Regularly email contributors to prompt for updates

[ryelle]

[moving from code comment to github issue]

setup cron to automatically email once per quarter
"here's all the info we have: x, y, z"
is that still accurate? if not, click here to update it

Two emails, one for pledge owner and one for contributors?

• Pledge owners can update pledge information, add contributors
• Contributors can remove themselves from pledges

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Update: rough implementation idea, based on the accepted proposal

Setup a cron job to:

• email contributors when they've gone 3 months w/out logging in. repeat every 3 months that they have no activity. not just contributor posts on w.org/5, but also individual volunteers. use language and definition from Clarify and communicate 5ftF definition #119. example:

  hey, we haven’t seen you around for 3 months, are you still contributing n hours a week to the x, y, z teams? If so, please let us know so we can improve our automation!

  don't forget that 5ftF contributions are more targeted and intentional than contributions to the overall ecosystem. See the FAQ [link] for details.

  if you'd like to find something to work on, please reach out to your team rep in slack, or check your team's p2/github rep/etc

  if want to adjust or deactivate your pledge, you can do that at {url}

• save timestamp of last email to usermeta, and ensure only send once at each mark.
• Skip this on profiles that are newer than 3 months, to give them a chance to contribute. or maybe add a "volunteered for 5ftf" activity to their profile when they sign up.
• bump stat on usermeta, to track how many times they've been emailed. don't display anywhere for now, but track in case we need it later or want to manually look it up. has to be usermeta instead of contributor post, since the latter aren't unique over time
• When email an inactive contributor, also email their sponsoring company. Send a generic message asking them to review their pledges and adjust hours to be accurate, but don't mention specific contributions. That avoids shaming them, especially if the automated detection isn't accurate. Keep track of when last email was sent, so we don't send multiple within 3 months because they have multiple inactive contributors. include link to FAQ and description of what counts as a 5ftF contribution.
• bump stat on company pledge post, similar to contributor

[iandunn]

I like that idea, yeah.

For contributors, it'd be especially good to include the # of hours and teams that they marked on the profile, since many people haven't filled that out. If they haven't filled either of those out, it'd be good to ask them specifically to do that.

[ryelle]

How frequently should "regularly" be? Every 6 months? more often? It should offset from the date they confirmed the pledge (publish date).

For pledge owners, since we're already sending them an email, can we generate the manage token and give them a direct link to the Manage Pledge form?

For contributors, it should link them to the profiles.wp.org page where they can edit the teams/hours (unless we do end up adding that in #89/#93)

cc-ing @andreamiddleton for copy advice 🙂

[iandunn]

Every 6 months seems reasonable to me.

[andreamiddleton]

I think 6 months is the shortest time we can set this, and not have it marked as spam. @ryelle do you need copy for the whole email? If so, something like this maybe:

Howdy! This is an email reminder to check and update your WordPress Five for the Future pledge. This reminder is sent every 6 months, to help organizations remember to keep their pledge up to date! Here's the link to manage your pledge:

Things to check:

• Are the hours your employees have pledged still accurate?
• Are they still contributing to the same teams?
• Have any sponsored contributors left or joined your organization?

Thanks for participating in the WordPress Five for the Future program! Your support helps the open source WordPress project, and everyone who uses WordPress.

Have a great day!

[iandunn]

Are the hours your employees have pledged still accurate?
Are they still contributing to the same teams?

It doesn't seem like there's a convenient way for the pledge admin to check that; they'd have to visit each of their contributor's profiles individually. There's also no way for them to edit it, they'd have to email the contributor and ask them to update it.

I wonder if it'd be better to send the email to individual contributors, rather than the pledge admin?

I can see how that'd be kind of annoying for people, though 🤔

[iandunn]

What do y'all think about volunteer contributors?

They're also entering teams/hours data into their profiles, which will become outdated over time. We're planning to track and report on those hours in #124, so outdated data would significantly decrease the reliability/usefulness of those stats.

What do you think about a progressive approach like this:

• After 6 months of no updates: Show them a notice when they're logged in to w.org pages
• After 12 months of no updates: Send them an email
• After 18 months of no updates: Automatically set their hours to 0

That would minimize the intrusive emails, and also catch cases where people stop contributing and never respond.

[andreamiddleton]

I don't think it's an undue burden on an organization to check over the hours/teams for their linked contributors, twice a year. They can manage it however they want to, by emailing everyone on their end and asking for an update, or by checking through one by one and reaching out directly. Also, that seems like the best way to ask organizations to stay current while still keeping a low email volume.

If we're going to email everyone who fills out a pledge on their profile every 6 months, I think we need to tell them about that when they fill the pledge out, or at the very least let them know in the first email that the way to "turn these emails off" is to un-pledge.

[iandunn]

I don't think it's an undue burden on an organization... They can manage it however they want to

👍

I'm still concerned about the stats for volunteer contributors becoming out of date. What do y'all think about doing these for them:

• After 6 months of no updates: Show individual contributors a notice when they're logged in to w.org pages
• After 12-18 months of no updates: Automatically set their hours to 0
• Optionally, email them that there hours were reset. This might be more hassle than it's worth, though, since they'd still get the banner if they log in. If we do this, we could add a notice when signing up that they'll get emails every X months to confirm details.

If we're not going to do that, then maybe we shouldn't do #124 in the first place, since the data won't be reliable.

[iandunn]

I've updated the issue description w/ a rough implementation idea, based on the accepted proposal

[iandunn]

Fixed in #206