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This seems to be slowly clearing up. Regardless, can we talk about the conduct in this GitHub thread? I know every community is different but is it common to h

This seems to be slowly clearing up. Regardless, can we talk about the conduct in this GitHub thread? I know every community is different but is it common to have memes and jokes posted this quickly and often in a GitHub issue? It makes it really hard to follow and discourages genuinely useful discussion of workarounds or progress.

ryuukk_ 7y ago
that's why it is popular, less corporate, more engaging, welcoming with a fun ambiance, lot of young people when you look at rust repo, everyone feels like they are going to die, just like the C repos, full of boring 60yo people
lm28469 7y ago
Some people getting in the workforce in the last few years have troubles making the distinction between work and play contexts. It's extremely visible on github, slack, &c. which are more and more looking like discord / reddit (gifs, memes, random jokes in the middle of serious discussions)
- matsemann 7y ago
  You say it like it's a bad thing? It's possible to be both professional and have some fun (not talking about the linked GH).
  - vsareto 7y ago
    It should get quarantined into a different channel or server. If not, and you don't like a bunch of shitty meme spam, it's difficult to filter out while keeping your coworkers unblocked.
  - scoutt 7y ago
    I think it's fine to joke, but even if I try, I really have to make an effort to not get angry when someone at work or an external replies with something written like this: "yeah, u know, i could do it better, lol". Edit: to add that I agree with the idea there is a problem with people making a distinction between work and play contexts.
  - hans1729 7y ago
    Having fun is not whats discouraged. Rather: if I'm looking for the solution for some problem, I don't want to scroll through memes, because I want to be productive, getting things done. Spam/fog in the resolution-thread obviously doesn't help with that; the opposite is the case.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - mikehollinger 7y ago
      Basic moderation in some form would be useful there. It’s interesting - there’s not (that I’ve seen anyway) a tremendous amount of spam or for the most part off topic conversations in in github issues. I’ve seen phishing attempts (I think) that seem to be “hey just go download and run curl ____.sh | bash” and you’ll be good to go occasionally but that sort of banter isn’t typical (at least in the circles I run in).
  - easytiger 7y ago
    I mean there is a difference between having fun and conducting yourself in a professional manner where appropriate. With the increase in adoption of certain technologies (node etc) I have noticed a relationship with the people employed to work with them and their poor level of professionalism in the workplace with regard to their work and how they deal with other people (in the UK) and even how they dress. Similar age groups in other areas don't display these traits. A number of these people work as contractors as well, so at least it was easy to get rid of them. Go post memes on the LKML and see what happens
    - matsemann 7y ago
      I'm not saying I want memes everywhere, but since I'm spending 1/3 of my life at work I'd rather it be a good time. > Go post memes on the LKML and see what happens I think the seriousness (almost angry tone) in certain communities also is a disservice to attract new members. If I make my first PR in some project, it's easy too feel attacked when the reply is a negative one, albeit strictly professional. If it however has a more light-hearted tone and a bit more sandwiched fun-serious-fun one feels more welcome.
      - pdimitar 7y ago
        Contrasting an opinion you don't like with the other extreme is usually called a strawman and is not a good way to argue. As others have said, I too am not against a light-hearted tone. But when you have a legitimate problem that might be blocking you from doing your work and your only source of information is a GitHub issue then it should go without saying that the information should be dense and compressed and it should absolutely lack memes, yes.
      - seabird 7y ago
        The serious tone is a huge draw to the LKML and that way of working. They really do care about not having left-pad type meltdowns. They really do care about being able to find information easily, even years after the fact. There's a big difference between shooting the shit in your private communications and cluttering up places where people are looking for solutions.
  - lidHanteyk 7y ago
    The problem, specifically, is that folks use humor to mask the fact that they don't know or understand what's going on.
    - kingludite 7y ago
      Do the jokes count towards the 10X ?
- saverio-murgia 7y ago
  OK BOOMER. jk
- LoSboccacc 7y ago
  there's also quite some personal contributors in github, for these it's not a work context to begin with
  - Sharlin 7y ago
    Indeed, Github intrinsically caters for both hobbyist coders (some of whom may be quite young) and professional devs. Some degree of culture shock is inevitable.
