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This is my first HacktoberFest, and I don't know what to feel.

FrancisTRᴅᴇᴠ on November 02, 2026

When reading this title, this may sound Netural... Let me explain further. I do recommend reading this in full since I am a critical guy lol. If...
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Amara Graham •

I'm not in the open source space right now, so I really appreciated your perspective on this year's Hacktoberfest!

In previous years, before AI was reshaping the whole industry, it was really hard on maintainers to reviews PRs based on the sheer volume some would get, low effort or otherwise. Lots of noise and chaos.

But it's super cool that you participated this year, even if you aren't really an events guy! Definitely a great opportunity to talk about on a resume and in interviews.

Picked as gem
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FrancisTRᴅᴇᴠ •

That's fair. I was hoping they could bring it back but more controlled in a way. For example, maintainers can apply for the HacktoberFest to be part of it and the one way that the PR can be valid is if they contribute to a repo that is "HacktoberFest Verified". That way, it's easier to keep track and maintain. There is probably already something like that now I think about it...

A good opportunity to talk about it in the interview Amara! Can't wait for next year!

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Paweł Świątkowski •

For example, maintainers can apply for the HacktoberFest to be part of it and the one way that the PR can be valid is if they contribute to a repo that is "HacktoberFest Verified".

This was already the case for last few years. Only pull requests to repos tagged with #hacktoberfest were counted (or a maintainer could be putting a tag on an individual PR). This already killed the large part of the vibe, as there was very few repos tagged outside of JavaScript world.

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Dhruv Jani •

Here's mine! It was a great month, really!

Have A Great Day!

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FrancisTRᴅᴇᴠ •

Glad you had fun Dhruv! Thanks for sharing!

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dj29 profile image
Dhruv Jani •
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Earl Grey •

Had.a.blast!

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FrancisTRᴅᴇᴠ •

Glad you had fun Earl! Thanks :D

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Thomas Bonnet •

Yaay!

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FrancisTRᴅᴇᴠ •

Good Stuff Thomas!

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Peter Vivo •

Grat! Where I found this stickers?

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FrancisTRᴅᴇᴠ •

You would go to "hacktoberfest.com/my/" and scroll down to see your sticker book. You should be able to share there.

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Peter Vivo •

This is fare from your activity but at least I also make a work
week 0 :: a sandbox TS+|> terminal with AI mentor
week 2 :: a small animation for android pad after-flash
week 3 :: a programming language hexaw
week 4 :: a card game Singularity News CCG

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Felipe Inoue • • Edited

I plan to participate too good luck 😀

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FrancisTRᴅᴇᴠ •

If you are talking about this year, it has already ended. Though next year you could!

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Felipe Inoue •

oh I misunderstood, I thought it was Global Hack Week: Builders Week haha.

But okay, I'll try next year then, ty

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FrancisTRᴅᴇᴠ • • Edited

Fair enough. Any global hackweek I am excited to join :D

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Azariah M •

i was late 😔

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FrancisTRᴅᴇᴠ •

There is always a next year Azariah!

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Anna Villarreal •

I thought I was going to participate more, but my store needed alot of attention. I didnt want to participate just to "participate" and I want to hold myself to a higher standard than submitting something AI created. I was excited to participate where I could, as it was my first hacktoberfest I've participated in. I did alot of other cool stuff during this time, things that needed to be done. ✨️

hacktoberfest badges

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Jyanthi •

I never considered joining Hacktoberfest, but your article has certainly sparked my interest! You may have inspired a new participant for next year. 😊 What advice would you give to someone taking their very first steps into open source?

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Fayaz •

Great recap. 🥰

  • I'd like it more if the DEV challenge topics and criteria were less restrictive.
  • making it only AI related didn't help.
  • PR should've had a part, even if they were in a more restrictive way.

That said: overall, the way I see it, something like Hacktoberfest is what you make of it. Nothing to lose, and even if you gain a little, that's valuable.

What is more valuable though, is the community connection we make through it. In that age of AI, that's very important.


The most significant achievement I gained from this Hachtoberfest is the following project I've built. God willing, I'm certainly going to do a lot of work on this, as I myself will use it for sure: 🥰


I didn't care much about the stickers and completions. So here's mine:

fm's sticker pack

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Klaudia Grzondziel •

I just dropped by to say hi – long time no see! 👋🏻 😃

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Takefumi Ono •

Really enjoyed the honesty in this one, especially the transparency note about the section you removed. That’s rare.

About your idea of AI plus human reviewers for PRs: from my work in AI training, I think you’re right that the human part is essential. AI reviewers have the same habits I wrote about. They can approve a bad PR with total confidence. So AI could help sort the pile, but your volunteer reviewers would still need the final say.

And about your reply to Amara: something like that did exist! In 2020, after the spam problems, Hacktoberfest became opt-in. Repos added a “hacktoberfest” topic, and PRs only counted if they were merged, approved, or labeled “hacktoberfest-accepted” by a maintainer. So your “Hacktoberfest Verified” idea is very close to what they tried.

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Ayesha Mashiat •

I share your disappointment regarding the removal of PRs. I was looking forward to them in this year's one as I couldn't contribute to open source in the previous years. But I genuinely enjoyed this year's one as well. The themes were fun and allowed me to think through my skills and issues. AI reviewed PRs are already being used in many places and it's only going to evolve from here (hopefully). Hacktoberfests in the future could probably bring AI and PRs together create more fun and exciting events like this.

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build996 •

Your suggestion to reward volunteer reviewers raises a different question from whether AI can spot low-quality PRs: who checks the reviewers' decisions? A reward per reviewed PR could recreate the volume incentive on the other side of the queue. I'd rather let maintainers specify a small set of wanted changes and cap incoming contributions when review capacity is full. Would a single contribution with a real review conversation have given you more of the accomplishment you wanted than another completion sticker?

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Abhisek Roy •


Here is mine. Really exiciting month waiting for tuesday for new challenge

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Priyanshu Patel •

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DevOps Daily •

Did you have a chance to try the special event we organized at devops-daily.com/hacktoberfest?