LocalGov Drupal credits system
LocalGov Drupal is an open source project powered by contributions from the community of councils and suppliers using the software. Contributions can be financial (primarily in the form of subscription fees) and in time and effort.
We want to acknowledge as many contributions as possible, give credit where credit is due, and incentivise contributions in areas where we need more help.
The contribution credits will also be used to help assess the levels of the certified supplier scheme ( you can find more information on the benefits of becoming a certified supplier on our website).
Our credit system follows the guidance set out in the Drupal Association's credit system, which has successfully been in operation for many years.
Code contributions are welcome, and we credit work on bug fixing, feature development, maintenance, and Drupal version compatibility.
We also recognise the value of non-code contributions, including accessibility auditing, documentation, user research and design, and governance.
Eligible Contributions
There are many ways to contribute to LocalGov Drupal.
Below, we have listed many of the ways you can contribute, but there will be others we haven’t thought of yet!
All contributions receive at least 1 credit.
We apply a custom weighting based on our own assessment and priorities, but these will be subject to regular review and discussion (see more below).
| Contribution type | Description | Credits |
|---|---|---|
| Community participation | ||
| Attendance, speaking or facilitation | We will credit anyone who attends, presents or facilitates at an LGD meetup or event | 1 |
| Working Group | Participating in design workshops, conducting user research or testing. | 1 |
| External events | Representing LocalGov Drupal at external events such as LocalGov Camp, Gov Camp, DrupalCon / Drupal Camps. | 3 |
| Slack support | Currently, we cannot credit support provided on Slack, though we know how valuable this is. We hope to be able to allow this in future. | N/A |
| Support and Education | ||
| Documentation | Updating and improving existing documentation pages, or writing new documentation pages including policy documents on our Docs site. | 3 |
| Educational Content | Creating and contributing videos, tutorials, and other educational materials. | 3 |
| Case Studies | Writing case studies and sharing insights from council projects for publishing on localgovdrupal.org | 3 |
| Design and Accessibility | ||
| User Research | Sharing user research to gather feedback and insights. | 3 |
| UX and Design | Creating wireframes, prototypes, and visual designs to improve user experience. | 3 |
| Accessibility Audits | Performing an accessibility audit on an LGD module to ensure compliance with the latest WCAG standards and best practice. | 3 |
| Code and Development | ||
| Feature development | Building and releasing a new module on drupal.org in line with Policy for adding a new feature, functionality or modules to LocalGov Drupal | 1 |
| Bugs | Fixing bugs or code related issues such as accessibility. | 1 |
| Reviewing pull requests (QA) | Reviewing and approving code contributions from the community. | 1 |
| Module Maintenance | Ensuring any module is up-to-date with latest security releases or Drupal versions. | 1 |
| Priority | ||
| Migrating an LGD module to drupal.org | Any work related to migrating an LGD module to drupal.org | 10 |
| Financial support | ||
| Event sponsorship | Sponsors of any LGD event will receive additional credits for their sponsorship | 5 |
| New council subscriber | Persuading a new council to become a subscriber | 5 |
How to get credits
You will need an individual user account and an organisation on drupal.org to get credits.
- To register for a user account on Drupal.org: https://www.drupal.org/user/register?destination=user/regsiter
- To add an organisation: https://www.drupal.org/node/add/organization
(You can follow the guidance on Getting credit for work on issues page to do this.)
All non-code contributions must be logged under LocalGov Drupal Contributions. This covers anything under Community Participation, Support and Education and Financial support above.
Currently, the majority of LGD modules / projects are not on drupal.org.
During this transition period, if you want to receive a credit for work done, you must create an issue on LocalGov Drupal Contributions once the issue is closed in Github.
We have given extra weighting to any work done migrating LGD projects to drupal.org.
Contributions to a specific module should be logged under the specific project on drupal.org once (once it has been migrated).
Making an attribution
Whenever you comment on an issue on Drupal.org, your contribution will automatically be credited to you as an individual.
You need to manually add organisations to contributions using the dropdown above your comment in the ‘Attribute this contribution’ fields. There are two fields:
- Organisation = Your company
- Customer = LocalGov Drupal
Once you set this, the default values will stay for future comments; if you have multiple employers or customers, be sure to change these as necessary.
