Are you participating in Hacktoberfest 2021?
I got my start with open source with Hacktoberfest 2018. I remember being so nervous for those first pr's. I have continued to participate every year, and it feels good to give back.
It made a big change on me
Something that it really did for me was to lower the hurdle to contribute regularly. I am not a huge contributor to open source. I am not necessarily a regular maintainer of any large project, but I do often raise issues when I see things as a user that would make things easier or more clear.
After participating it does not feel like such a big deal to go through the motions of making my own fork, making a small change, and submitting it for review.
What can you do?
As a user, you might be in a unique position to see a library from the perspective of other users rather than from the eyes of a maintainer. You can help bring the user perspective to your favorite library.
My favorite error messages are those that I helped tweak just a bit to make it clear to the user what is happening and how to fix it. As much as we all hate getting errors, It does warm my heart when I see one that I helped make better.
Discuss
Are you participating this year?
Show us some of your PR's, and why they make a difference.