3 ms·

Heh, reminds me of that free T-shirt contest thing... Submit crap PRs to random FOSS projects for a chance of winning a shirt, what could go wrong? https://ong

Heh, reminds me of that free T-shirt contest thing... Submit crap PRs to random FOSS projects for a chance of winning a shirt, what could go wrong? https://ongchinhwee.me/shitoberfest-ruin-hacktoberfest/ https://ongchinhwee.me/shitoberfest-ruin-hacktoberfest/

yawboakye 9mo ago
worked well for a bit. but then the program became popular and that’s when it hit the curb. terrible loss, imo. it was a brilliant idea to encourage open source work with a token reward. it relied heavily on good intentions, which quickly disappeared with the popularity.
- wink 9mo ago
  I have one of these and it was really nice in the first 1-n years. People gamified it and then it sucked, but the idea wasn't so bad. One would expect people would not stoop this low for a free T-Shirt.
  - ryandrake 9mo ago
    There is no limit to how low someone will stoop to get even a tiny token for free. I remember a local community fun event from a couple of years ago, which was set up by the library to encourage kids to read. They would count up these reading tokens at the end of it and give some tiny $2 teddy bear to the winners, and of course a bunch of adults swooped in, gamed the system, and all the toys went to them. People are totally shameless assholes when even an insignificant free prize is on the line.
- blitzar 9mo ago
  this is why we cant have nice things
- latexr 9mo ago
  It’s still ongoing. The difference is they now no longer offer t-shirts (at one point they planted trees instead, unsure if that still happens), and projects must opt-in.
  - david_allison 9mo ago
    They offered T-Shirts in 2025
    - latexr 9mo ago
      Thank you for the correction. I thought they had stopped that but I see you’re right. Seems to be more restrictive, though. https://hacktoberfest.com/participation/ https://hacktoberfest.com/participation/ > Swag - Get an exclusive Hacktoberfest T-Shirt, but its only for ‘Super Contributors’ who contribute 6 accepted PR/MRs to a worthy repository. (T&Cs Apply | Valid only for the first 10,000 contributors completing 6 PR/MR)
jcims 9mo ago
Classic perverse incentive. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perverse_incentive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perverse_incentive "According to the story, the British government, concerned about the number of venomous cobras in Delhi, offered a bounty for every dead cobra. Initially, this was a successful strategy; large numbers of snakes were killed for the reward. Eventually, however, people began to breed cobras for the income. When the government became aware of this, the reward program was scrapped, and the cobra breeders set their snakes free, leading to an overall increase in the wild cobra population."
sensanaty 9mo ago
The funniest/saddest part is that you could just game it on your own repos, you never had to go out and spam any real projects. If you just made 5 PRs in a repo you owned with the appropriate hacktoberfest tags, that was enough to pass the mark and to get the free shirt and stickers.

yawboakye 9mo ago

worked well for a bit. but then the program became popular and that’s when it hit the curb. terrible loss, imo. it was a brilliant idea to encourage open source work with a token reward. it relied heavily on good intentions, which quickly disappeared with the popularity.

wink 9mo ago
I have one of these and it was really nice in the first 1-n years. People gamified it and then it sucked, but the idea wasn't so bad. One would expect people would not stoop this low for a free T-Shirt.
- ryandrake 9mo ago
  There is no limit to how low someone will stoop to get even a tiny token for free. I remember a local community fun event from a couple of years ago, which was set up by the library to encourage kids to read. They would count up these reading tokens at the end of it and give some tiny $2 teddy bear to the winners, and of course a bunch of adults swooped in, gamed the system, and all the toys went to them. People are totally shameless assholes when even an insignificant free prize is on the line.
blitzar 9mo ago
this is why we cant have nice things
latexr 9mo ago
It’s still ongoing. The difference is they now no longer offer t-shirts (at one point they planted trees instead, unsure if that still happens), and projects must opt-in.
- david_allison 9mo ago
  They offered T-Shirts in 2025
  - latexr 9mo ago
    Thank you for the correction. I thought they had stopped that but I see you’re right. Seems to be more restrictive, though. https://hacktoberfest.com/participation/ https://hacktoberfest.com/participation/ > Swag - Get an exclusive Hacktoberfest T-Shirt, but its only for ‘Super Contributors’ who contribute 6 accepted PR/MRs to a worthy repository. (T&Cs Apply | Valid only for the first 10,000 contributors completing 6 PR/MR)

jcims 9mo ago

Classic perverse incentive. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perverse_incentive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perverse_incentive "According to the story, the British government, concerned about the number of venomous cobras in Delhi, offered a bounty for every dead cobra. Initially, this was a successful strategy; large numbers of snakes were killed for the reward. Eventually, however, people began to breed cobras for the income. When the government became aware of this, the reward program was scrapped, and the cobra breeders set their snakes free, leading to an overall increase in the wild cobra population."

sensanaty 9mo ago

The funniest/saddest part is that you could just game it on your own repos, you never had to go out and spam any real projects. If you just made 5 PRs in a repo you owned with the appropriate hacktoberfest tags, that was enough to pass the mark and to get the free shirt and stickers.