People who opened a pull request
+50%
44 → 66 contributors
PRs from everyone else
+61%
79 → 127 PRs
PRs from high-volume accounts
−76%
194 → 47 PRs
Merged PRs from everyone else
+19%
42 → 50 merged
A few accounts slowed. Everyone else grew.
Community pull requests, from people without write access, fell by about a third. The whole drop came from a handful of accounts opening 10 or more PRs each. PRs from everyone else went up by 61%.
Show the numbers
| Period | High-volume accounts | Their PRs | Everyone else | Their PRs | Total PRs |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apr 7 – Jul 6 | 7 | 194 | 37 | 79 | 273 |
| Jul 6 – Oct 4 | 3 | 47 | 63 | 127 | 174 |
Shorter peaks. A longer tail.
Each column is one contributor, sorted by how many PRs they opened. Before the limit, three accounts opened 151 PRs between them. After, the busiest account opened 21, and the tail of people contributing got much longer.
Show the numbers
| Period | Contributors | With one PR | Top account | Top 10 share of PRs |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apr 7 – Jul 6 | 44 | 20 | 70 | 79% |
| Jul 6 – Oct 4 | 66 | 36 | 21 | 51% |
More people show up every month.
Contributors without write access who opened at least one PR each month. Every month since the limit has had more contributors than any month before it, with a new high in October.
WooCommerce isn’t officially participating in Hacktoberfest, but October can still bring a seasonal lift in contributions. For comparison: from September to October 2025, contributors went from 11 to 14 (+27%). From September to October 2026, they went from 26 to 44 (+69%).
Show the numbers
| Month | Contributors | Pull requests |
|---|
Everyone else merged more.
Fewer community PRs didn’t mean less useful work landing. Merged PRs from everyone outside the high-volume accounts went up, even though 40 PRs from the later period are still open and could still merge.
Show the numbers
| Group | Merged before | Merged after |
|---|---|---|
| High-volume accounts | 83 | 17 |
| Everyone else | 42 | 50 |
How we counted
The limit
Since July 6, 2026, people without write access to the repository can have at most three open pull requests at once, using GitHub’s built-in pull request limits. On October 13, we started counting draft PRs toward the limit too.
The data
Every pull request opened in woocommerce/woocommerce, pulled from the GitHub API on November 11, 2026. “Before” is April 7 to July 6, 2026. “After” is July 6 to October 4, 2026.
Who counts
Authors GitHub lists as contributors without write access. We excluded bots and nine accounts that belong to current or former staff. Those accounts opened PRs from branches inside the repository, which only people with write access can do.
High-volume accounts
Any account that opened 10 or more PRs in a 90-day period. Merged counts reflect status on November 11, 2026, so the later period has had less time for PRs to merge.