Not

Hacker News!

Beta
Home
Jobs
Q&A
Startups
Trends
Users
Live
AI companion for Hacker News

Not

Hacker News!

Beta
Home
Jobs
Q&A
Startups
Trends
Users
Live
AI companion for Hacker News
  1. Home
  2. /Story
  3. /Ask HN: Why do maintainers spend time reviewing my code?
  1. Home
  2. /Story
  3. /Ask HN: Why do maintainers spend time reviewing my code?
Nov 24, 2025 at 9:58 PM EST

Ask HN: Why do maintainers spend time reviewing my code?

dils
1 points
0 comments

Mood

skeptical

Sentiment

neutral

Category

ask_hn

Key topics

Open_source

Code_review

Maintainers

Recently, I was working on various open source projects. Mostly I was working on issues labelled as "good first issues". Before I start working on a issue I usually take a look at the previous attempts made by other people. Usually I can find a couple of PRs or comments if the issue is older than one year. Looking at the work history usually it becomes obvious why previous attempts were not successful: someone completely misunderstood the task and went the wrong direction, someone can barely code, someone is just pinging the contributors instead of doing the actual work[1]. What was surprising to me was that the maintainers almost always found time to answer every question, review ridiculously bad and incorrect PRs and spend days communicating with the contributor (including me) to give feedback about the work, while they themselves could absolutely resolve the issue in less than an hour. To be honest I don't understand why someone with 10+ years of experience would spend time reviewing my "good first issue" PRs like they don't have anything else to do. I am trying to be useful and to learn but I don’t want to bother anyone or waste anyone’s time and that's why I am wondering why would maintainers spend their time reviewing my code? What is their motivation?

[1] https://github.com/tensorflow/tensorflow/issues/22926#issuecomment-2888463504

Discussion Activity

Light discussion

First comment

43m

Peak period

2

Hour 1

Avg / period

1.5

Comment distribution3 data points
Loading chart...

Based on 3 loaded comments

Key moments

  1. 01Story posted

    Nov 24, 2025 at 9:58 PM EST

    13h ago

    Step 01
  2. 02First comment

    Nov 24, 2025 at 10:40 PM EST

    43m after posting

    Step 02
  3. 03Peak activity

    2 comments in Hour 1

    Hottest window of the conversation

    Step 03
  4. 04Latest activity

    Nov 24, 2025 at 11:03 PM EST

    12h ago

    Step 04

Generating AI Summary...

Analyzing up to 500 comments to identify key contributors and discussion patterns

Discussion (0 comments)

Discussion hasn't started yet.

ID: 46041901Type: storyLast synced: 11/25/2025, 3:00:09 AM

Want the full context?

Jump to the original sources

Read the primary article or dive into the live Hacker News thread when you're ready.

View on HN

Not

Hacker News!

AI-observed conversations & context

Daily AI-observed summaries, trends, and audience signals pulled from Hacker News so you can see the conversation before it hits your feed.

LiveBeta

Explore

  • Home
  • Jobs radar
  • Tech pulse
  • Startups
  • Trends

Resources

  • Visit Hacker News
  • HN API
  • Modal cronjobs
  • Meta Llama

Briefings

Inbox recaps on the loudest debates & under-the-radar launches.

Connect

© 2025 Not Hacker News! — independent Hacker News companion.

Not affiliated with Hacker News or Y Combinator. We simply enrich the public API with analytics.