Ask HN: Is it only me who found the idea of Hacktoberfest ineffective?
Is it only me who found the idea of #Hacktoberfest ineffective? Encouraging people to have only one month in the year to create and contribute to a movement about freedom is counterproductive.
I see many companies doing marketing-fueled efforts to support it and many community members competing with questionable PRs to get a rank or something. I miss the talk about #FOSS's value and how we can sustain this effort.
I'd love to hear your thoughts on that! In the past it has encouraged me to get out there and submit PRs for some low hanging fruit on projects I normally wouldn't interact with. I don't doubt that a lot of the PRs people make are garbage (especially in the past with the free t-shirt element attracting hustle-for-the-bag types) but if a small % of participants feel emboldened to participate in open source in the future then I think it's worth it.