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"Organization owners now have the ability to block abusive users from public repositories. This feature allows project owners to block users, and prevents block

"Organization owners now have the ability to block abusive users from public repositories. This feature allows project owners to block users, and prevents blocked users from opening or commenting on issues or pull requests, forking repositories, and adding or editing wiki pages." I get blocking users from opening/commenting/sending PRs/editing the wiki, but why block them from forking a public project?

bitwize 11y ago
Because you don't want a MikeeUSA dragging your project's name through the muck and mire.
- nv-vn 11y ago
  If you don't want people to be able to use your work how they wish, don't license it as free software. Or trademark the name if the naming is an issue. Blocking someone from being able to use your code is anti-software-freedom and goes against the spirit of the licenses most likely used by 99% of github repositories.
  - pjc50 11y ago
    They're not blocked from using it, they're just blocked from associating their use with you.
  - geofft 11y ago
    The post isn't totally clear, so I can understand how people are misreading this. But "prevents blocked users from ... forking repositories" refers to the GitHub "fork" button, not to the ability to e.g. run `git clone` from the command line. This isn't about blocking people from being able to use software (which both goes against the letter and the spirit of free software licenses); it's about blocking people from being able to interact with the maintainers. We've had that since the days of Usenet killfiles and IRC klines.
grayclhn 11y ago
They're not blocked from logging out and cloning the project, just from hosting it on GitHub as a "fork" linked back to the original project.
- smegel 11y ago
  Yes, but why?
  - geofft 11y ago
    Probably because the only technical advantage to the "fork" button is that it tells all sorts of GitHub social-coding backend things (pull requests, the network graph, etc.) that the two repositories are related, and it is exactly those things that you'd want to block. If I were in their shoes as an engineer, I'd probably decide that it's more reliable to just disable the fork feature entirely, than to go through everything that fork does and disable it. (I'd consider implementing a second "fork" codepath that just does the equivalent of git clone && git push, and silently replacing the regular fork button with the fake-fork button instead of disabling it, but chances are I'd probably find this lower-priority than other work.) Blocks from users to other users (which have been around just about forever) work the same way.
  - MichaelGG 11y ago
    So people can pretend the "abusive" user (e.g. ones posting "harmful emojis") doesn't exist. It's a mindset, I think. See, for instance, this woman complaining about News Genius[1], discussed here [2]. At one point, she's upset that a blocked Twitter user can see her public tweets. People should be able to moderate and exclude people. It's just funny how powerful they think that capability should be. 1: https://ellacydawson.wordpress.com/2016/03/25/how-news-genius-silences-writers/ https://ellacydawson.wordpress.com/2016/03/25/how-news-geniu... 2: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11404640 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11404640
wtbob 11y ago
That seems very, very dangerous to me. I think GitHub needs to preserve the ability for anyone to fork a project.
- Animats 11y ago
  That bothers me, too. This could be used to prevent forking.

bitwize 11y ago

Because you don't want a MikeeUSA dragging your project's name through the muck and mire.

nv-vn 11y ago
If you don't want people to be able to use your work how they wish, don't license it as free software. Or trademark the name if the naming is an issue. Blocking someone from being able to use your code is anti-software-freedom and goes against the spirit of the licenses most likely used by 99% of github repositories.
- pjc50 11y ago
  They're not blocked from using it, they're just blocked from associating their use with you.
- geofft 11y ago
  The post isn't totally clear, so I can understand how people are misreading this. But "prevents blocked users from ... forking repositories" refers to the GitHub "fork" button, not to the ability to e.g. run `git clone` from the command line. This isn't about blocking people from being able to use software (which both goes against the letter and the spirit of free software licenses); it's about blocking people from being able to interact with the maintainers. We've had that since the days of Usenet killfiles and IRC klines.

grayclhn 11y ago

They're not blocked from logging out and cloning the project, just from hosting it on GitHub as a "fork" linked back to the original project.

smegel 11y ago
Yes, but why?
- geofft 11y ago
  Probably because the only technical advantage to the "fork" button is that it tells all sorts of GitHub social-coding backend things (pull requests, the network graph, etc.) that the two repositories are related, and it is exactly those things that you'd want to block. If I were in their shoes as an engineer, I'd probably decide that it's more reliable to just disable the fork feature entirely, than to go through everything that fork does and disable it. (I'd consider implementing a second "fork" codepath that just does the equivalent of git clone && git push, and silently replacing the regular fork button with the fake-fork button instead of disabling it, but chances are I'd probably find this lower-priority than other work.) Blocks from users to other users (which have been around just about forever) work the same way.
- MichaelGG 11y ago
  So people can pretend the "abusive" user (e.g. ones posting "harmful emojis") doesn't exist. It's a mindset, I think. See, for instance, this woman complaining about News Genius[1], discussed here [2]. At one point, she's upset that a blocked Twitter user can see her public tweets. People should be able to moderate and exclude people. It's just funny how powerful they think that capability should be. 1: https://ellacydawson.wordpress.com/2016/03/25/how-news-genius-silences-writers/ https://ellacydawson.wordpress.com/2016/03/25/how-news-geniu... 2: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11404640 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11404640

wtbob 11y ago

That seems very, very dangerous to me. I think GitHub needs to preserve the ability for anyone to fork a project.

Animats 11y ago
That bothers me, too. This could be used to prevent forking.