  - danShumway 7y ago
    Agreed. Github isn't a purely professional tool, and NPM isn't a purely professional tool, and Javascript isn't a purely professional tool. I'm seeing comments on here that some of these people are acting like high school kids. Some of them probably are high school kids. And that's fine. One of the biggest goals of Open Source in the first place is that software shouldn't only be developed and used by professionals. If you want that reality, you have to tolerate that unprofessional people are sometimes going to be part of the surrounding conversation for some projects. In short, if the NPM maintainers hate this, they can modify community rules or remove spammy posts. And if they don't hate it, then I don't really get what the big deal is about allowing people to be unprofessional when talking about code -- other than maybe arguing that Github should have better filtering tools for readers.
  - andreareina 7y ago
    It's not about employment status. Injecting noise into a channel that is currently being used to diagnose a severe bug affecting many people disrespects the time of those working to fix the issue. Other, more appropriate venues are available for people who want to blow off some steam.
    - LoSboccacc 7y ago
      so who died and made you king of npm issues?
- MattRix 7y ago
  This is the first time I've seen "&c" used instead of "etc", I had to look it up. Interesting abbreviation!
  - Hamuko 7y ago
    Why would anyone use "&c" considering that it doesn't actually save any key presses?
    - blackandblue 7y ago
      i would! for the succinctness of it.
    - rebane2001 7y ago
      Probαbly the sαme reαson some people use αlpha instead of 'a' in their comments
    - ilikepi 7y ago
      How about as a stylistic choice? There are lots of little choices like that one makes when writing that together form a person's individual writing style.
    - inopinatus 7y ago
      Not sure what you mean - “et cetera” is nine keystrokes. Nonetheless, Tiro would approve. ⁊c.
    - Symbiote 7y ago
      Keypresses is a pretty poor metric to base communication upon. It annoys me to see "w/" and "w/o" anywhere except Twitter. The meaning isn't clear to many non-native speakers, and it's jarring — we recognise the most common words by the shape of the whole word, so it's easier to read "with" and "without". "&" is a ligature for the letters "et". A traditional way to handwrite it, other than as &, is a "crossed epsilon", something like Ɛ̸, which looks more like "et". There's a Unicode character closer to this form: 🙲. I have no preference between 🙲, &, etc. and et cetera — none is common enough that I would recognize it by shape while reading prose.
- dspillett 7y ago
  Yep, noticed this on our local Teams groups too. The deluge of animations can be incredibly distracting and fill space making it more faf to go back and check details from earlier in the discussion. </old-man-moaning>
- jtdev 7y ago
  In my observation, this demographic is most densely concentrated in the JavaScript community. Not sure what that says about the language itself, but there’s definitely a glut of unprofessional JS devs out there.
  - leetrout 7y ago
    I really think it’s just because it is the most popular and accessible language to the masses we get a larger sample of the population.
    - nicoburns 7y ago
      I think there's also more demand for JavaScript devs than other languages, and consequently there are more junior developers writing JavaScript.
  - xtracto 7y ago
    Ooh back in my coding days it was PHP. And before that in my undergrad years was Vb6 ... which provided me and several other programmers with lots of frustration and consulting hours to fix the mess the owners' kid made while "programming" their new CRUD system. There will always be a "cool new" language attracting newcomers and kids.
- allendoerfer 7y ago
  Like everything else, Eternal September also got reimplemented in JavaScript.
  - edoceo 7y ago
    History: Eternal September or the September that never ended is Usenet slang for a period beginning in September 1993, the month that Internet service provider America Online began offering Usenet access to its many users, overwhelming the existing culture for online forums. -- Wikipedia
    - OrderlyTiamat 7y ago
      The irony of this comment is palpable.
      - allendoerfer 7y ago
        Resistance is futile. Just give in.
- adonese 7y ago
  In GH in particular, I’m not sure why images are allowed to be rendered in comments at all. They are almost always harmful. External links can be used instead
  - Symbiote 7y ago
    I find them very useful when working with software with images (e.g. maps), and when users supply screenshots with their issue reports.
  - saagarjha 7y ago
    Issue screenshots? I work on a video player and almost every issue has a screenshot in it, without which we would be very lost.
  - tehbeard 7y ago
    UX of seeing the screenshots for a bug inline outweighs it being used for the occasional meme. And it's consistent with the rest of GH's markdown parsing for README, issues, etc.
- Frost1x 7y ago
