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I agree that the spam is problematic, but I feel the need to call out his "data collection". As evidence that CodeWithHarry is the cause, he says > A search f

I agree that the spam is problematic, but I feel the need to call out his "data collection". As evidence that CodeWithHarry is the cause, he says > A search for "Amazing Project" is now showing 21,177 issues. and > A search for "improve docs" shows 319,251 issues. ??? Improve docs has been a common beginner level PR since the beginning of time. Do you really think that 319k spam issues have been filed in the last day? Amazing Project is more relevant, but if you take a look at those issues (sorted by newest), you see that most of the PRs that show aren't spam at all: https://github.com/search?o=desc&q=amazing+project&s=created&type=Issues https://github.com/search?o=desc&q=amazing+project&s=created... If you want to count how many spam PRs were directly inspired by the video, you can try searching "an amazing project" (with quotes), and filtering by newest. It looks like there have only been about 50 PRs directly inspired by it. https://github.com/search?o=desc&q=%22an+amazing+project%22&s=created&type=Issues https://github.com/search?o=desc&q=%22an+amazing+project%22&...

TheDong 6y ago
Github allows you to search by dates (newer than, date ranges, etc), so for example, you can add the query "created:>=2020-09-30" (the date the youtube video was uploaded) to get a more accurate list. From this search, it looks like it's definitely on the order of hundreds: https://github.com/search?p=5&q=amazing+project+created%3A%3E%3D2020-09-30&type=Issues https://github.com/search?p=5&q=amazing+project+created%3A%3... I opened a few at random to spot-check, and they all seemed like garbage to me. Like this one, ugh https://github.com/mongodb/docs/pull/4402/files https://github.com/mongodb/docs/pull/4402/files
- chillee 6y ago
  Sorting by relevance doesn't get you a representative sample - that bubbles PRs who say "amazing project" in the title to the top(which are indeed mostly spam). If you restrict it to "in:title", you see that there's only 44: https://github.com/search?q=in%3Atitle+amazing+project+created%3A%3E%3D2020-09-30&type=Issues https://github.com/search?q=in%3Atitle+amazing+project+creat... And if you sort by "newest" or "oldest", which provide a more representative sample, you can see that most of them are not spam: https://github.com/search?o=desc&q=amazing+project+created%3A%3E%3D2020-09-30&s=created&type=Issues https://github.com/search?o=desc&q=amazing+project+created%3...
  - forgotpwd16 6y ago
    Why restrict in title though? From parent reply it is obvious that the phrase isn't in title yet it is undeniably spam.
    - chillee 6y ago
      I'm trying to get a lower bound on spam PRs filed. If you sort by oldest (instead of by "relevance" as the parent commenter did) and do a spot check, you'll see that a lot of the PR's are legitimate: https://github.com/search?o=asc&q=amazing+project+created%3A%3E%3D2020-09-30&s=created&type=Issues https://github.com/search?o=asc&q=amazing+project+created%3A... Certainly, restricting to the title misses plenty of PRs. But his search provides 252 PRs, and I'd estimate that easily <100 of them are spam.
  - rjmunro 6y ago
    Typically the PRs are titled something like "Improve docs" and the change is to add "an amazing project" somewhere in the README.md. Here's a search that finds a lot: https://github.com/search?q=in%3Atitle+improve+created%3A%3E%3D2020-09-30+is%3Apr&type=Issues https://github.com/search?q=in%3Atitle+improve+created%3A%3E...
    - chillee 6y ago
      This search makes the same mistake I mentioned above - you think it finds a lot because you're sorting by "relevant" and sampling. Sort by newest and you'll see that the vast majority of these PR's are legitimate: https://github.com/search?o=desc&q=in%3Atitle+improve+created%3A%3E%3D2020-09-30+is%3Apr&s=created&type=Issues https://github.com/search?o=desc&q=in%3Atitle+improve+create...
      - marcinzm 6y ago
        The results I got show 4 spam PRs out of 10 on the first page. Same on the second and third pages. 60% is not a vast majority legitimate and 40% spam is not inconsequential when it's 86k PRs.
- touristtam 6y ago
  It is so indiscriminate that repos that could be considered dead (7+ years without activity) by the maintainer seems to get massive attention from new accounts just to get that T-Shirt. O_O
WarOnPrivacy 6y ago
I was wondering about all of that. Appreciate the clarification.
cvrjk 6y ago
A lot of those accounts also seem to be created just a few hours before October 1st. Can GitHub time gate new accounts before that can make public PRs?
- tastroder 6y ago
  I feel like that would be counterproductive given that GitHub is a tool, not a social network you need to gather account age or fake internet points on to use. Don't really see anything wrong with somebody signing up and immediately creating a PR. I realize GitHub is one of the most popular choices out there but the activity stream is already social mediaesque enough for my taste. There's other ways to tackle this, DO could make their marketing stunt opt-in and GH could respond to the people wanting to add friction to their repo's workflows in a way that provides value, without crippling the general user experience.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- pvorb 6y ago
  I think this would be a bad direction. I bet that most people create an account on GitHub to report an issue or create a pull request directly. I think this should be encouraged.
bad_user 6y ago
Love this one — somebody is trying to rename "package.json" into "package": https://github.com/dinosaurjs/website/pull/28 https://github.com/dinosaurjs/website/pull/28
- bobbyi_settv 6y ago
  No, he renamed it to "package: An Amazing Project.json"
  - bad_user 6y ago
    OMG even better :-)) My mind did not parse anything after ":"
  - Thorrez 6y ago
    Windows doesn't even let you have a colon in a filename!
    - rubatuga 6y ago
      Had a hell of a time downloading a torrent with a colon in the name.
      - vijayr02 6y ago
        You mean it was a pain in the colon? :)
    - sumtechguy 6y ago
      Wonder if NTFS 'lets' you. I know the API does not let it. But I wonder if you could get it in a different way. I know you can sneak case sensitivity in here and there. Think I shall go ruin a VM tonight... :)
    - livre 6y ago
      I suppose it is because the colon is used for NTFS alternate data streams, see the example in the introduction here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/streams https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/stre...

