Обсуждение: PostgreSQL Contributor levels

We have this curated list of PostgreSQL Contributors on the website:
https://www.postgresql.org/community/contributors/
There are two levels currently (3 when counting the Core Team):
* Major Contributor
* Contributor

You are a "Contributor" when you appear on this list.

But we also have long lists of "individuals [who] have contributed" in
the release notes:
https://www.postgresql.org/docs/17/release-17.html#RELEASE-17-ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

You are a contributor when you contributed to the release.

Clearly, there are more ways to contribute, and the term "Contributor"
on the curated list should probably be more specific.

In the Contributors Team, we have been floating around ideas on
how the structure should look like in the future, but we would like to
gather more input from the project.

* People put high value in the curated list (people get hired for
  being in there), so we try to keep the standards high.

* At the same time, we want to be more inclusive. People in the
  release notes are clearly contributors as well, so we are thinking
  about adding a 3rd category.

* We need (at least) a better name for "Contributor" (currently level 2).
  Ideas included "Sustained Contributor" and "Recognized Contributor",
  but there are probably better ideas.

* If we add a (low threshold, easy to get into) 3rd level, we need a
  name. Maybe "Acknowledged Contributor", maybe just "Contributor".

* "Major Contributor" is probably fine.

* It's not yet clear how we would present 3 levels in that list, as the
  page is currently already very long. Possibly the 3rd level would
  appear in a separate page.

* A related project (to be discussed in parallel) is introducing
  contributor tags/badges like "PG 18 contributor" "PG committer" or
  "PGconf.EU 2025 organzier" that we could show in the list or related
  pages. Getting tags/badges would then likely bring people into the
  3rd level.

Any feedback or input is welcome!

Christoph

On 8/15/25 10:30, Christoph Berg wrote:
> We have this curated list of PostgreSQL Contributors on the website:
> https://www.postgresql.org/community/contributors/
> There are two levels currently (3 when counting the Core Team):
> * Major Contributor
> * Contributor
> 
> You are a "Contributor" when you appear on this list.
> 
> But we also have long lists of "individuals [who] have contributed" in
> the release notes:
> https://www.postgresql.org/docs/17/release-17.html#RELEASE-17-ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
> 
> You are a contributor when you contributed to the release.
> 
> Clearly, there are more ways to contribute, and the term "Contributor"
> on the curated list should probably be more specific.


> * We need (at least) a better name for "Contributor" (currently level 2).
>    Ideas included "Sustained Contributor" and "Recognized Contributor",
>    but there are probably better ideas.
> 
> * If we add a (low threshold, easy to get into) 3rd level, we need a
>    name. Maybe "Acknowledged Contributor", maybe just "Contributor".
> 
> * "Major Contributor" is probably fine.

I think sticking with gradations of Contributor is fine, as in:

Major Contributor
Sustained Contributor
Contributor

> 
> * It's not yet clear how we would present 3 levels in that list, as the
>    page is currently already very long. Possibly the 3rd level would
>    appear in a separate page.

Something like?:

https://getbootstrap.com/docs/5.3/components/accordion/#how-it-works


> Any feedback or input is welcome!
> 
> Christoph
> 
> 


-- 
Adrian Klaver
adrian.klaver@aklaver.com

On Aug 16, 2025, at 10:48, Jimmy Angelakos <vyruss@hellug.gr> wrote:

> I think "Significant Contributor" fits in between "Major Contributor" and "Contributor”.

+1 to “Significant Contributor”. Seems to capture the nuance best of anything I can think of.

D

On Sat, 2025-08-16 at 13:11 -0400, David E. Wheeler wrote:
> On Aug 16, 2025, at 10:48, Jimmy Angelakos <vyruss@hellug.gr> wrote:
>
> > I think "Significant Contributor" fits in between "Major Contributor" and "Contributor”.
>
> +1 to “Significant Contributor”. Seems to capture the nuance best of anything I can think of.