  You can also blame current corporate practices and culture in the development industry for encouraging this sort of behavior and tailoring environments to attract fresh grads. It's certainly acceptable to blow off steam but there are times and places for that. The official issue thread is not one of them. It looked like a Reddit post more so than the official NPM repo. I have nothing against Reddit just pointing out it's a reasonable venue for this sort of commentary (or even HN). The thread looked like folks celebrating like the power went out and they'll be going home from school for the day instead of "oh crap, this is my job and I have to fix this issue or my livelihood is at risk because I decided to have no backup plans in place for such a situation where NPM is down."
zaphar 7y ago
I think this is partly a result of two things. 1. GitHub presents an interface that encourages Reddit style behaviour. 2. NPM outages are essentially a meme in themselves at this point. Both of them together create a perfect storm.
- avinassh 7y ago
  I don't work with JS or related ecosystems, but how common are NPM outages?
  - christophilus 7y ago
    It’s been super reliable, in my experience, and given their traffic volume, I’m pretty impressed with that.
    - wolco 7y ago
      The other day I needed to use it for the first time in a year. A package that is used in many other packages host by npm was returning a 404. Slowly stackoverflow started to fill up with similiar questions. Apppearly 4 important packages were unavailable in my region because they were deleted by accident. Some people were vpning into Europe, I found an Italian mirror. Not sure if things are always that crazy but I don't have a reliable feel.
- rebane2001 7y ago
  Hackernews presents an interface very similar to Reddit - it's more about the community than the interface
- bovermyer 7y ago
  I have no comment on #2, as I don't play in that sandbox. However, regarding #1... the interface allows people to post images in their comments on issues. This has a valid, useful reason - for showing screenshots of bugs, for example. The problem is not the interface. The problem is the people using the interface.
aesyondu 7y ago
I would say it is a reminder that there are humans on the other side of the screen, instead of GitHub bots. :)
aequitas 7y ago
The countless +1 and "Same here" comments without additonal info are a huge problem as well on Github. A simple click on a +1 button would suffice instead of a full comment. It's especially irritating when you follow a lot of issues hoping to get notified when there is a resolution but instead you get spammed by people making these pointless comments.
- RL_Quine 7y ago
  It makes it impossible to actually follow critical threads, as the notifications are completely worthless.
  - bartread 7y ago
    Not related to GitHub but the same issue is a pet peeve of mine in Whatsapp and Facebook messenger groups as well. Everything's a message so you end up getting notifications for people sending thumbs up or what have you[1]. It really clutters the conversation so when you're trying to find, e.g., the flight information, or the link to $IMPORTANT_THING, that somebody posted a few days ago you end up scrolling through screens and screens of total guff. I wish there was a quick way to collapse messages that aren't relevant or useful, and that goes for GitHub issues as well. [1] Apart from the fact this is distracting, and potentially a nuisance if you're working, driving, whatever, it also drains your phone's battery.
- nonbirithm 7y ago
  It's a social problem rather than a technical one at this point. When Github had no emojis people had no choice but to leave '+1' comments. Now even with that choice some communities still comment in this way for some reason. Commenting is open-ended and moderation would be needed to filter out the repetition. People can also post GIFs, but they can also use the same image upload functionality to post screenshots of bug repros. It hinges on what the user believes is the better choice for getting the point across. About all you can do is change the mindset of the community making the comments, which is hard as they're numerous.
ccmcarey 7y ago
It's disappointing. I commented saying as such - https://github.com/npm/cli/issues/836#issuecomment-586990343 https://github.com/npm/cli/issues/836#issuecomment-586990343 > Posting memes/jokes in an issue wastes the time of people who actually need to be able to read through the issue. > Stop it. Use emoji reacts if you feel the need. In two minutes I have 24 dislikes and 13 likes. I think the introduction of emoji reactions was a bad idea, it gamifies the issues system.
- vhakulinen 7y ago
  > I think the introduction of emoji reactions was a bad idea, it gamifies the issues system. It depends on the community. I've seen many where the reactions are genuine and actually serves a purpose. From what I've seen, its almost always a popular js/node project that attracts this kind if behaviour like seen in this thread (based on my own observations). Last example is vscode's santa hat[1]. It seems that that thread is mostly empty now but I remember there was huge meme thread going on in that issue or in reddit/hn when that thing was happening. 1: https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/issues/87268 https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/issues/87268