TheDong 6y ago

Github allows you to search by dates (newer than, date ranges, etc), so for example, you can add the query "created:>=2020-09-30" (the date the youtube video was uploaded) to get a more accurate list. From this search, it looks like it's definitely on the order of hundreds: https://github.com/search?p=5&q=amazing+project+created%3A%3E%3D2020-09-30&type=Issues https://github.com/search?p=5&q=amazing+project+created%3A%3... I opened a few at random to spot-check, and they all seemed like garbage to me. Like this one, ugh https://github.com/mongodb/docs/pull/4402/files https://github.com/mongodb/docs/pull/4402/files

chillee 6y ago
Sorting by relevance doesn't get you a representative sample - that bubbles PRs who say "amazing project" in the title to the top(which are indeed mostly spam). If you restrict it to "in:title", you see that there's only 44: https://github.com/search?q=in%3Atitle+amazing+project+created%3A%3E%3D2020-09-30&type=Issues https://github.com/search?q=in%3Atitle+amazing+project+creat... And if you sort by "newest" or "oldest", which provide a more representative sample, you can see that most of them are not spam: https://github.com/search?o=desc&q=amazing+project+created%3A%3E%3D2020-09-30&s=created&type=Issues https://github.com/search?o=desc&q=amazing+project+created%3...
- forgotpwd16 6y ago
  Why restrict in title though? From parent reply it is obvious that the phrase isn't in title yet it is undeniably spam.
  - chillee 6y ago
    I'm trying to get a lower bound on spam PRs filed. If you sort by oldest (instead of by "relevance" as the parent commenter did) and do a spot check, you'll see that a lot of the PR's are legitimate: https://github.com/search?o=asc&q=amazing+project+created%3A%3E%3D2020-09-30&s=created&type=Issues https://github.com/search?o=asc&q=amazing+project+created%3A... Certainly, restricting to the title misses plenty of PRs. But his search provides 252 PRs, and I'd estimate that easily <100 of them are spam.
- rjmunro 6y ago
  Typically the PRs are titled something like "Improve docs" and the change is to add "an amazing project" somewhere in the README.md. Here's a search that finds a lot: https://github.com/search?q=in%3Atitle+improve+created%3A%3E%3D2020-09-30+is%3Apr&type=Issues https://github.com/search?q=in%3Atitle+improve+created%3A%3E...
  - chillee 6y ago
    This search makes the same mistake I mentioned above - you think it finds a lot because you're sorting by "relevant" and sampling. Sort by newest and you'll see that the vast majority of these PR's are legitimate: https://github.com/search?o=desc&q=in%3Atitle+improve+created%3A%3E%3D2020-09-30+is%3Apr&s=created&type=Issues https://github.com/search?o=desc&q=in%3Atitle+improve+create...
    - marcinzm 6y ago
      The results I got show 4 spam PRs out of 10 on the first page. Same on the second and third pages. 60% is not a vast majority legitimate and 40% spam is not inconsequential when it's 86k PRs.
touristtam 6y ago
It is so indiscriminate that repos that could be considered dead (7+ years without activity) by the maintainer seems to get massive attention from new accounts just to get that T-Shirt. O_O

WarOnPrivacy 6y ago

I was wondering about all of that. Appreciate the clarification.

cvrjk 6y ago

A lot of those accounts also seem to be created just a few hours before October 1st. Can GitHub time gate new accounts before that can make public PRs?

tastroder 6y ago
I feel like that would be counterproductive given that GitHub is a tool, not a social network you need to gather account age or fake internet points on to use. Don't really see anything wrong with somebody signing up and immediately creating a PR. I realize GitHub is one of the most popular choices out there but the activity stream is already social mediaesque enough for my taste. There's other ways to tackle this, DO could make their marketing stunt opt-in and GH could respond to the people wanting to add friction to their repo's workflows in a way that provides value, without crippling the general user experience.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
pvorb 6y ago
I think this would be a bad direction. I bet that most people create an account on GitHub to report an issue or create a pull request directly. I think this should be encouraged.

bad_user 6y ago

Love this one — somebody is trying to rename "package.json" into "package": https://github.com/dinosaurjs/website/pull/28 https://github.com/dinosaurjs/website/pull/28

bobbyi_settv 6y ago
No, he renamed it to "package: An Amazing Project.json"
- bad_user 6y ago
  OMG even better :-)) My mind did not parse anything after ":"
- Thorrez 6y ago
  Windows doesn't even let you have a colon in a filename!
  - rubatuga 6y ago
    Had a hell of a time downloading a torrent with a colon in the name.
    - vijayr02 6y ago
      You mean it was a pain in the colon? :)
  - sumtechguy 6y ago
    Wonder if NTFS 'lets' you. I know the API does not let it. But I wonder if you could get it in a different way. I know you can sneak case sensitivity in here and there. Think I shall go ruin a VM tonight... :)
  - livre 6y ago
    I suppose it is because the colon is used for NTFS alternate data streams, see the example in the introduction here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/streams https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/stre...