalCon Portland 2013: NEW CONTRIBUTORS & CORE INITIATIVES
Channel: Drupal Association
Date: 22/05/2013

Drupal core initiatives have great potential for involving new contributors. Initiatives attract contributors because they are about improving what matters: solving shared problems and adding cool new functionality. The extra organization and planning that goes into core initiatives also provides structure for contributors who might get lost in the 10,000 issues of the core queue. Still, core initiatives often struggle to find ways to involve new contributors, even as they struggle to find enough contributors to complete their goals within a release cycle.

We'll explore challenges that initiative leads have described when considering the role of new contributors, and propose solutions. We'll also discuss what novice contributors bring to initiatives.

Some topics:

What novice contributors have that you don't.
Strategies for engaging new contributors (and keeping them).
Identifying tasks new contributors can do. (One issue includes many tasks!)
Scaling your novices' participation (and yourself).
How you can take advantage of core contribution mentoring.
Our goal is to provide community members with simple strategies for making novice contributors a part of their process, no matter how technically complex their goals. In the long term, it's an investment that will strengthen both our community initiatives and our contributor base.