+1

Laurenz Albe

On 15.08.25 19:30, Christoph Berg wrote:
> You are a "Contributor" when you appear on this list.
> 
> But we also have long lists of "individuals [who] have contributed" in
> the release notes:
> https://www.postgresql.org/docs/17/release-17.html#RELEASE-17- 
> ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
> 
> You are a contributor when you contributed to the release.
> 
> Clearly, there are more ways to contribute, and the term "Contributor"
> on the curated list should probably be more specific.

The threshold for getting into the release notes is absolutely minimal, 
and I think it would devalue the curation work that you are doing by 
somehow combining the two data sets or making a third level based on the 
release notes or something like that.

Personally, I think it's all fine as it is.  Maybe an additional 
adjective in front of "Contributor", but it's not a big deal IMO.

Peter Eisentraut <peter@eisentraut.org> writes:
> On 15.08.25 19:30, Christoph Berg wrote:
>> Clearly, there are more ways to contribute, and the term "Contributor"
>> on the curated list should probably be more specific.

> The threshold for getting into the release notes is absolutely minimal, 
> and I think it would devalue the curation work that you are doing by 
> somehow combining the two data sets or making a third level based on the 
> release notes or something like that.

+1.  For example, a single bug report is enough to get you into the
commit log and thence the release notes.  There's no requirement for
continuing effort, but I think even the lowest level of the curated
list should imply some amount of that.

Perhaps the release notes could be useful as a sanity check though.
Say, if a person appears in the last three release-note lists and
is not in the curated list, maybe that is a name to take another
look at.

            regards, tom lane

On Mon, 18 Aug 2025 at 00:06, Peter Eisentraut <peter@eisentraut.org> wrote:
> Personally, I think it's all fine as it is.  Maybe an additional
> adjective in front of "Contributor", but it's not a big deal IMO.

+1

I think adding "Sustained" there is a good idea. It's more accurate
and should prevent false hopes from people who think they'll make it
onto that list if they submit 1 patch.

David

On Mon, 18 Aug 2025 at 01:58, Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> wrote:
> Perhaps the release notes could be useful as a sanity check though.
> Say, if a person appears in the last three release-note lists and
> is not in the curated list, maybe that is a name to take another
> look at.

I think now that committers are using a more consistent format in the
commit messages that includes email addresses, it should be easier to
script up that sort of thing. e.g. HAVING MAX(commit_timestamp) -
MIN(commit_timestamp) > INTERVAL 'N years' AND count(*) > M. Perhaps
it'd still need a manual review process, but something like that might
stop people falling through the cracks and being forgotten.

David

On Sun, Aug 17, 2025 at 02:06:22PM +0200, Peter Eisentraut wrote:
> On 15.08.25 19:30, Christoph Berg wrote:
> > You are a "Contributor" when you appear on this list.
> > 
> > But we also have long lists of "individuals [who] have contributed" in
> > the release notes:
> > https://www.postgresql.org/docs/17/release-17.html#RELEASE-17-
> > ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
> > 
> > You are a contributor when you contributed to the release.
> > 
> > Clearly, there are more ways to contribute, and the term "Contributor"
> > on the curated list should probably be more specific.
> 
> The threshold for getting into the release notes is absolutely minimal, and
> I think it would devalue the curation work that you are doing by somehow
> combining the two data sets or making a third level based on the release
> notes or something like that.
> 
> Personally, I think it's all fine as it is.  Maybe an additional adjective
> in front of "Contributor", but it's not a big deal IMO.

Just a reminder that we have gotten regular complaints that we focused
too much on code contributions vs. non-code, docs, events, blogs, CoC,
etc activity in the contributor criteria.

-- 
  Bruce Momjian  <bruce@momjian.us>        https://momjian.us
  EDB                                      https://enterprisedb.com

  Do not let urgent matters crowd out time for investment in the future.

On 8/19/25 09:43, Bruce Momjian wrote:
> On Sun, Aug 17, 2025 at 02:06:22PM +0200, Peter Eisentraut wrote:
>> On 15.08.25 19:30, Christoph Berg wrote:

> Just a reminder that we have gotten regular complaints that we focused
> too much on code contributions vs. non-code, docs, events, blogs, CoC,
> etc activity in the contributor criteria.
> 

As an an FYI, I on the Contributors list. My contribution has been 
pretty much solely answering questions on the mailing lists. I suspect I 
am not alone in getting there for non-code activities.

