[i__believe]

Often times I see this argument made, and on it's face seems like a good one.

However, experience has proven that it is difficult to actually contribute--even in active repo like npm. Every project has there own standards and unwritten rules. Further, many repo maintainers are unresponsive after initial contact, adding frustration to an already frustrating process of getting work put in.

Let's take npm/npm as an example. There is no easy to find contributing guidelines, thousands of open issues, and pull requests that have been open for months where the author requests more info so they can complete their work but without an answer. All of this leads to a contributor-hostile experience.

I think we as a community should consolidate the contribution process, and start treating that as a product and gets the same love the code does.