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Nuttaphat Arunoprayoch
Nuttaphat Arunoprayoch

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Hack(Spam?)toberfest

What I Learned From Hacktoberfest

I was having fun working on different interesting projects, It surely opened a wider door for open-source communities to global networking and collaboration.

However, let's talk about the elephant 🐘 in the room...

Hack(Spam?)toberfest

While it has been encouraging developers to get into open-source development, a Hacktoberfest shirt offers a sweeter taste.

It turns out that there are a ton of spam PRs from newly-registered accounts all over the place. Okay, this is not new but it is just simply ugly. Of course, an attempt was made to prevent this from happening; I do appreciate it.

I just wanted to point out that it saddens me as a developer to see this behaviour.

Examples

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Let's do it better and properly next time

P.S. Save READMD.md, Save the World

Top comments (9)

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cheahengsoon profile image
Eng Soon Cheah

Why it is become spam due to the spam contributor had the mindset of " Wear the Tshirt from some famous Event or IT Company feel pride of it". That why this year I do not create any pull request, I only submit the report for spam repo.

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patricnox profile image
PatricNox

I've been a participant in 4 years now.

This year has the most spam, and therefore also the year where the rules and term of participation got changed. (Now repositories needs to opt-in)

I believe it is all due to the community made around the YouTuber who explicitly vouched for a way of getting a shirt for free.

His examples were spam, and people without OpenSource awareness fell of it instantly.

Either way, I have 7+ repositories opted in, and i haven't personally received any spam thus far. Just one or two dumb PR's not knowing what the repository was made for.

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benji011 profile image
Benji πŸ™ • Edited

I read somewhere that it’s also a cultural thing that was also in play too. Basically β€œin their culture they are taught to take what is offered especially if it’s free regardless and it will benefit you”

I’m just paraphrasing and can’t remember exactly where I read this so somebody can correct me or back me up on this

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cheahengsoon profile image
Eng Soon Cheah

You can report the repository to hacktoberfest.digitalocean.com/report

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mzaini30 profile image
Zen

It's very weird spam

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bobbyiliev profile image
Bobby Iliev • Edited

To be fair, I think that the organizers have done a really good job handling the spam contributions so far especially after the updated rules.

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lesleyvdp profile image
Lesley van der Pol

I've been wondering ever since what people think they gain out of this? Is it the recognition of having added one word to a popular open-source library?

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mkamranhamid profile image
Kamran Hamid

Yeah, people are more into swags now than what was the real essence of organising and investing in this huge event

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rajatsx profile image
Rajat Saxena

Hacktoberfest had it coming I would say. I had doubts about the entire premise. I've recorded my thoughts here. youtu.be/INHVFjgnaqg