Hacktoberfest is an festive for open-source programmers and developers organized by DigitalOcean. Even since I got to know about it I have been participating in this awesome event. You should too.. I tried gathering some basic and useful information required to learn about this awesome event. There is lot more to learn about this event, but I hope this will provide you some basic knowledge about the event.

Discord server

Before starting with anything else, you can join thousands of other developers on the official hacktoberfest discord server to enage more and learn alongside others. Click here to join the official hacktobefest discord server

What is Hacktoberfest?

Hacktoberfest is a month-long celebration of open source software run by DigitalOcean with various other partners.

Who can participate?

Hacktoberfest is open to everyone! YOU ARE IN !!

How can I participate?

All you need to participate is will to contribute to open source and a github account. You simply register here using your github account. For participating in the challenge you will have to submit Pull Requests(PR) in any public Github/Gitlab hosted repository.

When can I participate?

You can participate by signing up anytime between October 1 and October 31. All of yours contributions within this time preiod will be counted even if those were before you sign up for the event.

Can I organize an event?

You surely can as it is a great way to support the open source community.

Explore Details about organizing events and maintainer's informations to learn how to successfully organize a Hacktoberfest gathering around you.

What do I get for participating?

There are lots of things you will get for participating:

• Gain more knowledge about open source and open source contributions
• Gain more knowledge about github and community based contributions
• Thanks for the project you contributed to
• Free Swag Reward from the hacktoberfest team (Terms apply)

How do I get the T-shirt?

To obtain the T-shirt you will have to complete specific amount of contributions on Github. Stickers are included with the T-shirt as well

The amount of PRs to be completed are:

• Hacktoverfest No.7 (2021): 4
• Hacktoberfest No.6 (2020): 4
• Hacktoberfest No.5 (2019): 5
• Hacktoberfest No.4 (2018): 4

When will I receive the T-shirt?

T-shirts are awarded on a first-come, first-serve basis to the first 55,000 participants who successfully completed the Hacktoberfest challenge. You will be receiving mail when you have completed the challenge. Further details will be provided with the mail.

I am new to Open source, how should I start?

Believe me, everyone once was! You just need to get started with proper resources and guides. Here are some good resources for you:

• Introduction to Open Source series
• How To Create a Pull Request
• Up For Grabs
• Issuehub.io
• First Timers Only
• Your First PR
• Awesome for Beginners

You can also check the official information for beginners available here.

I completed X-number of PR, but tracking page shows I am not done?

Make sure your PRs are not among these:

• PRs that are automated (e.g. scripted opening PRs to remove whitespace/optimize images)
• PRs that are disruptive (e.g. taking someone else's branch/commits and making a PR)
• PRs that are regarded by a project maintainer as a hindrance vs. helping
• Something that's clearly an attempt to simply +1 your PR count for October
• Last but not least, one PR to fix a typo is fine. 5 PRs to remove a stray whitespace... not

Anything else I need to know?

These are just the basics you should be knowing about Hacktoberfest. But surely there are lot more things which is better if known. You can learn more about the Hacktoberfest event through the official resources here!

Hacktoverfest 2021

Hacktoberfest 2021 is back with a lot more of excitement and fun.

Most of the rules and other information as just as same as the last hacktoberfest. You can refer to the list below for more information about it. But the most amazing thing this year is that Hacktoberfest is coming to GITLAB as well. Isn't this exciting?

First 55,000 participants are can earn a T-shirt. But just like 2020, I believe there will be option to choose between tee and tree.

Hacktoberfest 2020

Hacktoberfest 2020 is almost on the way as this article is being updated for the event happening soon. There are few things to be noted for this year's hacktoberfest event. Most of those are already same as the previous years but still knowing them all is always good idea.

• Once you are done with 4 pull requests, your PR will have to go through 2 weeks (14 days) of review window. If maintainers report it as spam you will have to again make the count to 4 and wait for another 2 weeks of review window.
• Any sort of spam PR or attempt to +1 your count will be removed i.e. marked as ineligible for completion. Quality over quantity
• Initially all the repositories are ineligible for the hacktoberfest event itself. Which means maintainers have to opt-in their repository this time by adding the hacktoberfest label to their respository keywords.
• You can report an ineligible repository by going to this link here
• According to the hacktoberfest website your PR will have to be accepted by maintainer by merging it, adding the "hacktoberfest-accepted" label to it, or approving it.

There is more to the event itself and the team has really worked to reduce the spam pull requests. So make sure to go through the hacktoberfest website itself to learn more.