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Nevo David

How to grow massively during Hacktoberfest

June 28, 2023

Nevo David

Hacktoberfest is one of the most significant open-source events annually during October and is run by Digital Ocean.

TL;DR - Make a few open-source contributions and get swag from Digital Ocean.

No matter your library, you will probably get some contributions and annoying ones like typos and style format. So the question is, what will you do about it?

Many library owners don't like it, don't like that people make inadequate contributions to get swag, and try to avoid Hacktoberfest and mark contributions as spam.

PLEASE DON'T DO IT

Ride the wave. If people understand that you are open to contribution - whether good or bad, they will bring their friends, friends, and so on.

You will suddenly find yourself on the GitHub trending feed.

You will get a lot of social media posts and shares.

Here is what you need to do

  1. Open issues before. Try to have around 50 issues, at least if possible, and let people pick the issues instead of making their own.

  2. Offer prizes for at least three valid contributions - whether it's a typo or styling format, you will grab a lot more attention. If you are not funded, you can offer budges or maybe use Holopins.

  3. Share on your README.md that you are participating in Hacktoberfest, so people will not know it's a good repository to contribute to.

  4. Give support as much as possible, and open a discord channel - it's free.

  5. Create special events such as HackSquad - you can find more about it in my 20k stars course.

  6. Look at every contribution as valid. Yes, fixing typos is still necessary.