  - Sharlin 7y ago
    JS/Node is the entry-level programming environment of the current era, like PHP used to be, and the community norms (or lack thereof) reflect that.
    - vhakulinen 7y ago
      Your comparison of today's js/node to PHP from 20 years ago is interesting. I wonder if javascript will be in similar place in 10-20 years that PHP is today (e.g. "its not like it used to be and things a actually quite good now")? The language it self (javascript) might be there already, but is the community anywhere close yet? SQL injections used to be the thing PHP was known for in the past but not so much these days (the community is more experienced?). Meanwhile, problems with NPM and the whole packaging situation is what javascript is known for these days, but will the be so on 20 years?
tokai 7y ago
>It [...] discourages genuinely useful discussion of workarounds or progress. Does it though? Sounds like an opinion.
- gmemstr 7y ago
  Sure, it's an opinion, but I've been keeping an eye on this issue since very early on, and I have seen some mentions of workarounds. Best of luck finding them, however, as they're buried somewhere in the middle.
- jamil7 7y ago
  > Does it though? Sounds like an opinion. Given that the comments in question add absolutely no value to the issue and instead insert a bunch of visual noise and fog then I'd argue it's not an opinion.
  - tokai 7y ago
    >absolutely no value This is the opinion part.
swalsh 7y ago
Most companies try to stay professional, and many people carry that behavior into github. However I have worked at a major tech company that trended closer to "millenial" in age. There memes were an everyday part of the corporate culture. Professional emails quite often would have a meme included. I can see someone coming from a corporate culture like that thinking it would be perfectly normal to carry this behavior into a public github issue like this.
- jeltz 7y ago
  I do not get this. My first job was at a company which had very unprofessional communication internally (for good and bad) but we always made a clear distinction between internal and external communication. There is a time and place for everything.
  - swalsh 7y ago
    Perhaps our business is a part of it, we were a B2C company, and our communications with customers attempted to tend towards "cool and fun". *FYI, I did not work at GrubHub, which probably fails the most at pretending to be cool and fun.
- crmrc114 7y ago
  I was at Amazon and meme wars were common. I get that it may seem absurd but when done at the right time, humor can help people defuse a tense situation. I am honestly surprised about the number of very upset people in this thread and the trashing of millennials. Yeah the ass of every workplace generational joke- most millennials have kids going to college now. If you think millennials like memes Wait until you work with some zoomers. A lot of people screaming get off my lawn right now.
  - wolco 7y ago
    Memes are a lazy person's attempt at humour. I can't wait to see what post-millennials come up with to replace these placeholders for humour.
- 7y ago
dajonker 7y ago
From the outside, it seems like Javascript developers are all in high school, participating in a popularity contest, feel the need to sprinkle emoji everywhere and communicate solely with memes and gifs.
- LandR 7y ago
  >> participating in a popularity contest This almost entirely explains the entirety of the javascript ecosystem and the seemingly ever increasing number of, and frequently changing popularity of, the various frontends frameworks. It seems a hype driven ecosystem, so it's not surprising it's also full of people posting memes and such.
- seemslegit 7y ago
  well...
- foo101 7y ago
  > From the outside, it seems like Javascript developers are all in high school I wonder what the reason is for this kind of behavior to exist only in the Javascript community? Could it be that a vast majority of Javascript developers are really in high school? Are there any good stats sources for it?
aosaigh 7y ago
It's embarrasing. I think posting memes like this is an easy way for people to feel creative and edgy while being nothing of the sort.
mFixman 7y ago
Is this a new thing though? Bug threads about important issues were full of animated GIFs for the decade I've been following them.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
bangboombang 7y ago
Idk, it wasn't much more annoying than the 400th person chiming in with a "me too" before that. I already might have completely missed a comment explaining the situation between all these. Actually those animated gifs might have been better than all those "me too", since a text-only post informing about the situation would have stuck out much better.
Yessing 7y ago
I think it's just that writing is seen as the primary mean of communication. if something goes bad at work, someone (orally) always makes a joke to defuse the situation. This is the same thing happening here.

