A Contributor Dashboard Pilot Project is currently underway and seeks to respond to ongoing community feedback around understanding how contributors join the project, participate across Make teams, and grow over time, building on earlier community work while addressing gaps in visibility for non-code contributions spread across multiple tools and systems.
Project Overview
The project is in an active development phase and is being led by Felipe Velzani, Juan Hernando, and Kel Santiago-Pilarski. A limited, multi-team pilot launch is planned for the end of February 2026.
At the core of the pilot is a Contributor Dashboard structured around a shared “Contributor Ladder” framework that outlines stages of participation: Connect, Contribute, Engage, Perform, and Lead.
The framework is described as behavior-based and intended to reflect patterns of involvement over time, rather than ranking contributors or prioritizing certain types of contributions as stated, “ The ladder is behavior-based and describes patterns of participation over time. It does not rank contributors or imply that some contributions matter more than others. All contribution types and all contributors matter.”
The dashboard is designed to help teams better understand participation trends as stated, “ The goal is to help teams understand participation patterns, identify where support may be needed, and improve contributor experiences over time.”
To achieve this, the pilot uses a custom plugin that maps existing contribution data from WordPress.org systems to the ladder stages. “ For the pilot, we’re taking a multi-team approach using a custom plugin that maps existing contribution activity from WordPress.org systems to ladder stages.”
This approach allows teams to test the model and identify data gaps without introducing new infrastructure or additional requirements for contributors, as said, “ This activity-based approach allows us to validate the model, identify data gaps, and gather cross-team insights without introducing new infrastructure or requirements for contributors.”
The scope of the pilot is intentionally limited. It focuses on a small set of existing contribution signals and does not attempt to capture all activity across Make teams. Kel Santiago-Pilarski also stressed that the project also does not replace existing initiatives such as Five for the Future or current recognition programs, “ The pilot does not replace or change Five for the Future, contributor recognition programs, or existing team processes, and it introduces no new requirements for contributors or Make teams.”
Contributor privacy has also been addressed, and the dashboard does not surface sensitive or personal information, and does not create new contributor profiles, “Contributor privacy is a core consideration. The dashboard uses existing WordPress.org accounts and activity data, does not display personal or sensitive information, and does not create new contributor profiles.”
During the pilot phase, the dashboard will be hosted on Pressable to support development and testing, with a possible move to WordPress.org infrastructure in the future. Development and review are scheduled for January and February 2026, leading up to the pilot launch at the end of February.
Get Involved
The project team has invited contributors from across Make teams to participate. Interested contributors are encouraged to comment on the original post, connect via the Five for the Future Slack channel, or follow development through GitHub and the project’s public reference materials.