Hacktoberfest preparations

About Hacktoberfest

Hacktoberfest is a month long event on Github that encourages contributing to open source projects. It happens every year during October. If you complete at least 4 approved pull requests - you get sent merch!

Read more here about the 2021 Hacktoberfest.

For contributors

Many people aren't familiar with open source, so this becomes a great introduction. There is a specific label "good first issue" that is targeted towards newcomers. Either people who are new to programming, new to github, new to contributing to open source.. All of those apply. Issues of this label tend to be simple and don't have to be coding related. They could be text fixes in documentation, simple changes in color, translations... The experience of completing a "good first issue" lets people to get used to the whole git system, improves their confidence and gets them introduced to various new and interesting projects they otherwise would never find.

My experience as a contributor was hectic. I struggled to find appropriate for my skill level issues and I could never be sure if I can solve them in time, or they are too easy to count. Many projects lacked guidance. Most problems I had were with starting out - not even in fixing an actual coding problem.

Therefore, I decided to fix this issue for those like me. After my experience with Telescope, I have started seeing it as my project. I am a part of this now, and I am responsible for its growth to some degree.

For maintainers

As a repository owner, you are required to prepare issues for contributors. You need to make sure a newcomer can understand what is required with ease so that they focus on the actual implementation.

Once the issue is ready, maintainers need to assign "Hacktoberfest" label to it. Answer questions of contributors that find this issue and are trying to solve it. Assign it to those who wants to solve it. When they have made their pull request - review it and, if all is good, merge. Add the "hacktoberfest-accepted" label in the end to make sure the contributor has this issue count towards their progress.

Now on the other side!

Now that I'm familiar with Telescope, I can try attending hacktoberfest from a maintainer side. It will be a different experience, but now I know what to do, as I have already been in the contributor role. I will be also trying to do the same for SevenTV, which doesn't use github issues for their task tracking. So I would have to make issues myself and do their maintenance.

Telescope progress

Isn't this kind of early...? Yes. But there are many issues and I know myself well. I better at least start this, I know I won't finish it any time soon. Hopefully, if I line out the structure and a direction, people will follow. I'm not the only maintainer of this, so I want us to cooperate and be ready when October comes.

Actual steps

Firstly, I have started a project to track the issues preparation.

Please make sure to read the README of it (if you are a maintainer). If not - I will show you what is there now.

Of course, by the time you are reading this, it might change. Hovewer, the general idea/outline is there.

Once Hacktoberfest comes, we will have the list of issues already. We would only need to assign the label to them.

Additionally

I thought I might as well make an introductory video for hacktoberfest participants. If you read my past posts, I had mentioned something called "issue seller" before. Hacktoberfest would be a great opportunity to try out this format.

It is also a good experience for me to get familiar with some issues/parts of the project I never dealt with before. Before I introduce them to others, I should know enough about them myself.