As I mentioned at last night's meetup, I have been frustrated that my patches linger on the issue cues. I am leaving for a one-week vacation, so I will not immediately follow up on the other advice I received, but someone suggested that I invite fellow Boston Druaplistas to have a look, so here I go.
The simplest case is the one I mentioned last night: http://drupal.org/node/987982 . This is a very simple CSS issue that was opened in December, fixed in February (by me) and ... nothing. There are patches in Comments #8 and #13, and #11 describes the (minor) differences between the two. Either would be an improvement on the status quo.
I also opened two issues, and supplied patches, for the filter_example module. (I looked at that project while working on my multicolumn filter.) These are a little more complicated than the CSS patch, but not by a lot. The first, http://drupal.org/node/1181238 , fixes some typos in the comments and changes the tips that are presented to the user. There is some disagreement about proper use of the t() function, so there are two versions of the patch. The second, http://drupal.org/node/1203096 , makes a change in the testing portion of the module that does not affect this module, but may help someone who (like me) uses the filter_example project as a module for his or her own work.
Comments
also check out RFC: Core
also check out RFC: Core issue queue office hours and 'triage team'
and for those willing to review patches, make sure to have the excellent tool Dreditor installed.
making progress!
Back from vacation, getting over jet lag, and I am getting some of my patches committed.
I am not sure how much taking initiative helped, and how much was (accidental) good timing. That is, perhaps I made progress by making noise on the issue queue on a good day for the maintainer.
Instead of looking for a trade on irc, I found a patch that needed review. I looked it over, marked it RTBC, and it was promptly committed. Then, I asked the patch author to return the favor.
I am now at the top of the list of committers for the Examples project. (Most recent commit goes at the top.) Clever idea, it is sort of like the leader board for a video game. Good motivation! I get double points if my patch gets committed to both the 7.x and 8.x branches! ;)