Yep. They seem sympathetic [1] but unwilling to actually stop hurting us [2].
[1]: https://twitter.com/MattIPv4/status/1311366041897971712
[2]: https://twitter.com/MattIPv4/status/1311395478244818945
[1]: https://twitter.com/MattIPv4/status/1311366041897971712
[2]: https://twitter.com/MattIPv4/status/1311395478244818945
We also noticed an uptick in spammy PR's and we are working on a bunch of immediate and long term changes to improve the situation for Open Source maintainers like you.
Here's an official post where we walk through currently proposed changes: https://hacktoberfest.digitalocean.com/hacktoberfest-update
suggests to me that DO expected that maintainers would email DO about spammy users. is that the case?
The problem with most "spam flagging" solutions is: 1. They only kick in _after_ the PR is created and the maintainer's time is wasted. 2. In some cases they might actually cause more harm than good. A user is flagged for spamming, gets blocked, creates another account and spams some more... etc.
For that reason we are focusing our efforts on just re-routing these impatient users into guides that have them creating PR's on their own repos.
Long term we are definitely committed to updating the program to make sure it's delivering on the mission of getting people positively involved in open source.
Many maintainers put “Hacktoberfest” labels on issues they’re happy for newcomers to work on.
That's why, to deal with the immediate issue we're creating an obvious, even lower-effort route for the impatient participants to take (follow a guide to create 4 PR's on your own repo) - and longer term we'll make bigger changes (maybe including an opt-in only model) that solve the perverse incentive issues that seem to be driving this PR spam.
> This year, the first 70,000 participants who successfully complete the challenge will be eligible to receive a prize.
How about choosing 70,000 participants at random? Or any other criterion that doesn't encourage quick content-less contributions?