-- 
Adrian Klaver
adrian.klaver@aklaver.com

On Tue, Aug 19, 2025 at 02:15:40PM -0700, Adrian Klaver wrote:
> On 8/19/25 09:43, Bruce Momjian wrote:
> > On Sun, Aug 17, 2025 at 02:06:22PM +0200, Peter Eisentraut wrote:
> > > On 15.08.25 19:30, Christoph Berg wrote:
> 
> > Just a reminder that we have gotten regular complaints that we focused
> > too much on code contributions vs. non-code, docs, events, blogs, CoC,
> > etc activity in the contributor criteria.
> > 
> 
> As an an FYI, I on the Contributors list. My contribution has been pretty
> much solely answering questions on the mailing lists. I suspect I am not
> alone in getting there for non-code activities.

Ah, yes, email activity too.

-- 
  Bruce Momjian  <bruce@momjian.us>        https://momjian.us
  EDB                                      https://enterprisedb.com

  Do not let urgent matters crowd out time for investment in the future.

Re: Jimmy Angelakos
> Hi Christoph,
> 
> I think "Significant Contributor" fits in between "Major Contributor" and "Contributor".
> 
> "Sustained" has a time element and sounds terrible on a CV :-) , and "Recognised" is kind of redundant, since they're
allrecognition levels.
 

Hi,

sorry for the long silence here, it's been holiday and conferences and
work travel here for too long.

We liked the "Significant" idea very much and had almost already
settled on it when a new one came up: Notable Contributor. The levels
would then be:

Major Contributor
Notable Contributor
Contributor (see the other subthread)

How do people like that?

Frankly, "Significant" was apparently not sticking in anyone's brain,
we constantly had to look it up again because it was competing with
the other S-words "Sustained" and "Substantial". (Though I guess that
would work out if we actually chose it.)

Christoph

Re: Tom Lane
> Peter Eisentraut <peter@eisentraut.org> writes:
> > The threshold for getting into the release notes is absolutely minimal, 
> > and I think it would devalue the curation work that you are doing by 
> > somehow combining the two data sets or making a third level based on the 
> > release notes or something like that.
> 
> +1.  For example, a single bug report is enough to get you into the
> commit log and thence the release notes.  There's no requirement for
> continuing effort, but I think even the lowest level of the curated
> list should imply some amount of that.

We are aware of that, and want to preserve that value. The details are
not fleshed out yet, but it will be something like two pages. A new
one "these people contributed to PostgreSQL in the last N
releases/years" and the existing one which is then the "these are the
people who work on keeping PostgreSQL alive" spotlight.

> Perhaps the release notes could be useful as a sanity check though.
> Say, if a person appears in the last three release-note lists and
> is not in the curated list, maybe that is a name to take another
> look at.

Exactly, plus making the people from there a bit more visible. Plus
the ability to combine with more data sources like conference
organizers, translators, ...

Christoph

On Fri, 2025-10-10 at 14:16 +0200, Christoph Berg wrote:
> We liked the "Significant" idea very much and had almost already
> settled on it when a new one came up: Notable Contributor. The levels
> would then be:
>
> Major Contributor
> Notable Contributor
> Contributor (see the other subthread)
>
> How do people like that?

I think that is fine.  A little imp at the back of my head is suggesting
"repeated offender" as an alternative.

Yours,
Laurenz Albe

On 10/10/2025 13:16, Christoph Berg wrote:

Re: Jimmy Angelakos

Hi Christoph,

I think "Significant Contributor" fits in between "Major Contributor" and "Contributor".

"Sustained" has a time element and sounds terrible on a CV :-) , and "Recognised" is kind of redundant, since they're all recognition levels.

Hi,

sorry for the long silence here, it's been holiday and conferences and
work travel here for too long.

We liked the "Significant" idea very much and had almost already
settled on it when a new one came up: Notable Contributor. The levels
would then be:

Major Contributor
Notable Contributor
Contributor (see the other subthread)

How do people like that?

