Ask HN: Is it only me who found the idea of Hacktoberfest ineffective?

[bogomil]

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!

[dgunay]

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.