Project We Hope to Contribute To

This week our group discussed what kind of open source project we want to contribute to. We are hoping to find a project where maintainers respond to pull requests in a reasonable amount of time. Since we are new contributors, getting feedback from maintainers is important for us to understand how the contribution process works.

We also want to find a project where the issues have different difficulty levels. Some beginner-friendly issues can help us start contributing, and later we might try slightly more difficult tasks.

Another thing we considered is whether someone in the group has used the project before. If at least one person understands how the project works as a user, it will be easier for us to understand the purpose of the project and what problems we can help solve.

Possible Challenges

One challenge is understanding the codebase of a new project. Many open source projects have existed for a long time, so the structure and code can be difficult for new contributors.

Another challenge is learning the contribution workflow. Every project has different guidelines, so we need to carefully read the documentation and understand how they handle issues and pull requests.

To deal with this, we plan to start with small issues first and gradually learn more about the project.

My Contributions So Far

So far my contributions have mostly been small improvements to documentation and project materials. For example, I helped fix some minor issues in documentation, such as correcting small mistakes and improving clarity.

I also helped fix some small problems reported by others, such as images in reports that were not loading correctly. These types of small fixes may seem minor, but they help make the project documentation clearer and easier for others to use.

Reflection

One challenge for me is learning how to explore large repositories and understand how different files connect with each other.

The contribution I feel most satisfied with so far is helping fix small documentation issues. Even though these changes are small, they improve the usability of the project and help other contributors understand the project more easily.