ryuukk_ 7y ago

that's why it is popular, less corporate, more engaging, welcoming with a fun ambiance, lot of young people when you look at rust repo, everyone feels like they are going to die, just like the C repos, full of boring 60yo people

lm28469 7y ago

Some people getting in the workforce in the last few years have troubles making the distinction between work and play contexts. It's extremely visible on github, slack, &c. which are more and more looking like discord / reddit (gifs, memes, random jokes in the middle of serious discussions)

matsemann 7y ago
You say it like it's a bad thing? It's possible to be both professional and have some fun (not talking about the linked GH).
- vsareto 7y ago
  It should get quarantined into a different channel or server. If not, and you don't like a bunch of shitty meme spam, it's difficult to filter out while keeping your coworkers unblocked.
- scoutt 7y ago
  I think it's fine to joke, but even if I try, I really have to make an effort to not get angry when someone at work or an external replies with something written like this: "yeah, u know, i could do it better, lol". Edit: to add that I agree with the idea there is a problem with people making a distinction between work and play contexts.
- hans1729 7y ago
  Having fun is not whats discouraged. Rather: if I'm looking for the solution for some problem, I don't want to scroll through memes, because I want to be productive, getting things done. Spam/fog in the resolution-thread obviously doesn't help with that; the opposite is the case.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - mikehollinger 7y ago
    Basic moderation in some form would be useful there. It’s interesting - there’s not (that I’ve seen anyway) a tremendous amount of spam or for the most part off topic conversations in in github issues. I’ve seen phishing attempts (I think) that seem to be “hey just go download and run curl ____.sh | bash” and you’ll be good to go occasionally but that sort of banter isn’t typical (at least in the circles I run in).
- easytiger 7y ago
  I mean there is a difference between having fun and conducting yourself in a professional manner where appropriate. With the increase in adoption of certain technologies (node etc) I have noticed a relationship with the people employed to work with them and their poor level of professionalism in the workplace with regard to their work and how they deal with other people (in the UK) and even how they dress. Similar age groups in other areas don't display these traits. A number of these people work as contractors as well, so at least it was easy to get rid of them. Go post memes on the LKML and see what happens
  - matsemann 7y ago
    I'm not saying I want memes everywhere, but since I'm spending 1/3 of my life at work I'd rather it be a good time. > Go post memes on the LKML and see what happens I think the seriousness (almost angry tone) in certain communities also is a disservice to attract new members. If I make my first PR in some project, it's easy too feel attacked when the reply is a negative one, albeit strictly professional. If it however has a more light-hearted tone and a bit more sandwiched fun-serious-fun one feels more welcome.
    - pdimitar 7y ago
      Contrasting an opinion you don't like with the other extreme is usually called a strawman and is not a good way to argue. As others have said, I too am not against a light-hearted tone. But when you have a legitimate problem that might be blocking you from doing your work and your only source of information is a GitHub issue then it should go without saying that the information should be dense and compressed and it should absolutely lack memes, yes.
    - seabird 7y ago
      The serious tone is a huge draw to the LKML and that way of working. They really do care about not having left-pad type meltdowns. They really do care about being able to find information easily, even years after the fact. There's a big difference between shooting the shit in your private communications and cluttering up places where people are looking for solutions.
- lidHanteyk 7y ago
  The problem, specifically, is that folks use humor to mask the fact that they don't know or understand what's going on.
  - kingludite 7y ago
    Do the jokes count towards the 10X ?
saverio-murgia 7y ago
OK BOOMER. jk
LoSboccacc 7y ago
there's also quite some personal contributors in github, for these it's not a work context to begin with
- Sharlin 7y ago
  Indeed, Github intrinsically caters for both hobbyist coders (some of whom may be quite young) and professional devs. Some degree of culture shock is inevitable.
- danShumway 7y ago
  Agreed. Github isn't a purely professional tool, and NPM isn't a purely professional tool, and Javascript isn't a purely professional tool. I'm seeing comments on here that some of these people are acting like high school kids. Some of them probably are high school kids. And that's fine. One of the biggest goals of Open Source in the first place is that software shouldn't only be developed and used by professionals. If you want that reality, you have to tolerate that unprofessional people are sometimes going to be part of the surrounding conversation for some projects. In short, if the NPM maintainers hate this, they can modify community rules or remove spammy posts. And if they don't hate it, then I don't really get what the big deal is about allowing people to be unprofessional when talking about code -- other than maybe arguing that Github should have better filtering tools for readers.
