diff --git a/.github/scripts/generate-release-contributors.sh b/.github/scripts/generate-release-contributors.sh
index 5265d6b..7c543f7 100755
--- a/.github/scripts/generate-release-contributors.sh
+++ b/.github/scripts/generate-release-contributors.sh
@@ -1,8 +1,5 @@
 #!/bin/bash -e
 
-# shellcheck disable=SC2016
-# shellcheck disable=SC2086
-
 # this should be run on the release branch
 
 # NOTE if you need to run this script locally, you will need to first:
@@ -55,6 +52,8 @@ query($q: String!, $endCursor: String) {
 
 # this query captures authors of issues which have had PRs in the current range reference the issue
 # but not necessarily through closingIssuesReferences (e.g. addressing just a part of an issue)
+#
+# note: [^0-9<&#;] below excludes HTML entity markers to avoid matching &#1234; as issue #1234
 contributors2=$(gh api graphql --paginate -F q="repo:$GITHUB_REPOSITORY is:pr base:main is:merged merged:$from..$to" -f query='
 query($q: String!, $endCursor: String) {
   search(query: $q, type: ISSUE, first: 100, after: $endCursor) {
@@ -72,8 +71,8 @@ query($q: String!, $endCursor: String) {
   }
 }
 ' --jq '.data.search.edges.[].node.body' \
-  | grep -oE "#[0-9]{4,}$|#[0-9]{4,}[^0-9<]|$GITHUB_REPOSITORY/issues/[0-9]{4,}" \
-  | grep -oE "[0-9]{4,}" \
+  | grep -oE "#[0-9]{3,}$|#[0-9]{3,}[^0-9<&#;]|$GITHUB_REPOSITORY/issues/[0-9]{3,}" \
+  | grep -oE "[0-9]{3,}" \
   | xargs -I{} gh issue view {} --json 'author,url' --jq '[.author.login,.url]' \
   | grep -v '/pull/' \
   | sed 's/^\["//' \