My take: 7 is about right :) On Mon, Sep 21, 2026 at 10:10 PM Jarek Potiuk <[email protected]> wrote:
> Happy to provide more datapoints. It's sooooooo easy with AI nowadays - > here are your weekly stats for last year. > > > ┌────────────────────┬──────┬───────────────────────┬────────────────────┬──────┬──────────────────┐ > │ Week │ Open │ │ Week │ > Open │ │ > > ├────────────────────┼──────┼───────────────────────┼────────────────────┼──────┼──────────────────┤ > │ 2025-09-29 → 11-24 │ 0 │ (no PRs yet) │ 2026-03-23 │ > 10 │ ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇ +4 −0 │ > > ├────────────────────┼──────┼───────────────────────┼────────────────────┼──────┼──────────────────┤ > │ 2025-12-01 │ 1 │ ▇ +1 │ 2026-03-30 │ > 10 │ ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇ +2 −2 │ > > ├────────────────────┼──────┼───────────────────────┼────────────────────┼──────┼──────────────────┤ > │ 2025-12-08 │ 1 │ ▇ +1 −1 │ 2026-04-06 │ > 10 │ ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇ +2 −2 │ > > ├────────────────────┼──────┼───────────────────────┼────────────────────┼──────┼──────────────────┤ > │ 2025-12-15 │ 0 │ −1 │ 2026-04-13 │ > 9 │ ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇ −1 │ > > ├────────────────────┼──────┼───────────────────────┼────────────────────┼──────┼──────────────────┤ > │ 2025-12-22 │ 1 │ ▇ +2 −1 │ 2026-04-20 │ > 8 │ ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇ −1 │ > > ├────────────────────┼──────┼───────────────────────┼────────────────────┼──────┼──────────────────┤ > │ 2025-12-29 │ 2 │ ▇▇ +1 │ 2026-04-27 │ > 7 │ ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇ −1 │ > > ├────────────────────┼──────┼───────────────────────┼────────────────────┼──────┼──────────────────┤ > │ 2026-01-05 │ 3 │ ▇▇▇ +1 │ 2026-05-04 │ > 6 │ ▇▇▇▇▇▇ +2 −3 │ > > ├────────────────────┼──────┼───────────────────────┼────────────────────┼──────┼──────────────────┤ > │ 2026-01-12 │ 2 │ ▇▇ −1 │ 2026-05-11 │ > 7 │ ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇ +4 −3 │ > > ├────────────────────┼──────┼───────────────────────┼────────────────────┼──────┼──────────────────┤ > │ 2026-01-19 │ 4 │ ▇▇▇▇ +2 │ 2026-05-18 │ > 8 │ ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇ +3 −2 │ > > ├────────────────────┼──────┼───────────────────────┼────────────────────┼──────┼──────────────────┤ > │ 2026-01-26 │ 4 │ ▇▇▇▇ +3 −3 │ 2026-05-25 │ > 7 │ ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇ +2 −3 │ > > ├────────────────────┼──────┼───────────────────────┼────────────────────┼──────┼──────────────────┤ > │ 2026-02-02 │ 7 │ ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇ +4 −1 │ 2026-06-01 │ > 6 │ ▇▇▇▇▇▇ +2 −3 │ > > ├────────────────────┼──────┼───────────────────────┼────────────────────┼──────┼──────────────────┤ > │ 2026-02-09 │ 8 │ ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇ +3 −2 │ 2026-06-08 │ > 4 │ ▇▇▇▇ +1 −3 │ > > ├────────────────────┼──────┼───────────────────────┼────────────────────┼──────┼──────────────────┤ > │ 2026-02-16 │ 8 │ ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇ +5 −5 │ 2026-06-15 │ > 7 │ ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇ +5 −2 │ > > ├────────────────────┼──────┼───────────────────────┼────────────────────┼──────┼──────────────────┤ > │ 2026-02-23 │ 10 │ ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇ +2 │ 2026-06-22 │ > 9 │ ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇ +3 −1 │ > > ├────────────────────┼──────┼───────────────────────┼────────────────────┼──────┼──────────────────┤ > │ 2026-03-02 │ 15 │ ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇ +7 −2 │ 2026-06-29 │ > 10 │ ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇ +4 −3 │ > > ├────────────────────┼──────┼───────────────────────┼────────────────────┼──────┼──────────────────┤ > │ 2026-03-09 │ 13 │ ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇ +3 −5 │ 2026-07-06 │ > 6 │ ▇▇▇▇▇▇ +1 −5 │ > > ├────────────────────┼──────┼───────────────────────┼────────────────────┼──────┼──────────────────┤ > │ 2026-03-16 │ 6 │ ▇▇▇▇▇▇ +4 −11 │ 2026-07-13 → 07-20 │ > 6 │ ▇▇▇▇▇▇ │ > > ├────────────────────┼──────┼───────────────────────┼────────────────────┼──────┼──────────────────┤ > │ │ │ │ 2026-07-27 │ > 3 │ ▇▇▇ +1 −4 │ > > ├────────────────────┼──────┼───────────────────────┼────────────────────┼──────┼──────────────────┤ > │ │ │ │ 2026-08-03 → 08-10 │ > 5 │ ▇▇▇▇▇ │ > > ├────────────────────┼──────┼───────────────────────┼────────────────────┼──────┼──────────────────┤ > │ │ │ │ 2026-08-17 │ > 4 │ ▇▇▇▇ −2 │ > > ├────────────────────┼──────┼───────────────────────┼────────────────────┼──────┼──────────────────┤ > │ │ │ │ 2026-08-24 │ > 6 │ ▇▇▇▇▇▇ +2 │ > > ├────────────────────┼──────┼───────────────────────┼────────────────────┼──────┼──────────────────┤ > │ │ │ │ 2026-08-31 │ > 7 │ ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇ +2 −1 │ > > ├────────────────────┼──────┼───────────────────────┼────────────────────┼──────┼──────────────────┤ > │ │ │ │ 2026-09-07 │ > 9 │ ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇ +3 −1 │ > > ├────────────────────┼──────┼───────────────────────┼────────────────────┼──────┼──────────────────┤ > │ │ │ │ 2026-09-14 │ > 8 │ ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇ −1 │ > > ├────────────────────┼──────┼───────────────────────┼────────────────────┼──────┼──────────────────┤ > │ │ │ │ 2026-09-21 │ > 6 │ ▇▇▇▇▇▇ −2 │ > > └────────────────────┴──────┴───────────────────────┴────────────────────┴──────┴──────────────────┘ > > Summary: first PR 2025-11-27, so the whole history is 43 weeks. 90 PRs > authored, 81 merged, 3 closed, 6 open now. Weekly average 6.4 open, peak 15 > (week of 2026-03-02), and the queue drained hard the following fortnight > (−11 in the week of 03-16, the largest single-week clearance). > > On Mon, Sep 21, 2026 at 9:42 PM Sameer Mesiah <[email protected]> > wrote: > >> Hi Jarek, >> >> Thank you for pulling up the statistics. It really helps us understand the >> situation better. But I think these point-in-time numbers can sometimes >> mask the natural deviations in activity for most contributors. Since you >> took me as an example of someone who would hardly be affected by this new >> policy, I think we need to look at the maximum number of PRs I had open >> over my history of contributing. My memory is not 100% accurate of course >> but I recall having 15-20 open PRs at one point. And right around the time >> of the summit, I am fairly sure I had 10 open PRs (some in draft though I >> am not sure if this policy applies to draft PRs) which then went down to 6 >> as the maintainers returned to start reviewing and merging my PRs again. I >> do not fault the maintainers of course as I understand the review queue is >> going to deprioritised during that period due to intense summit >> preparations. >> >> I would say I’m opening fewer PRs nowadays (unfortunately other >> commitments just get in the way even when you really want to contribute as >> a volunteer). So the 6 open PRs statistic might have caught me in a low >> point. >> >> I do not wish to make this thread about myself but I suspect other >> contributors’ activity might have similar patterns. Periods where they >> have >> lots of open PRs and then periods where they only have a handful. You can >> clearly see this in the statistics of people in bucket A who you seem to >> categorize as ‘good’ contributors. >> >> If you are insistent on this policy, I think a 10 PR limit might be a more >> reasonable middle ground. It will prevent bots and bad faith contributors >> from spamming 50 PRs but it won’t be excessively restrictive. >> >> On Mon, 21 Sep 2026 at 20:23, Jarek Potiuk <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> > Correction: Thursday the 24th at 7:00pm CEST. - which is 72 hrs from the >> > beginning of that thread, >> > >> > And one more comment: I thought for a long time about the metrics >> "Threads >> > vs. PRs". For me this is **embodiment** of community-aware, empathic >> > contributor - on the way to become a commmiter. And I **knew** - >> because I >> > checked it before - that practically **all** committers have a very high >> > number here. >> > >> > I deliberately never mentioned it in our discussions. As we all know, >> > anything you set as a goal stops being a useful metric. There are always >> > ways to game the system. >> > >> > That's why I waited for quite a while to accumulate the data and showed >> > completely different numbers - and never discussed the thread vs. PRs >> idea >> > - to ensure this particular metric remained totally unbiased. >> > And - just for the record - this is the last time this metric will be >> > unbiased—now that we will publicly say we "care" about it. >> > >> > And here is Claude's analysis on those top-20. And my thinking is that >> we >> > should care about the needs of groups in this way: A > B > C. >> > >> > ------------ >> > >> > Three buckets, all 24 (top-19 + the five-way tie at 6 open PRs) >> > >> > Bucket rule, stated up front so the borderline calls are visible: >> > engagement = others' threads per open PR (≥1.5 counts as engaged), >> quality >> > = all-time merge rate (≥40% healthy). I picked these thresholds to match >> > where the data actually clusters - there's a real gap between 1.7 and >> 0.8 >> > on engagement, and between 40% and 31% on the merge rate. >> > >> > --- >> > >> > A. Net reviewers — they give back more than they ask for (9 people, 103 >> > open PRs) >> > >> > ┌─────────────────┬──────┬─────────────────┬─────────┬─────────┐ >> > │ Author │ Open │ Threads/open PR │ Reviews │ Merge % │ >> > ├─────────────────┼──────┼─────────────────┼─────────┼─────────┤ >> > │ SameerMesiah97 │ 6 │ 60.3 │ 350 │ 90% │ >> > ├─────────────────┼──────┼─────────────────┼─────────┼─────────┤ >> > │ shivaam │ 6 │ 13.0 │ 55 │ 67% │ >> > ├─────────────────┼──────┼─────────────────┼─────────┼─────────┤ >> > │ Vamsi-klu │ 10 │ 10.8 │ 58 │ 38% │ >> > ├─────────────────┼──────┼─────────────────┼─────────┼─────────┤ >> > │ Andrushika │ 9 │ 4.6 │ 33 │ 79% │ >> > ├─────────────────┼──────┼─────────────────┼─────────┼─────────┤ >> > │ yuseok89 │ 12 │ 3.8 │ 49 │ 77% │ >> > ├─────────────────┼──────┼─────────────────┼─────────┼─────────┤ >> > │ steveahnahn │ 14 │ 3.2 │ 40 │ 59% │ >> > ├─────────────────┼──────┼─────────────────┼─────────┼─────────┤ >> > │ ColtenOuO │ 23 │ 2.6 │ 70 │ 59% │ >> > ├─────────────────┼──────┼─────────────────┼─────────┼─────────┤ >> > │ stephen-bracken │ 6 │ 2.3 │ 16 │ 56% │ >> > ├─────────────────┼──────┼─────────────────┼─────────┼─────────┤ >> > │ fat-catTW │ 17 │ 1.7 │ 33 │ 50% │ >> > └─────────────────┴──────┴─────────────────┴─────────┴─────────┘ >> > >> > Vamsi-klu is the odd one: 108 threads and 58 reviews (bucket-A >> engagement) >> > on a 38% merge rate. Placed here because the review effort is >> unambiguous. >> > fat-catTW and stephen-bracken are the borderline entries - drop the >> > threshold to 2.0 and fat-catTW moves out. >> > >> > B. Shippers, not reviewers - volume with normal merge rates (6 people, >> 115 >> > open PRs) >> > >> > ┌───────────────┬──────┬─────────────────┬─────────┬─────────┐ >> > │ Author │ Open │ Threads/open PR │ Reviews │ Merge % │ >> > ├───────────────┼──────┼─────────────────┼─────────┼─────────┤ >> > │ Eason09053360 │ 35 │ 0.3 │ 13 │ 52% │ >> > ├───────────────┼──────┼─────────────────┼─────────┼─────────┤ >> > │ 1fanwang │ 34 │ 0.8 │ 36 │ 40% │ >> > ├───────────────┼──────┼─────────────────┼─────────┼─────────┤ >> > │ rjgoyln │ 27 │ 0.7 │ 34 │ 53% │ >> > ├───────────────┼──────┼─────────────────┼─────────┼─────────┤ >> > │ Samin061 │ 7 │ 0.4 │ 4 │ 58% │ >> > ├───────────────┼──────┼─────────────────┼─────────┼─────────┤ >> > │ jeff3071 │ 6 │ 0.3 │ 7 │ 46% │ >> > ├───────────────┼──────┼─────────────────┼─────────┼─────────┤ >> > │ YAshhh29 │ 6 │ 0.2 │ 1 │ 45% │ >> > └───────────────┴──────┴─────────────────┴─────────┴─────────┘ >> > >> > The work lands—merge rates here are ordinary, some above >> committer-adjacent >> > levels—but the top three are carrying 96 open PRs between them while >> having >> > commented on 56 of other people's threads in total. 1fanwang sits >> exactly >> > on the 40% line. >> > >> > C. Low engagement and low merge rate (9 people, 82 open PRs) >> > >> > ┌───────────────────┬──────┬─────────────────┬─────────┬─────────┐ >> > │ Author │ Open │ Threads/open PR │ Reviews │ Merge % │ >> > ├───────────────────┼──────┼─────────────────┼─────────┼─────────┤ >> > │ bujjibabukatta │ 16 │ 0.2 │ 5 │ 11% │ >> > ├───────────────────┼──────┼─────────────────┼─────────┼─────────┤ >> > │ anmolxlight │ 12 │ 0.4 │ 12 │ 31% │ >> > ├───────────────────┼──────┼─────────────────┼─────────┼─────────┤ >> > │ dheerenmohta │ 10 │ 0.2 │ 0 │ 28% │ >> > ├───────────────────┼──────┼─────────────────┼─────────┼─────────┤ >> > │ namanjain24-sudo │ 8 │ 1.1 │ 1 │ 11% │ >> > ├───────────────────┼──────┼─────────────────┼─────────┼─────────┤ >> > │ Kunal8954 │ 8 │ 0.8 │ 6 │ 20% │ >> > ├───────────────────┼──────┼─────────────────┼─────────┼─────────┤ >> > │ bramhanandlingala │ 8 │ 0.0 │ 1 │ 22% │ >> > ├───────────────────┼──────┼─────────────────┼─────────┼─────────┤ >> > │ zozo123 │ 7 │ 0.1 │ 6 │ 17% │ >> > ├───────────────────┼──────┼─────────────────┼─────────┼─────────┤ >> > │ GayathriSrividya │ 7 │ 0.0 │ 9 │ 22% │ >> > ├───────────────────┼──────┼─────────────────┼─────────┼─────────┤ >> > │ nagasrisai │ 6 │ 0.7 │ 6 │ 29% │ >> > └───────────────────┴──────┴─────────────────┴─────────┴─────────┘ >> > >> > bramhanandlingala and GayathriSrividya have commented on zero threads >> they >> > didn't author. This bucket is 82 open PRs with an aggregate merge rate >> > around 21% - roughly four reviews spent per PR that eventually lands. >> > >> > >> > >> > J. >> > >> > >> > On Mon, Sep 21, 2026 at 9:09 PM Henry Chen <[email protected]> >> wrote: >> > >> > > Thanks Jarek and Vincent for the detailed data and perspective that >> > > context is really helpful. Seeing the actual numbers (especially that >> > even >> > > the top contributors rarely hit 5 open PRs), a cap of 5 makes sense >> to me >> > > as a starting point. Happy to go with it and adjust later if we find >> it's >> > > too tight in practice. >> > > >> > > Thanks >> > > Henry >> > > >> > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- >> > > To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] >> > > For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected] >> > > >> > > >> > >> >
