# Contrib? What does that mean?

**URL:** <https://discourse.nodered.org/t/contrib-what-does-that-mean/55251>\
**Category:** General\
**Created:** [15 December 2021 22:35 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/contrib-what-does-that-mean/55251 "2021-12-15T22:35:27Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![nosered1966](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/discourse.nodered.org/nosered1966/32/52859_2.png) [@nosered1966](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/nosered1966)\
**Post date:** [15 December 2021 22:35 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/contrib-what-does-that-mean/55251/1 "2021-12-15T22:35:27Z")

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Hi all,

I often see packages which only differ in "contrib" in the name?  
What does that mean?

Thx  
Thomas

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**Author:** ![Paul-Reed](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/discourse.nodered.org/paul-reed/32/66906_2.png) [@Paul-Reed](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/Paul-Reed)\
**Post date:** [15 December 2021 22:44 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/contrib-what-does-that-mean/55251/2 "2021-12-15T22:44:52Z")

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It means that the node has been 'contributed' to the project and is not a node that has been written by the node-RED developers.

Contributed nodes are normally written by other forum members (or anyone from the community).

There is nothing stopping node authors from omitting the word 'contrib' from their node title, it just helps to distinguish 'core' nodes from those developed by the community.

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**Author:** ![knolleary](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/discourse.nodered.org/knolleary/32/3_2.png) [@knolleary](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/knolleary)\
**Post date:** [15 December 2021 22:54 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/contrib-what-does-that-mean/55251/3 "2021-12-15T22:54:15Z")

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> [@Paul-Reed](#):
>
> Contributed nodes are normally written by other forum members, but there is nothing stopping node authors from omitting 'contrib' from their node title.

Just to clarify, our naming guidelines do say that if a modules name starts with "node-red" then it should use "node-red-contrib-" to distinguish it from nodes maintained by the core project. But they are free to call it whatever they want if they don't use the node-red prefix.

This is largely adhered to, but we do still get some people not reading (or choosing to ignore) the guidelines. This is something we're going to start tightening up. We're also going to make some other changes to the naming guidelines for newly published nodes.... but more on that later.

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**Author:** ![nosered1966](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/discourse.nodered.org/nosered1966/32/52859_2.png) [@nosered1966](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/nosered1966)\
**Post date:** [15 December 2021 23:04 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/contrib-what-does-that-mean/55251/4 "2021-12-15T23:04:29Z")

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Thank you all for that quick response!

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**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/uploads/nodered/original/1X/d073cd938eafa2e558d7c2cd59003b3ef4963033.png) [@system](https://discourse.nodered.org/u/system)\
**Post date:** [29 December 2021 23:05 UTC](https://discourse.nodered.org/t/contrib-what-does-that-mean/55251/5 "2021-12-29T23:05:00Z")

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