---
title: "Hacktoberfest 2021?"
description: "Are you participating in Hacktoberfest 2021?"
date: 2021-10-10
published: true
tags:
  - discuss
template: blog-post
---


Are you participating in Hacktoberfest 2021?

I got my start with open source with Hacktoberfest 2018. I remember being so
nervous for those first pr's. I have continued to participate every year, and
it feels good to give back.

## It made a big change on me

Something that it really did for me was to lower the hurdle to contribute
regularly. I am not a huge contributor to open source. I am not necessarily a
regular maintainer of any large project, but I do often raise issues when I see
things as a user that would make things easier or more clear.

After participating it does not feel like such a big deal to go through the
motions of making my own fork, making a small change, and submitting it for
review.

## What can you do?

As a user, you might be in a unique position to see a library from the
perspective of other users rather than from the eyes of a maintainer. You can
help bring the user perspective to your favorite library.

[https://twitter.com/_WaylonWalker/status/1446440878864846909](https://twitter.com/_WaylonWalker/status/1446440878864846909){.hoverlink}

My favorite error messages are those that I helped tweak just a bit to make it
clear to the user what is happening and how to fix it. As much as we all hate
getting errors, It does warm my heart when I see one that I helped make better.

## Discuss

Are you participating this year?

Show us some of your PR's, and why they make a difference.

Let me know on [twitter](https://twitter.com/_WaylonWalker) or in this
[dev.to](https://dev.to/waylonwalker/hacktoberfest-2021-1mkf) discussion.