- andreareina 7y ago
  It's not about employment status. Injecting noise into a channel that is currently being used to diagnose a severe bug affecting many people disrespects the time of those working to fix the issue. Other, more appropriate venues are available for people who want to blow off some steam.
  - LoSboccacc 7y ago
    so who died and made you king of npm issues?
MattRix 7y ago
This is the first time I've seen "&c" used instead of "etc", I had to look it up. Interesting abbreviation!
- Hamuko 7y ago
  Why would anyone use "&c" considering that it doesn't actually save any key presses?
  - blackandblue 7y ago
    i would! for the succinctness of it.
  - rebane2001 7y ago
    Probαbly the sαme reαson some people use αlpha instead of 'a' in their comments
  - ilikepi 7y ago
    How about as a stylistic choice? There are lots of little choices like that one makes when writing that together form a person's individual writing style.
  - inopinatus 7y ago
    Not sure what you mean - “et cetera” is nine keystrokes. Nonetheless, Tiro would approve. ⁊c.
  - Symbiote 7y ago
    Keypresses is a pretty poor metric to base communication upon. It annoys me to see "w/" and "w/o" anywhere except Twitter. The meaning isn't clear to many non-native speakers, and it's jarring — we recognise the most common words by the shape of the whole word, so it's easier to read "with" and "without". "&" is a ligature for the letters "et". A traditional way to handwrite it, other than as &, is a "crossed epsilon", something like Ɛ̸, which looks more like "et". There's a Unicode character closer to this form: 🙲. I have no preference between 🙲, &, etc. and et cetera — none is common enough that I would recognize it by shape while reading prose.
dspillett 7y ago
Yep, noticed this on our local Teams groups too. The deluge of animations can be incredibly distracting and fill space making it more faf to go back and check details from earlier in the discussion. </old-man-moaning>
jtdev 7y ago
In my observation, this demographic is most densely concentrated in the JavaScript community. Not sure what that says about the language itself, but there’s definitely a glut of unprofessional JS devs out there.
- leetrout 7y ago
  I really think it’s just because it is the most popular and accessible language to the masses we get a larger sample of the population.
  - nicoburns 7y ago
    I think there's also more demand for JavaScript devs than other languages, and consequently there are more junior developers writing JavaScript.
- xtracto 7y ago
  Ooh back in my coding days it was PHP. And before that in my undergrad years was Vb6 ... which provided me and several other programmers with lots of frustration and consulting hours to fix the mess the owners' kid made while "programming" their new CRUD system. There will always be a "cool new" language attracting newcomers and kids.
allendoerfer 7y ago
Like everything else, Eternal September also got reimplemented in JavaScript.
- edoceo 7y ago
  History: Eternal September or the September that never ended is Usenet slang for a period beginning in September 1993, the month that Internet service provider America Online began offering Usenet access to its many users, overwhelming the existing culture for online forums. -- Wikipedia
  - OrderlyTiamat 7y ago
    The irony of this comment is palpable.
    - allendoerfer 7y ago
      Resistance is futile. Just give in.
adonese 7y ago
In GH in particular, I’m not sure why images are allowed to be rendered in comments at all. They are almost always harmful. External links can be used instead
- Symbiote 7y ago
  I find them very useful when working with software with images (e.g. maps), and when users supply screenshots with their issue reports.
- saagarjha 7y ago
  Issue screenshots? I work on a video player and almost every issue has a screenshot in it, without which we would be very lost.
- tehbeard 7y ago
  UX of seeing the screenshots for a bug inline outweighs it being used for the occasional meme. And it's consistent with the rest of GH's markdown parsing for README, issues, etc.
Frost1x 7y ago
You can also blame current corporate practices and culture in the development industry for encouraging this sort of behavior and tailoring environments to attract fresh grads. It's certainly acceptable to blow off steam but there are times and places for that. The official issue thread is not one of them. It looked like a Reddit post more so than the official NPM repo. I have nothing against Reddit just pointing out it's a reasonable venue for this sort of commentary (or even HN). The thread looked like folks celebrating like the power went out and they'll be going home from school for the day instead of "oh crap, this is my job and I have to fix this issue or my livelihood is at risk because I decided to have no backup plans in place for such a situation where NPM is down."

