Jonas Rosland Jonas Rosland

Engaging the Silent Community Members: Insights from AllThingsOpen's Community Leadership Summit.

Hey folks! I just wrapped up leading a session at the Community Leadership Summit during AllThingsOpen 2025, and I wanted to share some of the insights that came out of our discussion about engaging silent community members in open source communities.

The Challenge: Vocal Few vs. Silent Community Members

One of the most common patterns we discussed was the classic 80/20 rule in community engagement - where 3-5 vocal members dominate conversations while 20+ others remain on the sidelines. This isn’t necessarily a problem, but it does mean we’re missing out on diverse perspectives and potential contributions.

Key Strategies for Engagement

1. What’s in it for them?

This was a recurring theme. Community members need to understand where they could and why they should engage. Whether it’s:

  • Professional development opportunities
  • Recognition for their expertise
  • Influence on product direction
  • Networking with peers

2. Personal Outreach Over Broadcasts

Several participants emphasized that 1-on-1 conversations are far more effective than mass surveys. When surveys fail, sit down with people individually. This personal approach:

  • Builds trust and relationships
  • Allows for deeper, more honest feedback
  • Feels less like a “sales call” and more like genuine interest

3. Create Small, Meaningful Contribution Opportunities

Start small! Give people something concrete they can contribute to rather than asking for vague “engagement.” This could be:

  • Answering a specific question
  • Sharing their experience with a particular feature
  • Contributing to documentation
  • Participating in focused discussions

4. Build Community Champions

Transform some of those silent community members into community champions by:

  • Asking them to be liaisons for newer members
  • Offering leadership experience for their resumes
  • Giving them ownership of specific community areas
  • Making them stakeholders in the community’s success

5. Recognition That Matters

Social incentives often outweigh physical ones. We heard this from many of the session participants, that while getting a t-shirt or hoodie is nice, it’s a one-time thing and won’t impact them in the long run. More impactful ways of recognizing people include:

  • Public recognition boards highlighting “awesome contributors”
  • Status badges in Discord, GitHub, etc.
  • Featuring community stories and developer experiences
  • Making recognition more visible and meaningful

6. Transparency and Feedback Loops

Show the real impact of community feedback, how it’s taken into account when making changes both to product and to the community:

  • Demonstrate how input led to actual changes
  • Restructure Slack/Discord channels based on feedback
  • Prioritize insights and communicate what actions were taken
  • Share meta-content about how things work internally, such as developers sharing their stories about a specific feature implementation

Telemetry and its woes

We also talked about privacy and telemetry. Most open source projects either disable telemetry by default or don’t have it all (which is great for privacy!), but this means they lose visibility into:

  • Who’s actually using their software
  • Whether silent users are happy or struggling
  • Usage patterns that could inform both product and community strategy

The key is finding ethical ways to gather this feedback without compromising user privacy.

Why Engagement Matters

Before diving into tactics, community leaders (and if applicable, their company leadership) should ask: “Why do we want them to engage?” Understanding the business and community value helps prioritize efforts and communicate the “why” effectively.

Moving Forward

Community building is fundamentally about human connections. While we can use tools and strategies to facilitate engagement, the core work is about:

  • Building trust through personal relationships
  • Creating value for community members
  • Making contributions feel meaningful and impactful
  • Giving people ownership and recognition

Huge THANK YOU to all the community leaders who shared their experiences and insights. These conversations are what make events like AllThingsOpen and Community Leadership Summit so valuable - the chance to learn from others facing similar challenges and opportunities.