Hacktoberfest 2024: Why You Should Participate

It's that time of the year again: Hacktoberfest!

For those who don't know, Hacktoberfest is an annual month-long celebration of open-source projects. The main goal is to promote open-source collaboration and encourage more people to contribute to open-source projects. This year, DigitalOcean, Cloudflare, and Quira are sponsoring the event. Also, this year, if you'd like to write about your experience participating in Hacktoberfest either as a contributor or a maintainer, you can join DEV's Hacktoberfest Writing Challenge.

To participate in Hacktoberfest, visit their official website and register anytime between September 23 and October 31. You must submit four high-quality pull/merge requests between October 1 and October 31, and project maintainers must accept them to count toward your total.

Why Participate in Hacktoberfest

There are many reasons why you want to participate in Hacktoberfest. Here are a few of the most common:

• Learn new skills: Contributing to open-source projects is a great way to learn new programming languages, frameworks, and tools. You'll also be able to work on real-world projects and be updated with the latest trends.
• Network with other developers: Hacktoberfest brings together developers from all over the world. Participating in the event allows you to connect with other developers, share ideas, and collaborate on projects.
• Build your portfolio: Contributions to open-source projects can be a valuable addition to your portfolio. Additionally, the community will recognize your contributions, which can significantly boost your reputation as a developer and help you land your dream job or freelance gig.
• Make a difference: By contributing to open-source projects, you're helping create and improve free and open software that everyone can benefit from.

Tips to Make the Most of Hacktoberfest

If you're new to open source, here are some tips to help you make the most of Hacktoberfest:

1. Choose the Right Project
   • Find projects that align with your interests: Look for projects related to your skills and passions. Explore projects on GitHub or GitLab by using keywords to search programming languages or topics that interest you. Once you find the project, don't forget to look at the "About" section on their homepage. Only repositories that have a "hacktoberfest" label participate in the event.
   • Consider the project's size and activity: Smaller projects might be more welcoming to new contributors, but larger projects can offer more growth opportunities.
   • Check the project's README and contribution guidelines: First, understand the project's goals and objectives. You also need to know how to install and run it, what it's used for, etc. How can you contribute to a project if you don't understand how it works? If you decide to contribute, the next step is understanding the project's rules and expectations before starting. Reading the project's documentation is compulsory. They are there to help you succeed with your contribution.
2. Start Small
   • Look for beginner-friendly issues: Many projects label issues as "good first issue" or "beginners only". Working on an issue with one of these labels is a good starting point for understanding the project and diving into open source. However, if you've worked on an issue with this label at a repository, consider leaving it for others who are also beginners and new to open source.
   • Create issues: Beginner-friendly issues are likely quickly gone, especially during Hacktoberfest. But don't feel discouraged. Do you find a missing step in the documentation or a bug when you try out the project? Have you thought of a helpful feature to be added to the project? Once you've searched and are sure there is no open or closed issue with the changes you'd like to propose, create an issue and tell the maintainers you want to work on it.
   • Low or non-code contributions: These contributions help open-source projects tremendously but often get overlooked. They require minimum or no coding knowledge, such as technical documentation, user experience testing, technical blog posts or tutorials, translations, talks or presentations, social media, etc. You can help a project improve its documentation, such as fixing typos, explaining the project through blog posts or tutorials, promoting it through social media, etc. If the project's maintainers facilitate these contributions, they are counted toward your total pull requests. You can read more about these particular contributions on the Hacktoberfest official website.
   • Ask questions: If you need clarification on something, don't hesitate to ask the project maintainers or other contributors for help.
3. Be Patient
   • Review process takes time: With many pull requests coming in, especially during Hacktoberfest, it may take a few days—or even weeks—for your pull request to be reviewed and merged. You may ask about the review's progress by commenting on your pull request when you don't hear anything in a few days. But don't rush the maintainer, or worse, direct message them to review your pull request.
   • Don't get discouraged: If your pull request gets closed or you need to go back and forth to fix it, don't get discouraged. Keep submitting pull requests and learning from the feedback you receive.
4. Collaborate with Others
   • Join the project's community: Join their Discord, Slack, or GitHub Discussion, participate in discussions, attend their events, and connect with other contributors.
   • Work together on issues: Collaborating with others can help you learn new skills and make new connections.
   • Offer help to others: If you see someone struggling and you can help, offer your assistance.
   • Be respectful: Treat everyone with kindness and respect, regardless of their experience level.

If you want to learn more about contributing to open-source projects, @bekahhw and @adiatiayu co-hosted a Virtual Coffee Lunch & Learn: Intro to Open Source Workshop that walks you through making a positive impact as a contributor. They shared ways to get started and discussed considerations for communications, contributions, and being a good open-source citizen.

Virtual Coffee: Hacktoberfest Initiative

Since our first-ever challenge in 2020, we have run the Virtual Coffee: Hacktoberfest Initiative for our members during October. We aim to support our members—new/seasoned contributors and maintainers—in participating in Hacktoberfest.

Contributors

During the challenge, contributors find repositories with "hacktoberfest" topic(s) they want to contribute to and issues they want to solve. The goal is to create four accepted pull requests and complete Hacktoberfest.

We encourage contributors to also contribute to open-source projects through non-code contributions. They can submit issues to report bugs or request new features, create content (blog posts, tutorials, or streaming) about a project, help answer questions or triage issues, promote open-source projects through social media, etc., and post their progress on Slack.

When a contributor makes four meaningful contributions—code or non-code—during October, they will count as having completed our Virtual Coffee: Hactoberfest Initiative challenge.

Maintainers

Maintainers who want to participate in Hacktoberfest are encouraged to add a "hacktoberfest" topic to their repository. They will also answer the contributors' questions, review the pull requests, and accept and merge them following the contest rules.

If you're a new maintainer and want to learn more about becoming a maintainer, watch the Virtual Coffee Lunch & Learn: Becoming a Maintainer Workshop by Bekah and Ayu. This workshop explained what it means to be a maintainer, gave tips and tricks to make it a positive experience for you and your contributors, and taught you how to start a brand-new open-source project.

Mentors

We know that open source can be intimidating and overwhelming for new contributors and maintainers. So, during this challenge, we encourage members with more open-source experience to give back to the community by becoming mentors for new contributors and maintainers. Based on their availability and capacity, they are paired with one or multiple mentees and provide support through a 1:1, a pairing session, Slack, or whatever works best for them.

We love seeing many of our members take on the role over the years, regardless of their technical skills. At Virtual Coffee, we believe in linear mentorship. We all learn from each other!

Final Words

Hacktoberfest is a fantastic opportunity for developers of all levels to learn new skills, collaborate with others, and support open-source projects. We encourage you to participate if you want to advance your development career and expand your network.

Remember, the most important thing is to have fun and enjoy the experience. Bring the spirit of the Hacktoberfest beyond the event, and don't stop at four pull requests. By contributing to open-source projects, you're not only helping yourself, but you're also helping to build a better world for everyone through these projects.

So, what are you waiting for? Join the Hacktoberfest and start making a difference today!