If you need to modify the attribution you made, you can do so by editing the attribution with your comment. However, once the overall issue credit has been assigned by a maintainer, it can no longer be edited.
How do we credit someone who has contributed to paid LGD core time?
As above, make sure the customer is “LocalGov Drupal” NOT the organisation.
Which projects / modules can I get credits for?
We will credit work on any LocalGov Drupal module, and we maintain a list of these.
There are other contributed modules which LocalGov Drupal depends on heavily, which are also eligible for credits:
How do we decide on credit weightings?
We have taken heavy inspiration from the Drupal Association’s system: https://www.drupal.org/drupalorg/docs/marketplace/contribution-credit-weight-and-impact-on-ranking
In the first instance, the core team has set the credit weightings in the table above. These are subject to review, and we invite feedback and suggestions from the community.
On Drupal.org, all contributions receive one credit. We will add weighting to our spreadsheet, which is how we will assess enhanced certified supplier accreditation.
This spreadsheet is updated once per quarter and shared in the subscriber channel.
Weightings are applied at the end of each quarter when credits are reviewed.
How are changes to the credit criteria proposed?
Community members may propose changes (additions or alterations) to the credit weighting through our lazy consensus process.
To propose a change:
- Create an issue: https://github.com/localgovdrupal/docs/issues or click the “Help us improve this page!” Link at the bottom of a page
- Create a pull request off this issue with the proposed change
- Assign the pull request to Aaron Hirtenstein (Community Lead)
- Share the issue and /or pull request on Slack in the subscribers chanel
- Wait for 2 weeks
- If there are no objections, we’ll merge the change.
- If there are objections, we’ll discuss in an appropriate forum.
Note: for the above you will need a Github account. If you have any trouble creating issues or merge requests, please ask for help in Slack.
Reviewing credit criteria and weightings
Credit criteria and weightings will be reviewed at:
- Annual review of subscribers
- Quarterly contributions team review
- Other regular meetings (product group, tech gov, content team) review
Guidelines for granting credits
We follow the guidelines set out by the Drupal Association for granting issues credits:
- Good intentions are assumed from each contributor. All of us began as beginners and we know that there is always a learning process.
- Contributions must help to move an issue forward to receive credit. The repetition of previous tasks will not be credited.
- Project maintainers strive to provide constructive feedback and encourage an environment where constructive feedback is the norm.
- Project maintainers believe in mentoring contributors and may provide guidance to aid with more helpful contributions in the future.
- Project maintainers manually review the credit suggested by the Drupal.org user interface to subtract from and/or add to the list.
- Project maintainers should transfer credit from issues marked as duplicate to the issue remaining open.
- When a user repeatedly posts low-quality contributions, project maintainers may reach out to them about best practices and to help them find a way to productively contribute.
Their guidance also covers examples of what does and does not constitute a creditable contribution.
We know this focuses primarily on different types of code contributions and are working on more guidance for non-code contributions.
Evaluation of Contributions
To ensure that all contributions are valuable and beneficial to the LocalGov Drupal project, we evaluate each contribution based on predefined criteria. These criteria ensure contributions meet the project’s standards and requirements.
What constitutes a valuable contribution?
The purpose of any contribution should be to provide value to the project:
- Align with project goals: contributions should support the overarching goals of LocalGov Drupal, enhancing its functionality, usability, and reach.
- Meet quality standards: code contributions must adhere to the quality standards set by LocalGov Drupal, ensuring they are well-documented, tested, and maintainable.
- Can be vouched for by people within the community: contributions, such as code or design changes, may require approval from the technical governance group or the relevant working group before being accepted.
Abuse of the Contribution Credit system
We follow the guidelines set out by the Drupal Association in assessing any abuse of the credit system. See Abuse of the Contribution Credit system | Marketplace guidelines.
We also plan to develop our own guidance as the system evolves.
Roles and Responsibilities
- Community Lead: oversees the subscriptions and contribution process, provides support to contributors, and oversees any issues or disputes.
- Technical Lead: together with the Technical Governance Group, reviews and approves technical contributions, ensuring they meet quality and technical standards.
- Product Lead: together with the Product Group, prioritises contributions based on the project’s strategic goals and current needs.