Align generate-release-contributors.sh across repos

Ported from open-telemetry/opentelemetry-java-contrib#2590

Author: trask

.github/scripts/generate-release-contributors.sh

@@ -55,6 +55,8 @@ 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) {