zaphar 7y ago

I think this is partly a result of two things. 1. GitHub presents an interface that encourages Reddit style behaviour. 2. NPM outages are essentially a meme in themselves at this point. Both of them together create a perfect storm.

avinassh 7y ago
I don't work with JS or related ecosystems, but how common are NPM outages?
- christophilus 7y ago
  It’s been super reliable, in my experience, and given their traffic volume, I’m pretty impressed with that.
  - wolco 7y ago
    The other day I needed to use it for the first time in a year. A package that is used in many other packages host by npm was returning a 404. Slowly stackoverflow started to fill up with similiar questions. Apppearly 4 important packages were unavailable in my region because they were deleted by accident. Some people were vpning into Europe, I found an Italian mirror. Not sure if things are always that crazy but I don't have a reliable feel.
rebane2001 7y ago
Hackernews presents an interface very similar to Reddit - it's more about the community than the interface
bovermyer 7y ago
I have no comment on #2, as I don't play in that sandbox. However, regarding #1... the interface allows people to post images in their comments on issues. This has a valid, useful reason - for showing screenshots of bugs, for example. The problem is not the interface. The problem is the people using the interface.

aesyondu 7y ago

I would say it is a reminder that there are humans on the other side of the screen, instead of GitHub bots. :)

aequitas 7y ago

The countless +1 and "Same here" comments without additonal info are a huge problem as well on Github. A simple click on a +1 button would suffice instead of a full comment. It's especially irritating when you follow a lot of issues hoping to get notified when there is a resolution but instead you get spammed by people making these pointless comments.

RL_Quine 7y ago
It makes it impossible to actually follow critical threads, as the notifications are completely worthless.
- bartread 7y ago
  Not related to GitHub but the same issue is a pet peeve of mine in Whatsapp and Facebook messenger groups as well. Everything's a message so you end up getting notifications for people sending thumbs up or what have you[1]. It really clutters the conversation so when you're trying to find, e.g., the flight information, or the link to $IMPORTANT_THING, that somebody posted a few days ago you end up scrolling through screens and screens of total guff. I wish there was a quick way to collapse messages that aren't relevant or useful, and that goes for GitHub issues as well. [1] Apart from the fact this is distracting, and potentially a nuisance if you're working, driving, whatever, it also drains your phone's battery.
nonbirithm 7y ago
It's a social problem rather than a technical one at this point. When Github had no emojis people had no choice but to leave '+1' comments. Now even with that choice some communities still comment in this way for some reason. Commenting is open-ended and moderation would be needed to filter out the repetition. People can also post GIFs, but they can also use the same image upload functionality to post screenshots of bug repros. It hinges on what the user believes is the better choice for getting the point across. About all you can do is change the mindset of the community making the comments, which is hard as they're numerous.

ccmcarey 7y ago

It's disappointing. I commented saying as such - https://github.com/npm/cli/issues/836#issuecomment-586990343 https://github.com/npm/cli/issues/836#issuecomment-586990343 > Posting memes/jokes in an issue wastes the time of people who actually need to be able to read through the issue. > Stop it. Use emoji reacts if you feel the need. In two minutes I have 24 dislikes and 13 likes. I think the introduction of emoji reactions was a bad idea, it gamifies the issues system.

