My Open Source Contribution Experience

Choosing a Community

Choosing a community was the hardest part. I did not know enough about the open source ecosystem to confidently choose where to contribute. It felt daunting—more like walking into the unknown—so I focused on documentation as a starting point. Hence, most of the communities that I prefered were first good-first-issue or required simple fixes.

Communities I Considered

  • Arduino Docs
    I use Arduino frequently enough to understand how it works. However, I wasn’t able to locate the specific page with the bug. Additionally, it was written in Markdown, but not in a format I was comfortable working with. typo discussion I earlier commented on it but I ended up deleting as I could not figure it out.

  • Twine
    The bug seemed simple enough to fix, but it was an old issue. I couldn’t find it and tried contacting others to check if it was still relevant or accessible. favicon issue

  • FreeSoundOrg
    The issue was really interesting, but also quite complex for a first contribution. I might revisit this in the future. dynamic css suggestion

  • Awesome Audio Visualization
    The repository had a lot of outdated links, which seemed like a simple fix. However, the repository has been inactive for a few years, so I was hesitant to work on it.

What Did I Pick?

I ultimately decided to contribute to the first-contributions repository on GitHub, which is aimed at teaching beginners how to make their first contributions.

I found this repository through class resources. There was a bug regarding confusing instructions, which made for an easy fix and gave me the opportunity to learn how to send my first Pull Request (PR). So, I needed to edit the ReadMe.

How Did My Comm Arch Experience Help?

Honestly, my Comm Arch experience wasn’t directly helpful in picking this repository. The ones we discussed in class required deeper familiarity with the software or the codebase. I ended up asking the TA for help and looking through class resources for support.

Contribution.md?

The CONTRIBUTING.md file in the first-contributions repository made the process much easier. It clearly explained how to make changes and submit a PR.

Issue I Fixed

There were conflicting instructions between GitHub Desktop and the README.md. GitHub Desktop told users to place their names at the end of the list, so I updated the README.md to match that instruction. I found that through an issue mentioned here.

Issue Feel free to click here to take a look at my PR. Screenshot of my Pull Request

My Failed Contribution

I attempted to contribute to the FreeSoundOrg website by removing duplicate CSS imports to improve loading time. However, even though the site used JavaScript (which I am somewhat familiar with), I didn’t feel confident enough with the overall codebase to proceed. I did, however, look at tutorials to see if I could potentially fix it.

What Blocked Me?

  • FreeSound.Org – My limited technical knowledge.
  • First-Contributions – I initially didn’t know how to refer my PR to the issue another user pointed out, but after some online research, I figured it out.

Was I Successful?

Technically, my PR hasn’t been accepted or declined yet, so I can’t say for sure. But personally, yes—I was successful. At first, I felt I wouldn’t be able to do this assignment due to lack of knowledge and fear of contributing to an unfamiliar community. But I overcame that fear and made sure my commits and PR were clear and direct.