Airtable Top Contributors | October 2023

[MaddieJ]

Hey there, Airtable Community!

Get ready to celebrate because it's time for the October edition of our Top Contributors post! 🎉 These incredible individuals have truly rocked the Airtable Community and made a difference for their fellow users.

So, what makes a Top Contributor, you ask? Well, they're the passionate, helpful, and friendly folks who go the extra mile to share their Airtable wisdom with others. They're the ones who answer questions, spark engaging discussions, and spread the word about Airtable far and wide.

To determine our Top Contributors, we dig into both the numbers and the vibes. We look at how many solutions they've offered, how many replies they've written, and how many kudos they've received. But it's not just about the stats; we also consider how they've embraced our Community’s Code of Conduct and Guidelines, making the Airtable Community a welcoming and inclusive space.

In October alone, our Top Contributors blew us away with 65 solutions, 327 replies, and 171 kudos! 🚀

Top Solution Authors 🧠

1. @Sho - 25 Solutions Authored 
2. @ScottWorld - 24 Solutions Authored
3. @kuovonne - 16 Solutions Authored

Top Replies 📨

1. @ScottWorld - 193 Replies Authored
2. @Sho - 69 Replies Authored
3. @kuovonne - 65 Replies Authored

Top Kudoed Authors 👍

1. @ScottWorld - 62 Kudos Received
2. @Tish_Chambers - 61 Kudos Received
3. @kuovonne - 48 Kudos Received

Highlighted post:

Many of you have pointed out that there are several posts out there that, while they weren’t authored during the month that this blog highlights, are posts that continue to be valuable resources for the Community. In this new section of our Top Contributors, I’ll try out different criteria such as “top liked post” or “top solution views” in a given time frame. (Thanks for the suggestion @kuovonne!)

This month, we’ll take a look at one of the posts that has had the most “Solution Views” since December 7, 2022. Why that date? Well because that’s the day news broke about the discovery of the world's oldest DNA! Random? Yes. Fun? Major yes. 

@Archie_Timosenc reached out to the Community looking to freeze columns and @Williams_Innova quickly responded with a solution that not only helped out Archie, but continued to be a great resource for others in the Community. Three cheers for long-lasting knowledge sharing!

To close, I’d like to try a little experiment: I challenge all of our Top Contributors in October to tag another Community member who you want to celebrate this month.

Whether you had the opportunity to foster their Airtable knowledge, witnessed their “aha” moment, or loved seeing a new member use the Community to accelerate their Airtable knowledge, tag them in the comments to celebrate them! Be sure to include a link to their activity in the Community and share what you loved. 

And if you weren’t on the leaderboard this month but still want to celebrate a member, please chime in! I can’t wait to see the high-fives unfold in this thread.

Cheers, all! 

[ScottWorld]

I'd like to celebrate @Databaser, who is always eager to help other members of the community with top-notch suggestions & solutions! 😎🙌🌟

[kuovonne]

Thanks for the new monthly update! Thanks also for working with my suggestion from last month.

I don't know who to nominate because I feel the participation has changed a lot from month to month. One of the people who has been an ongoing help in my Airtable journey, especially regarding scripting, is Bill French. When people have questions about scripting, I keep wanting to refer people to his posts, but I can't find those posts. But he has cut back on posting here. And I when I try to tag him, I don't know which Bill he is, if he is any of them.

Instead, I'd like to throw out some different ideas.

The list of top contributors has a lot of repeats from month to month. What if there was some way of acknowledging who has been enduring contributors who have provided value over a long period of time? What if there was also a way to recognize new "rising stars" at the same time? I feel that these two issues are related. New people who want to launch their consulting careers can get a start by authoring solutions, but it is harder to get recognition when there are limited spots and the same people get them over and over again.

I was very surprised by you pick of post to highlight. What does "most “Solution Views" mean? Is it the most times the "jump to solution" button has been pushed? How many times was it pushed? I also wonder if that particular post made it to the top because it was easy to search for. Not to discount the question or answer (William has been a great community member), but the answer is also easily discovered by searching for "freeze columns" on the support site. Some people prefer to post to the community versus searching the documentation, and that is okay. However, I think that a big part of the value of the community is providing information that cannot be found in the documentation, and I'd like to see that celebrated as well.

I also wonder at your choice of December 7, 2022 and your stated reason for that choice. I don't remember the exact date of the changeover to Khoros, but it is very close to when I think the date was.

[Databaser]

Love you to @ScottWorld 😁Thank you for mentioning me! I'm no way near the level of the classic Community power houses, but I try my best to help people where I can. 

@MaddieJ, it seems like every month there's a lot of debate about the who, what and how in this category of posts... Wouldn't it just be easier to stick to the objective numbers? I mean, what did @Arthur_Tutt do wrong to not get mentioned in the top 3 with 23 solutions? All feels very subjective to me 🤷‍

[MaddieJ]

@ScottWorld great call out, thanks for participating!

@kuovonne, I'll tag @Bill_French for ya here, and agreed, there are many Bills in the Community - I think that's cool! The more the merrier. Just keep in mind that the legendary Bill French has an underscore and you should be set!

A little sneak peak for you on recognition options: I'm scoping overall new ways to recognize our consistent top contributors and rising stars so stay tuned.

Solution Views means how many times a thread with a marked solution was viewed (after the thread had a marked solution) in the time frame that I set. I'm going to keep traffic data private, and of course there are many factors that could have gone into a post being among the highest viewed, but it's interesting to see how it's helpful to folks.

As I mentioned in the post, the date was totally random 😉. I thought that scientific discovery was amazing and wanted to pass along a fun fact. 

@Databaser, not to worry - these are in fact the exact objective results for the month of October. @Arthur_Tutt has not done anything wrong, we just have to remember that the "Top Solution Authors" on the homepage is pulling data every day - it's not showing for the date range that we're celebrating in the blog. With that being said, as mentioned at the top of the blog, I do take a look at the top member's activity for the month to make sure they're representing our code of conduct, guidelines, and are generally being nice humans on the Community. Trolling of any kind is not tolerated here. 

A note for everyone: just remember that this is a fun activity done with the best intentions to celebrate you. Enjoy it! 

[kuovonne]

Thanks @MaddieJ for your work in putting together this recurring topic is evolving and how you are working to make it even better each month. At first I wasn't sure about it, but I am coming to grow to like it more and more. I especially appreciate that you work on hand crafting the message each month. It is tangible evidence that you are paying attention to the community, even if you don't post.

What if each month the top contributors and rising stars were invited to post comments listing threads that they think were particularly useful or helpful, sort of like how you invited people to tag other great contributors? So, the top contributors in October would be posted in November, and throughout November, those top contributors could add replies listing neat threads and why they liked those threads. Just throwing the idea out there. I don't know if it would work or what other top contributors would think of it. No offense if you think it won't work.

[Sho]

The speed of community response has increased since October. Wonderful.
By the time I see the community, it has already been answered, so I just read it.

I learn a lot from @ScottWorld  answers because he also explains and integrates them with other services.

Looking forward to the birth of rising stars.

[ScottWorld]

Aw, thanks so much, @Sho!! 🤗 You are another star in the community — always giving fast & helpful responses to people! 😃🌟

And as @Databaser mentioned above, @Arthur_Tutt is a rising star who has been recording custom videos for people to help answer their questions! 😎🙌