I've been a developer for 5 years. One of my 2020 goals, aided by being stuck at home because of a certain pandemic, is to make the leap to being a contributor in an open source project I care about.

One of my coworkers shared Hacktoberfest details and I got really fired up! I looked through repositories I could reasonably contribute bug fixes or light features to. Got myself familiar with the codebases, PR process, Hacktoberfest guidelines (that are very clear about spammy contributions).

Then reading this and seeing some of the bogus contributions myself (some by contributors who coincidentally share my name!), I don't know how to feel about this. Maybe keep up my laziness streak and punt my contributions to November (and reward myself with nerdy apparel!)? Or take this as a fun opportunity to redeem my name?