This was Hacktoberfest 2022

Over the course of this year, I've tried a few times to get into open source. I was confused, overwhelmed, and ended up making only one or two posts on really simple topics designed to guide beginners into open source.

Table of contents

1. I Finally Contributed To Open Source
2. Hacktoberfest As A Maintainer
3. Hacktoberfest As A Contributor

I Finally Contributed To Open Source

I thought, maybe open source isn't for me, I'm not smart enough to contribute to open source.
But since Hacktoberfest was coming up and everyone was excited about it, I really wanted to be a part of it 😇.

I can proudly say that I successfully participated in Hacktoberfest 2022 this year.

And not only as a contributor, but also as a maintainer. Knowing how hard it is to get into open source, I want to provide an easy way for others to get into open source as well to gain experience and have something to write on their CV.

Hacktoberfest As A Maintainer

I must say that the work as a maintainer seemed much easier to me than the work as a contributor, although it was not easy at all.

I have a lot of ideas for my organization YurisCodingClub, which is supposed to help career changers like me to get into tech and share my tips and experience, like I did a year ago.

I was very happy when the first contributor asked me if he could work on one of my issues. Since I'm already familiar with GitHub, GitHub projects, creating Issues and PRs, setting up the project was quick.

I made sure that the issues are beginner-friendly and that there are also pure HTML or CSS tasks so that everyone can contribute. I've also included UX design tasks and want to increase the variety of tasks so that everyone, regardless of focus, can learn and contribute.

But when the first PR came in, I was a little overwhelmed. I knew (having contributed myself) that the contributor wanted the PR to be handled quickly so it could get the hacktoberfest-accepted badge.

This made me pretty nervous, so I accepted the first few PRs right away without much looking at the code 🙈.

But after a few days and some planning, I looked at the PRs more thoroughly, gave tips and suggestions on how to improve the code, and communication with the contributors was great 🥳.

If you are interested in contributing check out my organization YurisCodingClub on GitHub.

Hacktoberfest As A Contributor

I am very proud to have been involved in projects that are all about accessibility, community and social good. The most important topics for me 😊.

My tickets were relatively simple, mostly small CSS customization or writing additional content into a JSON file.

The most interesting thing was to see other projects' tests, their different setups and folder structures, and esLint rules - some of which I now use for my own projects. I learned a lot from looking at and reading through the code and setup of these projects.

But the best moment was when I made a suggestion to FreeCodeCamp to include accessibility questions specifically for the Developer Quiz. This had to be reviewed by Quincy first.

After a few days I got the info that he (!!) agrees with my suggestion and now you can also learn about accessibility.
Most rewarding moment of this month 🥰.

And here they are, my achievement badges 😄

I have not contributed to projects that said anyone interested can work on it and they accept the first good PR that comes in 🙅🏽‍♀️.

I find this approach rather demotivating. I prefer and find it more useful to be officially assigned and then get enough time to focus 100% on the ticket.

What do you think about this?

Thanks for your reading and time. I really appreciate it!