Hacktoberfest (I feel like an unintentional cheater)

So here I am on my coding journey. Finally getting to a point where at least in HTML and CSS I can comfortably and openly talk about and contribute to with others. Getting over impostor syndrome and signing up for Hacktoberfest (after reading Mr. Larson’s @QuincyLarson post on getting his shirt), I get the emails, start clicking through all the links and come to the progress page. Obviously expecting to find it saying 0/5 (I know personal counts as per the details, but it didn’t click right away in my head when I glanced over that part), it says 7/5. I was a little surprised to see I had completed the event, simply by putting my RWD projects on GiHub and managing the files.

Now, it’s nice that with less than half the month left I can take my time in finding some actual open source to contribute to since signing up today, but I really feel like I somehow cheated the system since it was my own repo’s that got counted. I know the details say that personal ones count, but man, I really feel like I didn’t do anything to earn the free shirt ya know. Maybe I hyped up the event in my head so much since ‘hack’ is in the name that I thought events like this was something only really experienced developers did and that it would be very difficult to do. This was my first time.

I guess what all this ranting is for is to let all those budding developers out there like me know is, it really is easy to get into events like this and gain a little confidence too. Thanks for taking the time to read through this ya’ll.

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If you add the label “invalid” then it won’t be counted toward Hacktoberfest.

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you did a pull request on your own repos? That’s basically what the Hacktoberfest is (if it’s the one I’m thinking of) open and submit a PR. I don’t think I’ve ever done a PR on my own repos so that surprised me. Unless I’m misunderstanding something.

The advice above is good if you want to start fresh.

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If you’re practicing or trying to set up a good pattern for an open source project you’re working toward, I can see why you would create a PR. If you’re only using the web interface of GitHub, you might have to merge commits in the form of a PR.

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Oh that makes sense about the web interface… or maybe through GUI type set up like GitKraken or code editor of choice like VSCode.

I don’t think I’ve ever come across doing that on my own projects that I created- since I don’t create a branch (bad practice I know…I may have to start doing that anyway!)

Learn something new.

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@ArielLeslie
@Ducky

Yea that’s essentially what I had done. Early this month I built a new computer and haven’t 100% re-setup everything. Had a GitHub account for a while when I had first started FCC legacy. When the new Curriculum came out I reset all my stuff and recently started it anew. I’ve only really used the web interface of GitHub since I started putting the FCC projects on it.

So what I have been doing is putting the initial functioning code up there. And then when making mass edits or adding additional files I create a branch, make the changes, create the pull request and then merge. Probably silly to do on personal repo’s but I figured practicing the process is better than nothing, and it might help show some activity, etc. Still learning the whole GitHub thing.

Not silly at all… best way to do is practice on yourself (sort of). :smiley:

And I would say it counts as it’s in their FAQs that they allow it, but I get what you mean by feeling like an unintentional cheater- to me you aren’t.

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A pull request to yourself is also what happens when you need to update a local fork. :grinning:

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