How to Measure What Really Works in Open Source Communities

Learn to identify and measure the metrics that truly matter for open source community success in this 23-minute conference talk by Andrew Gordon from All Things Open. Discover practical approaches to evaluating community health, engagement, and impact beyond traditional vanity metrics. Explore frameworks for assessing what drives meaningful participation, contribution quality, and long-term sustainability in open source projects. Gain insights into data-driven decision making for community management, understanding which measurements provide actionable intelligence versus those that merely look impressive. Master techniques for tracking contributor retention, project momentum, and ecosystem growth while avoiding common pitfalls in community analytics.