diff --git a/maintainers/scripts/check-maintainer-github-handles.sh b/maintainers/scripts/check-maintainer-github-handles.sh
index e389fde7d8aa..879a2e452cb3 100755
--- a/maintainers/scripts/check-maintainer-github-handles.sh
+++ b/maintainers/scripts/check-maintainer-github-handles.sh
@@ -6,18 +6,61 @@
 
 set -e
 
-# checks whether a user handle can be found on github
+# nixpkgs='<nixpkgs>'
+# if [ -n "$1" ]; then
+
+function checkCommits {
+    local user="$1"
+    local tmp=$(mktemp)
+    curl --silent -w "%{http_code}" \
+         "https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/commits?author=$user" \
+         > "$tmp"
+    # the last line of tmp contains the http status
+    local status=$(tail -n1 "$tmp")
+    local ret=
+    case $status in
+        200) if <"$tmp" grep -i "no commits found" > /dev/null; then
+                 ret=1
+             else
+                 ret=0
+             fi
+             ;;
+        # because of github’s hard request limits, this can take some time
+        429) sleep 2
+             printf "."
+             checkCommits "$user"
+             ret=$?
+             ;;
+        *)   printf "BAD STATUS: $(tail -n1 $tmp) for %s\n" "$user"; ret=1
+             ret=1
+             ;;
+    esac
+    rm "$tmp"
+    return $ret
+}
+export -f checkCommits
+
 function checkUser {
     local user="$1"
     local status=
     status="$(curl --silent --head "https://github.com/${user}" | grep Status)"
-    printf "%s\t\t\t\t%s\n" "$status" "$user"
+    # checks whether a user handle can be found on github
+    if [[ "$status" =~ 404 ]]; then
+        printf "%s\t\t\t\t%s\n" "$status" "$user"
+    # checks whether the user handle has any nixpkgs commits
+    elif checkCommits "$user"; then
+        printf "OK!\t\t\t\t%s\n" "$user"
+    else
+        printf "No Commits!\t\t\t%s\n" "$user"
+    fi
 }
 export -f checkUser
 
 # output the maintainers set as json
 # and filter out the github username of each maintainer (if it exists)
-# then check 100 at the same time
+# then check some at the same time
 nix-instantiate -A lib.maintainers --eval --strict --json \
-    | jq -r '.[]|.github' \
-    | parallel -j100 checkUser
+    | jq -r '.[]|.github|select(.)' \
+    | parallel -j5 checkUser
+
+# parallel -j100 checkUser ::: "eelco" "profpatsch" "Profpatsch" "a"