Frankly, "Significant" was apparently not sticking in anyone's brain,
we constantly had to look it up again because it was competing with
the other S-words "Sustained" and "Substantial". (Though I guess that
would work out if we actually chose it.)

Christoph

Hi Christoph,

It's not bad at all, but (at least in my head) it seems like there's not enough distance between "Notable" and plain "Contributor". 
For me, you can be notable for having once done something, it seems like it doesn't encompass the sense of sustained contribution as well as "Significant". I could be wrong.

Best regards,
Jimmy

On 10/10/25 8:16 AM, Christoph Berg wrote:
> Re: Jimmy Angelakos
>> Hi Christoph,
>>
>> I think "Significant Contributor" fits in between "Major Contributor" and "Contributor".
>>
>> "Sustained" has a time element and sounds terrible on a CV :-) , and "Recognised" is kind of redundant, since
they'reall recognition levels.
 
> 
> Hi,
> 
> sorry for the long silence here, it's been holiday and conferences and
> work travel here for too long.
> 
> We liked the "Significant" idea very much and had almost already
> settled on it when a new one came up: Notable Contributor. The levels
> would then be:
> 
> Major Contributor
> Notable Contributor
> Contributor (see the other subthread)
> 
> How do people like that?
> 
> Frankly, "Significant" was apparently not sticking in anyone's brain,
> we constantly had to look it up again because it was competing with
> the other S-words "Sustained" and "Substantial". (Though I guess that
> would work out if we actually chose it.)

First, thanks for working on this! It's very important, while also being 
easily bikesheddable :) And on that note...

I wanted to try a different take on this that would help with the 
"middle" part more. As stated, the part is the challenge in finding the 
right word so someone can understand what comes between "Major" and not. 
But what if instead we add a next level that comes after "Major"?

 From what I've observed, many organizations have adopted 
"Distinguished" as the next tier (e.g. "Distinguished Engineer"), and 
that may help with understanding the progression from "Contributor" => 
"Major Contributor" => "Distinguished Contributor" as people would 
associate that "Distinguished" sounds like someone has had a sustained 
level of significant contributions for a long time.

This may also help with the mental gymnastic of trying to figure out 
where something other than "Major" ranks.

Anyway, I'm happy to be told to kick rocks on this, but the idea is to 
help reduce the mental gymnastics both folks in and around the community 
need to make to see how the word resonates :)

Thanks,

Jonathan

Re: Jonathan S. Katz
> From what I've observed, many organizations have adopted "Distinguished" as
> the next tier (e.g. "Distinguished Engineer"), and that may help with
> understanding the progression from "Contributor" => "Major Contributor" =>
> "Distinguished Contributor" as people would associate that "Distinguished"
> sounds like someone has had a sustained level of significant contributions
> for a long time.

I think this would make sense if we were starting from scratch, but
now the community has had two (or more?) decades to remember that
"major" means a lot. If we now "promoted" all existing contributors to
"major" that would be very confusing.

Christoph

On 10/10/25 10:54 AM, Christoph Berg wrote:
> Re: Jonathan S. Katz
>>  From what I've observed, many organizations have adopted "Distinguished" as
>> the next tier (e.g. "Distinguished Engineer"), and that may help with
>> understanding the progression from "Contributor" => "Major Contributor" =>
>> "Distinguished Contributor" as people would associate that "Distinguished"
>> sounds like someone has had a sustained level of significant contributions
>> for a long time.
> 
> I think this would make sense if we were starting from scratch, but
> now the community has had two (or more?) decades to remember that
> "major" means a lot. If we now "promoted" all existing contributors to
> "major" that would be very confusing.

That's a fair point. That said, I'd weigh it against the confusion of 
the one-time action of promoting major contributors to "distinguished" 
vs. the confusion of parsing the difference between "major" vs. 
"significant"/"notable" or similar adjectives, where it's more 
challenging to understand the difference.

Jonathan

Re: Jonathan S. Katz
> That's a fair point. That said, I'd weigh it against the confusion of the
> one-time action of promoting major contributors to "distinguished" vs. the
> confusion of parsing the difference between "major" vs.
> "significant"/"notable" or similar adjectives, where it's more challenging
> to understand the difference.

