An Update on Hacktoberfest ❤️
Tags: hacktoberfest, opensource, meta
Published: 2020-10-01 22:23:08

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title: An Update on Hacktoberfest ❤️
published: true
description: 
tags: hacktoberfest, opensource, meta
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_Update 10/5/20: PRs can now be made in any participating GitHub-hosted repository/project. Your PRs will count toward your participation if they are in a repo with the `hacktoberfest` topic and once they have been merged, approved by a maintainer, or labeled as `hacktoberfest-accepted`._

_Maintainers can opt-in to participate by classifying their projects with the `hacktoberfest` topic (find a list of opted-in projects [here](https://github.com/topics/hacktoberfest)). however, any PR with the `hacktoberfest-accepted` label, submitted to any public GitHub repository, with or without the `hacktoberfest` topic, will be considered valid._ 

From DigitalOcean:
> “**A note to contributors:** For participants who have already worked hard to complete Hacktoberfest 2020, we will honor all the participants who have submitted valid pull requests prior to 2020-10-03 12:00:00 UTC on a per pull request basis. We’re really excited to see what you continue to contribute! To find all the participating repositories visit the Hacktoberfest home page or go directly to the list on Github. 

> **A note to maintainers:** Due to this change, it will no longer be necessary for you to opt out of Hacktoberfest. As a maintainer participating in Hacktoberfest, you’ll want to classify your with the Hacktoberfest topic and apply `hacktoberfest-accepted` labels to pull requests you want to accept. We’ve included a few gifs below to show you how simple this can be.”

_*Update 10/1/20: We’ve coordinated with our friends at DigitalOcean to suggest measures for reducing the volume of low-effort and spam PRs this Hacktoberfest. [Please read their entire update on this year’s changes here](https://hacktoberfest.digitalocean.com/hacktoberfest-update).*_

It’s officially Hacktoberfest! We’re looking forward to a month of celebrating and advancing open-source with the help of contributors and maintainers alike.
As you may have seen here on DEV or elsewhere on social media, an important conversation is evolving about the impact of [spammy Hacktoberfest pull requests](https://hacktoberfest.digitalocean.com/hacktoberfest-update). 

Hacktoberfest is meant to be a force of good for the open-source ecosystem, and it’s disappointing when people view this celebration as an opportunity to merely win free swag.  Maintainers invest their valuable time and energy into managing important projects, and we should respect and appreciate their efforts and ensure we’re not making their lives more difficult. As a co-sponsor of Hacktoberfest, we have been chatting with the DigitalOcean team throughout the day about how we can best promote valuable contributions this month.

With that being said, we are still _super_ excited about this month of open-source collaboration and community learning. DigitalOcean will soon be announcing some positive changes to Hacktoberfest based on their open dialogue project maintainers. Until then, it’s still Hacktoberfest and we hope you participate! 

If you’re looking for help on a project, please don’t hesitate to ask in the help thread:

{% link https://dev.to/devteam/hacktoberfest-2020-help-discussion-thread-31aj %}

We’ll keep you posted as soon as we have more updates. Until then, happy coding!