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⚠️ Check your Hacktoberfest profile ⚠️ A flaw could have reversed your completion of the challenge without you knowing it

Note: Don't assume you haven't been affected and check your hacktoberfest profile! This problem applies even after conclusion of hacktoberfest on October 31st.

Hi All,

I wanted to bring to attention an issue with hacktoberfest that was discovered over the past couple of days. This affects anyone who has pull requests still under review after hacktoberfest ended on Oct 31st.

The problem

A previously validated PR will become invalid due to being marked as submitted to an Ineligible repository. This happens if the hacktoberfest label is removed from the repository after Oct 31st while the PR was still under review. This affects PRs not marked hacktoberfest-accepted which not everyone will mark, as the rules state a PR merged by a repo with the hacktoberfest label will count.

You can view the hacktoberfest rules at: https://hacktoberfest.digitalocean.com/details

I discovered this problem when I started receiving messages from authors who contributed to some repos I managed for hacktoberfest because their PRs were being invalidated by the ineligible repository tag although they were previously accepted.

If you want a detailed explanation of what is causing this, see the issue I raised with the organisers of hacktoberfest on github.

PRs accepted by repos during Hacktoberfest now marked as "Ineligible Repository" #724

Describe the bug Pull requests accepted by repositories participating in Hacktoberfest during Oct 1-31 will become marked as "Ineligible Repository" if the repository removes their Hacktoberfest label after Oct 31.

To Reproduce Steps to reproduce the behavior:

  1. During Oct 1-31 submit a pull request to a repository with the Hacktoberfest label.
  2. The pull request is merged BUT the pull request itself is not marked as hacktoberfest-accepted. However, it still counts as a pull request submitted to a participating repository because the repository has the Hacktoberfest label.
  3. Under the user profile the pull request appears as "In Review". It is now waiting to pass the 14 day review period.
  4. After Hacktoberfest has ended (From Nov 1 onwards) the project maintainer removes the Hacktoberfest label from the repo.
  5. Under the user profile, the pull request is now marked as "Ineligible Repository".
  6. Re-adding the Hacktoberfest label to the repo or marking the pull request as hacktoberfest-accepted does NOT have any effect. The pull request is still marked as "Ineligible Repository".

Expected behavior

  • I would expect that pull requests submitted and accepted during Oct 1 - 31 would still count towards the users valid pull requests even if the Hacktoberfest label is removed from the participating repository.
  • I would also expect that re-adding the Hacktoberfest label to the repo or adding hacktoberfest-accepted to the pull request would allow it to become valid.

Screenshots This unexpected behaviour described has affected pull requests I submitted. I had 7 pull requests submitted and merged during Hacktoberfest but 4/7 are showing now showing as "Ineligible Repository". On the 3 pull requests that are still valid, I noticed the participating repo still has the Hacktoberfest label (And I assume the label was never removed).

I don't have a screenshot of my Hacktoberfest profile when it showed I completed at least 4 pull requests but here is the email confirming I completed the challenge:

hacktoberfest-completed-email

Here is the status of my profile now:

my-hacktoberfest-profile

Additional context I realised this was a problem because on one of the repositories I maintain that participated in Hacktoberfest, an author mentioned one of their pull requests is not counting. I remembered I removed the Hacktoberfest label from the repo a few hours back. I checked my own profile and saw I was also having this problem.

If this is an unexpected behaviour across all repositories that participated in Hacktoberfest, it means many pull requests will become marked as "Ineligible Repository" if the pull requests was still under review after Hacktoberfest ended and the label is removed from the repository.

And people will not realise this unless they checked their profile. (I didn't receive any email alert for this).

Happy to provide more info if requested.

How to avoid your PRs being affected if they aren't already

If you have PRs still under review check your profile now! Here's the link to access your profile:
https://hacktoberfest.digitalocean.com/profile

If you submitted a PR to a repo that did not mark your PR as hacktoberfest-accepted request for the repo maintainer to do so for the remainder of the PR review period.

Otherwise, if they remove the hacktoberfest label from the repo before the review period ends your PR will become ineligible and no longer count.

If you are affected

Unfortunately for those affected, we are still waiting to see if the organisers of hacktoberfest will fix this.

Send an email explaining you have been affected to hacktoberfest@digitalocean.com

Hopefully if more people get in contact they will be more likely to fix this :)

Thanks for reading and feel free to discuss the issue in the comments.

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