In a discussion titled ‘Can I find out who are ‘new contributors’?’, Ed_S seeks a way to identify users who recently made their first post, beyond the fleeting banner notification. While the Admin interface shows new joiners and a ‘new contributors’ graph, Ed_S clarifies that new contributors may not be new joiners — they could have been lurking. codinghorror initially suggests Admin > Users > New, but acknowledges this focuses on recent joiners and engagement metrics like reading and liking. hawm suggests a plugin might be needed. pfaffman recommends using Data Explorer, pointing to a repository of cool queries. Ed_S confirms this is likely the solution and later reports success using a specific SQL query from the SidVal/discourse-data-explorer repo to find users with their first post within a given period. Canapin checks in, and Ed_S confirms Data Explorer solved the issue.
In a forum in the early stages of growth, it feels handy to know who has recently made their first post. If I happen to see it, it has a little banner box. But if I don’t see that, is there any way to find the post? (The Admin interface tells me that there has been a new contributor.)
I’ve looked in all recently updated threads and don’t see the box.
Can I search for all users with only 1 post? Or all users with only a few posts?
Admin, Users, New is the main place.
Indeed, that gives me recent joiners, but not recent new contributors. (It’s fairly likely that a new contributor will have been a lurker for a while, so won’t be a new joiner.)
I think you need a plugin to do that.
It depends how you define “contributors”, I would argue that spending a lot of time reading and liking is also an important contribution. That’s why those stats appear on the Admin, Users, New list.
And very handy they are too. But the Admin dashboard and stats pages show a ‘new contributors’ graph, also handy, which is what caught my attention, and gave me the terminology.
You could do a data explorer search. There should be a similar example in the data explorer cool query topic.
Thanks @pfaffman - I thought that might be the answer although I’ve never delved into that world.
Hey @Ed_S, did you figure out a solution?
Yes, it looks like Data Explorer is the answer. Specifically, this query from the linked github repo: