I know I am consistently losing my consistency of writing posts but this one is worth your time, really ;)
So guess what? My merge request was finally ACCEPTED! What does this mean? Oh even I have to figure out that part 😂 but it just means there is still hope for open source!
So last time I had commented on a PR multiple times (like an annoying kid waiting for you to get frustrated 😂) and also got myself embarassed on the matrix chat several times. And what happened now is just the amplification…
Yeah literally, at the end of the post you may feel it is different but not so much 😁
Anyways, for starters, I pushed that small 1 line change into my fork and then according to the reply on matrix from a maintainer whose name I won’t be able to give on the blog but he really felt like an angel throughout this whole process! And hence I opened a merge request.
Yeah like an actual merge request just for a one liner 🫣
And something amazing about gitlab’s merge request is that it automatically shows that in the related PR so if you go to that PR, you will see a MR by me! But a few days went by and it felt like everyone is happy ignoring me, except I did not want the hapiness to last longer. So I commented… again. And guess what? there was no response this time either 😂
So after some more days, this was my approach (yeah, could have been better but hey no judging me 😅).
So someone (can’t name them without their permission 😅) first told that they are awaiting their PR to be reviewed which they opened just 4 hours ago and then there were some more 6–7 messages solving the issue by calling in the correct maintainer, informing them and blah blah. So I thought to myself if someone with a PR opened 4 hours can get their issue solved so quickly, it should not take much time for someone like me who is waiting for over a month now and so my hands typed this message (trust me, if my brain was totally active at that time, I would not be writing the message!!)
Actually I also opened a MR in the gnome characters app but I am not getting any reply 😅
It’s been a week and I have also added 2 comments in the issue.
Would be glad if someone looked into it, just a small one line change nothing huge 😅This is the link:
https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-characters/-/issues/56
I really wrote this message humbly and meant no harm; but credits to my insane luck, it sounded a bit off when you switch perspectives 😵💫
(Maybe my username is a problem? Does Genius_Mind sound too arrogant for a username?!)
So these were the next 2 messages in chat:
Maintainer:
Gentle reminder that we’re all volunteers, stretched thin, and that nobody is owed a review
Me:
I do agree, all of us do this in our free time but I just wanted to bring it into attention, did not mean anything else.
And there’s something more to it, remember there was this maintainer I tagged a month ago when I did not make any changes but wanted to? Yeah, Then it was their turn to see these messages…
Maintainer:
:Genius_Mind: reviewed the characters one; I was on a break at the time
generally if you pinged me somewhere in january, please ping again because I guarantee I missed it
I’ve been focusing on libadwaita stuff so far, since I’m being paid to do it but not characters, and since I was away for most of the january I kinda have to
either way, landed your MR — thanks!
So the :Genius_Mind thing you see at the start is actually a tag to me its just how matrix does it (maybe element specifically but you get it)
And according to this response from the maintainer, anyone who has a good level of communication would send the ideal message
Thanks a ton for closing the issue.
But me being me, wrote something extra which was something I regretted later 🫣
Me:
Thanks a ton for closing the issue. I kinda got an idea that you were busy so I thought it would be best to wait. Anyways, this was it, thanks again!
And this is true, when I was looking for other issues in the characters app, I did see a comment in a PR mentioning this maintainer being on leave for sometime so I decided to stay silent for sometime.
But maybe my wording was bad or its just my amazing luck striking again, this was their response:
Maintainer:
I was just on a break for mental health reasons, after that I was busy but still listening to pings — I just forgot to go through characters backlog, sorry
Since I wa focusing on libadwaita instead
🫣 Yeah… I think I could have had some control on my wording? Tone of a message just feels too important here, and unfortunately emoji's don't work I guess 😅
I think you as a reader might also wish that I could undo the previous message 😂 but that's unfortunately out of my hands!
But it does not end here, there’s another message I sent after this and I don’t know what to say about it, it just depends on what perspective you’re viewing it from…
Me:
I understand dw! No need for sorries 🙂
One part of me is okay with this message while the other wants me to quit open source right away, just trying to the hang of being an open source contributor I guess? 😅
But even after all this the biggest regret I have is this (all in one image):
For someone who did not understand this, the maintainer understood my one line change and changed that one line change. So what I did was adding the version option after the constructor class, the maintainer moved it inside the constructor.
Now this is a dilema cause when you have a one line change and the maintainer changes the location of the one line change in the code, it feels confusing whether I should call it my work or just another tuesday doing "collaboration" 😂. So I could ideally call this merge accepted but the contribution does not feel mine 😅.
So I figured out everything from the flow to the code to even getting embarrased on element and yet got the merge request to complete but it just doesn’t feel like I have really earned it.
So, I don’t know what I should call it but hey atleast I have an open source contribution! After all, I am looking forward to contributing to more issues on the characters app (or should I consider libadwaita now that the maintainer has mentioned it? I might get a job if I can convince them😜).
But this MR merge taught me something new, it is not always your fault in communication, sometimes its just perspective that matters. And maybe this post might sound like me criticizing myself but that's important to keep me going cause according how much I know myself if I get satisfied in this MR, I am probably not gonna go further. But hey, celebration is also needed (and that was the opening 😂) and I do celebrate but more quietly instead of making a ton of noise!
Also, this MR showed me how much a single maintainer has to juggle, I mean they are helping newcomers like me while having to do work that actually counts in their salary. Like amazing... literally!
THANKS A LOT for reading till here and I really value your time, but if you are someone who has already gone through this, I would really like to know this in the comments. If possible please guide me or maybe just comment on how bad I am at something, I would appreciate that too 😁!
Will keep you in the loop, byeee!
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I also write on other platforms, if you like my blogs and are interested in keeping me motivated for writing more of these blogs you can just give a view to this same blog on the other two platforms 🙂
Hashnode: https://contributing-to-ubuntu.hashnode.dev/contributing-to-ubuntu-day-final
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