vhakulinen 7y ago
> I think the introduction of emoji reactions was a bad idea, it gamifies the issues system. It depends on the community. I've seen many where the reactions are genuine and actually serves a purpose. From what I've seen, its almost always a popular js/node project that attracts this kind if behaviour like seen in this thread (based on my own observations). Last example is vscode's santa hat[1]. It seems that that thread is mostly empty now but I remember there was huge meme thread going on in that issue or in reddit/hn when that thing was happening. 1: https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/issues/87268 https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/issues/87268
- Sharlin 7y ago
  JS/Node is the entry-level programming environment of the current era, like PHP used to be, and the community norms (or lack thereof) reflect that.
  - vhakulinen 7y ago
    Your comparison of today's js/node to PHP from 20 years ago is interesting. I wonder if javascript will be in similar place in 10-20 years that PHP is today (e.g. "its not like it used to be and things a actually quite good now")? The language it self (javascript) might be there already, but is the community anywhere close yet? SQL injections used to be the thing PHP was known for in the past but not so much these days (the community is more experienced?). Meanwhile, problems with NPM and the whole packaging situation is what javascript is known for these days, but will the be so on 20 years?

tokai 7y ago

>It [...] discourages genuinely useful discussion of workarounds or progress. Does it though? Sounds like an opinion.

gmemstr 7y ago
Sure, it's an opinion, but I've been keeping an eye on this issue since very early on, and I have seen some mentions of workarounds. Best of luck finding them, however, as they're buried somewhere in the middle.
jamil7 7y ago
> Does it though? Sounds like an opinion. Given that the comments in question add absolutely no value to the issue and instead insert a bunch of visual noise and fog then I'd argue it's not an opinion.
- tokai 7y ago
  >absolutely no value This is the opinion part.

swalsh 7y ago

Most companies try to stay professional, and many people carry that behavior into github. However I have worked at a major tech company that trended closer to "millenial" in age. There memes were an everyday part of the corporate culture. Professional emails quite often would have a meme included. I can see someone coming from a corporate culture like that thinking it would be perfectly normal to carry this behavior into a public github issue like this.

jeltz 7y ago
I do not get this. My first job was at a company which had very unprofessional communication internally (for good and bad) but we always made a clear distinction between internal and external communication. There is a time and place for everything.
- swalsh 7y ago
  Perhaps our business is a part of it, we were a B2C company, and our communications with customers attempted to tend towards "cool and fun". *FYI, I did not work at GrubHub, which probably fails the most at pretending to be cool and fun.
crmrc114 7y ago
I was at Amazon and meme wars were common. I get that it may seem absurd but when done at the right time, humor can help people defuse a tense situation. I am honestly surprised about the number of very upset people in this thread and the trashing of millennials. Yeah the ass of every workplace generational joke- most millennials have kids going to college now. If you think millennials like memes Wait until you work with some zoomers. A lot of people screaming get off my lawn right now.
- wolco 7y ago
  Memes are a lazy person's attempt at humour. I can't wait to see what post-millennials come up with to replace these placeholders for humour.
7y ago

dajonker 7y ago

From the outside, it seems like Javascript developers are all in high school, participating in a popularity contest, feel the need to sprinkle emoji everywhere and communicate solely with memes and gifs.

LandR 7y ago
>> participating in a popularity contest This almost entirely explains the entirety of the javascript ecosystem and the seemingly ever increasing number of, and frequently changing popularity of, the various frontends frameworks. It seems a hype driven ecosystem, so it's not surprising it's also full of people posting memes and such.
seemslegit 7y ago
well...
foo101 7y ago
> From the outside, it seems like Javascript developers are all in high school I wonder what the reason is for this kind of behavior to exist only in the Javascript community? Could it be that a vast majority of Javascript developers are really in high school? Are there any good stats sources for it?

aosaigh 7y ago

It's embarrasing. I think posting memes like this is an easy way for people to feel creative and edgy while being nothing of the sort.

mFixman 7y ago

Is this a new thing though? Bug threads about important issues were full of animated GIFs for the decade I've been following them.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

bangboombang 7y ago

Idk, it wasn't much more annoying than the 400th person chiming in with a "me too" before that. I already might have completely missed a comment explaining the situation between all these. Actually those animated gifs might have been better than all those "me too", since a text-only post informing about the situation would have stuck out much better.

Yessing 7y ago

I think it's just that writing is seen as the primary mean of communication. if something goes bad at work, someone (orally) always makes a joke to defuse the situation. This is the same thing happening here.