5 ms·

Switching to opt-in is the right call here to limit any further damage. Meanwhile, it's painfully obvious that the whole thing is aimed to be a "low-touch" / "f

by kardos 6y ago

Switching to opt-in is the right call here to limit any further damage. Meanwhile, it's painfully obvious that the whole thing is aimed to be a "low-touch" / "fully automated" campaign where the participation rules are designed around that goal. Makes sense -- it's easy to scale, etc. However now it's clear that the outcome is the polar opposite of GSoC, where participating in GSoC has prestige and produces high quality oss contributions, and it's facing an unwinnable battle against an internet army looking for the minimum effort end-run around the rules to extract a tshirt... So, my take is that DO should take a longer view and try to raise the profile of Hacktoberfest by making it more exclusive -- eg take a step toward GSoC. For ex, there are a handful of oss-bounty sites (bountysource, issuehunt, etc) where people post bounties for things they want implemented. Could DO partner here in some fashion? Such as matching bounties in a certain range ($10<x<$50?) with a tshirt? Or matching bounties? Make it a year-round promo instead of one month?

dmurray 6y ago
The cognitive dissonance here is that DO want to give the low-quality contributors a t-shirt. These are Indian students with good hustle and poor technical skills who market themselves as technologists. They're going to be managers making purchasing decisions at tech companies in a few years time, and they lack the technical sophistication to choose between DO and competitors on axes other than "I've heard of them"/"they have a good reputation"/"they gave me a t-shirt once". These customers are both more valuable and a thousand times more numerous than the ones capable of earning even a $10 bug bounty. I'm generalising here, but hopefully not racially stereotyping too much.
- scrollaway 6y ago
  So in your mind, hacktoberfest's marketing strategy isn't "let's sponsor a big public pro open source event so we get lots of good rep especially among open source enthusiasts and potential hires"... But instead it's some weird ass 5 year long-play betting that random indian students will, in the future, have purchasing power to choose Digital Ocean because they got a free shirt half a decade prior. "Generalising" isn't the word I would use.
  - alanbernstein 6y ago
    The people who are already making helpful contributions to open source don't need any additional incentives...?
    - majewsky 6y ago
      But it's still nice to get some recognition. And it would be a better play for DO. If they sent out 100000 t-shirts to those people who made the most accepted PRs over the last year, they'd hit a lot more longterm contributors and also get a better bang for their marketing buck.
    - halfdan 6y ago
      No, but people new to programming might enjoy a month of supported learning and get a gentle introduction to open source along the way. Let's not generalise in either direction. There are plenty of people who try to make meaningful contributions as part of Hacktoberfest.
    - scrollaway 6y ago
      People are constantly (and rightfully) on companies' asses talking about how they need to "give back to open source". Now you're telling me things are fine as-is. They're not.
      - domenicd 6y ago
        If they want to give back to open source, they could use the money they're spending on seventy thousand t-shirts to sponsor projects or pay maintainers.
        scrollaway 6y ago
        They do. https://www.digitalocean.com/open-source/ https://www.digitalocean.com/open-source/ Please stop telling people how to spend their money.
  - dmurray 6y ago
- addicted 6y ago
  Wouldn’t it be easier and cheaper to just give away a few shirts at a college event? Or heck, just gift them to everybody.
- srtjstjsj 6y ago
  Your argument is 100% correct but doesn't need to say "Indian".
  - inops 6y ago
    Look at the vast majority of the profiles/usernames of those making spammy PRs and you'll find it isn't an incorrect generalisation.
    - dhagz 6y ago
      That doesn't mean DO was targeting Indians specifically. That's more tied to the YouTube video that was making the rounds the other day.
      - inops 6y ago
        No, of course not. I wasn't implying DO were targetting Indians (and didn't read parent as doing that either). My point was that Indians are the ones that are mainly responding.

by kardos 6y ago

dmurray 6y ago

The cognitive dissonance here is that DO want to give the low-quality contributors a t-shirt. These are Indian students with good hustle and poor technical skills who market themselves as technologists. They're going to be managers making purchasing decisions at tech companies in a few years time, and they lack the technical sophistication to choose between DO and competitors on axes other than "I've heard of them"/"they have a good reputation"/"they gave me a t-shirt once". These customers are both more valuable and a thousand times more numerous than the ones capable of earning even a $10 bug bounty. I'm generalising here, but hopefully not racially stereotyping too much.

scrollaway 6y ago
So in your mind, hacktoberfest's marketing strategy isn't "let's sponsor a big public pro open source event so we get lots of good rep especially among open source enthusiasts and potential hires"... But instead it's some weird ass 5 year long-play betting that random indian students will, in the future, have purchasing power to choose Digital Ocean because they got a free shirt half a decade prior. "Generalising" isn't the word I would use.
- alanbernstein 6y ago
  The people who are already making helpful contributions to open source don't need any additional incentives...?
  - majewsky 6y ago
    But it's still nice to get some recognition. And it would be a better play for DO. If they sent out 100000 t-shirts to those people who made the most accepted PRs over the last year, they'd hit a lot more longterm contributors and also get a better bang for their marketing buck.
  - halfdan 6y ago
    No, but people new to programming might enjoy a month of supported learning and get a gentle introduction to open source along the way. Let's not generalise in either direction. There are plenty of people who try to make meaningful contributions as part of Hacktoberfest.
  - scrollaway 6y ago
    People are constantly (and rightfully) on companies' asses talking about how they need to "give back to open source". Now you're telling me things are fine as-is. They're not.
    - domenicd 6y ago
      If they want to give back to open source, they could use the money they're spending on seventy thousand t-shirts to sponsor projects or pay maintainers.
      - scrollaway 6y ago
        They do. https://www.digitalocean.com/open-source/ https://www.digitalocean.com/open-source/ Please stop telling people how to spend their money.
- dmurray 6y ago
addicted 6y ago
Wouldn’t it be easier and cheaper to just give away a few shirts at a college event? Or heck, just gift them to everybody.
srtjstjsj 6y ago
Your argument is 100% correct but doesn't need to say "Indian".
- inops 6y ago
  Look at the vast majority of the profiles/usernames of those making spammy PRs and you'll find it isn't an incorrect generalisation.
  - dhagz 6y ago
    That doesn't mean DO was targeting Indians specifically. That's more tied to the YouTube video that was making the rounds the other day.
    - inops 6y ago
      No, of course not. I wasn't implying DO were targetting Indians (and didn't read parent as doing that either). My point was that Indians are the ones that are mainly responding.