To fix that, we could rename Major to Distinguished and still go with
Significant for level 2. But I don't quite see the need.

Christoph

On Fri, Oct 10, 2025 at 1:51 PM Christoph Berg <myon@debian.org> wrote:
>
> Re: Jonathan S. Katz
> > That's a fair point. That said, I'd weigh it against the confusion of the
> > one-time action of promoting major contributors to "distinguished" vs. the
> > confusion of parsing the difference between "major" vs.
> > "significant"/"notable" or similar adjectives, where it's more challenging
> > to understand the difference.
>
> To fix that, we could rename Major to Distinguished and still go with
> Significant for level 2. But I don't quite see the need.
>

To be honest, I don't think we "need" any of this, but there are some
benefits that we might achieve by doing it (though I'd also say I'd
love to see a prototype list of what this new 3rd tier would look
like... it seems massive)

In any case, a few upsides that would fall out of this would be less
confusion between "contributors" from the release notes (I don't think
this is much of a problem, but it's been suggested in this thread, and
this would certainly reduce it since we wouldn't be using overlapping
terms) and the term "distinguished" would better align with industry
standards with regards to titles and career markers (which I'll admit,
is not a direct issue for the community, but it does affect how
corporations interact with the project, which isn't nothing give our
size and maturity). Granted both of those things could be achieved
without adding the 3rd tier.


Robert Treat
https://xzilla.net

Thanks, Cornelia for thinking about this and taking the time to put
together a proposal. The Contributors Committee is always happy to
have people putting work into recognizing people in the community.

On Sat, Oct 11, 2025 at 5:17 AM Cornelia Biacsics
<cornelia.biacsics@cybertec.at> wrote:
>
> As part of the ongoing discussion on recognizing PostgreSQL contributors, I’d like to propose a structured framework
thatreflects both the field and the extent of contributions. 

In my opinion, the issue with structured frameworks is that not
everything fits in them and it makes it harder, not easier, to
recognize different kinds of contributions.
What about hosting a Postgres podcast or an educational youtube
series? Is that considered marketing for the community? What if it is
sponsored fully by your employer and includes some promotion of your
employer (i.e. it isn't really a community podcast even though it is
about Postgres)? That means the Contributors Committee has to discuss
every badge before awarding it.

Or take commits -- should someone with 4 typo patches accepted get
recognized at the same level as someone who wrote 4 features or who
identified 4 critical bugs? Who defines what a lead reviewer is?

Or what about combinations of contributions? Aren't you a gold level
contributor if you work at the Postgres booth at conferences, author
10 commits to every release for 10 years, volunteer on multiple
organizing committees, and run a PUG? But you may not qualify as gold
in any one category.

And if we stick strictly to the definitions, what about contractors
who are paid by the community to do legal work for over a year? Do
they automatically qualify for Infrastructure and Operations badges?
Or someone who is paid to design a logo for a community conference?

We would have to make individual judgment calls on every one of these,
which means we can't automate it, which means it will be woefully out
of date if the Contributors Committee doesn't have one person working
full time on this.

> And as Bruce already mentioned: PostgreSQL’s success depends on a broad range of contributors. It includes working on
infrastructure,documentation, testing, events, and community growth and a lot more. 

Absolutely. It is so important to recognize all types of contribution.

> I would first suggest defining fields of contributions (as you somehow already have listed here:
https://www.postgresql.org/about/policies/contributors/).And then define sub-levels of achievements (e.g. Bronze,
Silver,Gold) based on the intensity or amount of contributions in this category. 
> Recognizing contributors based on the nature and level of their work would ensure fair and meaningful appreciation
acrossthe ecosystem. 

I'm not sure if specifically recognizing and ranking people based on
the nature of their work would ensure fair appreciation. I think there
is a chance that slicing and dicing to this level emphasizes the
difference of different types of contributions -- not their equal
importance as part of a holistic whole. Though I think the difficulty
of executing this kind of system is a bigger concern.

That being said, I understand if some people want recognition of the
area that they are active in. To that end, we are working on a feature
similar to the idea of badges.

