Developer and Community Engagement update: September 2025

Community
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Hi all, here's what I've been working on since my last update. Before getting to that, though, I wanted to note that I'll be out for the next two weeks.

  • BarCamp! It was really motivating to hear from folks across the community about how they use and rely on OpenRefine to do their work. The developer sessions were also helpful for getting context on how people contribute (and sometimes why they don't). I showed some contributor metrics and I'll be sure to share a fuller version of that dashboard once I return from my trip.
  • We released version 3.9.5, which resolved an issue connecting to Wikimedia. This required a lot of coordination between different projects. It felt like a bit of a scramble at the time but my impression is that folks generally felt it was a quick response to an unexpected change. Thank you to the contributors who made it possible to identify, fix, and test these changes!
  • There's been a lot of activity on GitHub recently, which has been great to see and just a little tough to keep track of. My apologies if I've missed a review or followed up a little late.

As for what's coming up in the next month:

  • Once I return, I'll be presenting at Wikiconference North America with Esther! We'll be talking about existing and future ways to strengthen the relationship between the Wikimedia and OpenRefine communities. We present at the end of the day on Friday, October 17th. If you're around, please reach out and say hello!
  • I’ll be participating in an open-source workshop with Julie and Esther. I’m looking forward to using this time to learn from other open source communities, particularly around growing the contributor base. In addition to the other topics in the curriculum, I’ll be thinking a lot about contributor pathways and roles.

As I mentioned in my last update, I'm tracking certain high-level tasks on this Trello board. Please feel free to reach out if you have any questions or comments about the work mentioned there. It's not an exhaustive list of what I'm up to but hopefully provides more context about what I'm focusing on.

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I wanted to note that I'll be out for the next two weeks.

Have a great vacation!

As I mentioned in my last update, I'm tracking certain high-level tasks on this Trello board. Please feel free to reach out if you have any questions or comments about the work mentioned there. It's not an exhaustive list of what I'm up to but hopefully provides more context about what I'm focusing on.

I must have missed this last month. Is there a strong need to introduce an additional tool to the mix? Could this be done with Github issues (or projects) where it'll be more visible?

Regarding the current Trello board contents:

  • is a 3.10 release still on your ToDo list? I've been using this milestone. Is there anything else that should be added? (Some of those are "nice to haves" which can be deferred)
  • is there an issue associated with "Draft documentation for testing extensions"? If not, we should create one
  • a contributor stats dashboard seems like a good candidate for a Github issue to give it visibility
  • a Wikiconference presentation seems like another good candidate
  • V.next planning would be a good thing to kick off in parallel with the 3.10 release

(Note this is just personal feedback and isn't meant to contradict whatever the project committee is telling you to do).

See you (online) in a couple of weeks!

Tom

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There’s no strong need, no. My intention was to find a quick way to move my personal task-tracking, which doesn’t provide a shareable link, into a public-facing tool. Trello seemed like the path of least resistance. Unless anyone objects, I’ll move this into a GitHub project once I’m back. Since it’s intended to track tasks that don’t all fit into one repository I figure it could be an organization-level project.

It is. I saw the 3.10 milestone on GitHub, thank you for creating that. The only thing I’d like to add is the resolution to the drag and drop feature as discussed on #7345.