> Contributors can collect multiple badges across different categories, showcasing the breadth of their involvement and
celebratingtheir growing impact within the PostgreSQL ecosystem. Which also adds a light gamification aspect to
recognition,inspiring contributors to explore multiple areas of PostgreSQL — from code and testing to marketing,
documentation,and community engagement. 

The Contributors Committee agrees with this. We are currently working
on a project for some kind of granular badges or tags like "PGConf EU
2026 Volunteer" or "Postgres 18 Code Contributor" that people can
self-nominate and be approved for having on their contributor profile.
We weren't imagining levels for each one, but more like specific tasks
or roles people have had. We think you're right about the gamification
and also recognizing people for contributing in multiple ways and
inspiring them to get involved in more ways.

We could definitely use help with this and anyone who is interested
(especially interested in the www development component should email
us). We haven't sent an email about it yet because the idea is still
in the early stages.

> Further, I’d like to bring another aspect into the discussion about contributor recognition — acknowledging
company-level(commercial) contributions to PostgreSQL. 
> Many companies make a significant impact by increasing PostgreSQL’s visibility and awareness, which ultimately helps
theentire ecosystem thrive. Recognizing these efforts would highlight the essential role that commercial contributors
playin supporting the community’s growth and sustainability. 

If I'm understanding your idea, there is already a concept like this
called "Sponsors" [1].

- Melanie

[1] https://www.postgresql.org/about/sponsors/

On Fri, Oct 10, 2025 at 6:22 PM Robert Treat <rob@xzilla.net> wrote:
>
> To be honest, I don't think we "need" any of this, but there are some
> benefits that we might achieve by doing it

I think it is easy if you are already recognized as a sustained
contributor to say we don't need to recognize people who have made
fewer or only recent contributions. I don't have a strong feeling
about whether or not we should use "distinguished" instead of "major",
but I do know that waiting 2-3 years to be recognized for contributing
to the community is discouraging for people. And, as for code
contributions, when people say who contributed to Postgres code, they
don't think, hey let me go look at the release notes for all the
previous major versions one at a time and find the acknowledgements
section.

> (though I'd also say I'd
> love to see a prototype list of what this new 3rd tier would look
> like... it seems massive)

Well the third tier would be listed last, so if you don't scroll
forever, you won't see it. We could also make it a separate linked
page, we haven't looked into how options would look yet.

- Melanie

On Sat, 2025-10-11 at 11:17 +0200, Cornelia Biacsics wrote:
> I would first suggest defining fields of contributions (as you somehow
> already have listed here: https://www.postgresql.org/about/policies/contributors/).
> And then define sub-levels of achievements (e.g. Bronze, Silver, Gold)
> based on the intensity or amount of contributions in this category. 
> Recognizing contributors based on the nature and level of their work
> would ensure fair and meaningful appreciation across the ecosystem.

That sounds complicated.

Also, I am afraid that splitting up contributions in categories will
do the opposite of what we want: people will think that code contributors
are a better category than conference organizers.  And I thought we don't
want that.

Ultimately, it is a value judgement who is a valuable contributor, and
we shouldn't try to hide that behind formalisms.  The process will always
be some variant of "Hey, I think Cornelia should be on the list." -
"I agree, let's put her on the list."

Yours,
Laurenz Albe

Re: Kai Wagner
> Hi,
> 
> maybe it's just me as a none native English speaker but Significant
> resonates the most with me and makes sense between Major and just
> contributor.

Thanks everyone for the input. In the meantime I had also run a poll
in the PostgreSQL social channel, and there as well, Significant won.

So, the team has decided to go with

* Major Contributor
* Significant Contributor

The plans for the 3rd level are becoming more and more concrete.
(As said before, we will make sure that the existing 2 levels are
clearly separated from that big pool.)

Christoph

On Fri, Oct 17, 2025 at 1:36 AM Corey Huinker <corey.huinker@gmail.com> wrote:

> I recall a few years ago there was a debate about one contributor being moved from Major Contributor to regular
Contributor.Adding new levels will ultimately create more such debates, and we will need to be ready for that. 

And I guess in some cases such contributors would rather be known as
"Former Major Contributor" :)

And let's also remind ourselves of the
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law - "When a measure
becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure".