7 ms·

Gamifying Github

52 points by jamesjyu 15y ago

wccrawford 15y ago
Anyone who is already logged into coderwall.com (probably from the story the other day) will be redirected to their own page... Which is a bit disturbing at first. I had to double-check the URL to see if someone linked to my page. ;)
theDoug 15y ago
Must have recently become super-popular > "Thanks for joining. During our beta we can only handle so many new accounts (due to API throttle limits and all). The current demand has us a little backlogged. Your expected wait time is currently 5 days in this queue." Folks may also be interested in http://calendaraboutnothing.com/ http://calendaraboutnothing.com/ which keeps track of your commit streak in hope of building a chain of committing every day.
- jackolas 15y ago
  I really love that concept, but hate that theres no good deployed one for your own use. [i.e. not committing]
iamdave 15y ago
It's kinda like the Nobel Peace Prize for developers, only better Somewhere a copywriter felt a disturbance in the force..
omouse 15y ago
I'm just going to leave this here: http://adamloving.com/internet-programming/gamification http://adamloving.com/internet-programming/gamification There is good gamification and bad gamification. Bad gamification is slapping extrinsic rewards (or a contrived story) on top of an interaction. Good gamification amplifies the intrinsic rewards of a particular behavior – to increase the feeling of fun, flow, or accomplishment of the player. Players know bad gamification when they see it, because it doesn’t take their interests into consideration. Good gamification aligns the needs of both designer and player.
- nonrecursive 15y ago
  I'm not sure if you're trying to imply that this is bad gamification. With bad gamification, I feel like I'm slaving away in order to achieve something stupid. Like - Hooray, my orc is level 50! Well, so what? With coderwall, there's no way I'm going to alter my behavior in order to get badges on it. But it's fun - very fun - to see what badges appear, and to compare myself to other people. Coding is something that's already super personal, it's something people do for fun already, and thus I find it very unlikely that someone's going to come away from coderwall feeling something like, "I just slaved away on this code that was exciting to create and all I got was this stupid badge. Damn you coderwall! Damn you for manipulating me into doing something I'm proud of!" My experience with coderwall was that it was very amusing to see the badges I'd gotten, and the fact that I had more than some people I know provided me with data for gloating. But will it send me on a downward spiral, making me grind away at programming so that I can get the "Forked 500" badge while I increasingly lose contact with reality? Will it make me feel like I've been gamed when I do someday create a project that's been forked 500 times? I doubt it. Then again that is a pretty awesome looking badge.
  - leon_ 15y ago
    > With coderwall, there's no way I'm going to alter my behavior in order to get badges on it. I was thinking about creating 100 fake github accounts to fork/follow my projects to get a badge ;) j/k I too believe this kind of "gamification" is a nice addon. It's optional - hell it's even outside of the system. If I don't want to use it I don't have to. The bad kind of gamification is the one that is forced upon you.
    - jrockway 15y ago
      I was thinking about creating 100 fake github accounts to fork/follow my projects to get a badge ;) You don't need to do that: you can force any real account to watch your project by adding them as a committer.
      - redthrowaway 15y ago
adamesque 15y ago
I'm all for merit badges, but I can't shake the feeling that github is already gamified pretty damn well. As in, the rewards you get for being a good "player" are super tangible and awesome. Few things feel as rewarding as getting a pull request accepted. Even filing a bug with enough detail that the project owner is able to take action feels great. But, that's how software developers are wired; I get a rush when I make something work. I suppose the challenge is drawing more people into that cycle of participation and reward, but it's an angle of the game I'm not sure this project addresses.
leon_ 15y ago
yeah! 4 points: http://coderwall.com/jsz http://coderwall.com/jsz ;) btw. is there a list of other github apps? calendaraboutnothing was nice too. have some free time toady that I'd like to waste :)
- cliftonmckinney 15y ago
  We're doing something with Githib called Work for Pie. It aggregates info from Githib, Stack Overflow, HN, Bitbucket and gives you a score based on activity and participation. Then you get a profile where you can highlight code, languages, etc. Kind of a portfolio for developers. We're still in private beta, but invites will come pretty pretty quickly after you sign up. www.workforpie.com
  - leon_ 15y ago
    nice, just signed up.
- salsakran 15y ago
  I'll also plug www.gitalytics.com ;)
geuis 15y ago
Lets not do this.
adulau 15y ago
Why do they need to log into your GitHub account to generate such page? It seems that the information gathered can be directly from your public profile or did I miss something?
- joshuacc 15y ago
  Perhaps to access private repositories?
- abecedarius 15y ago
  I'm confused too because github asks me to authorize them reading my public information. If it's public, what's there to authorize? (Since this github authorization thing was new to me, I didn't grant it. Paranoid, sure.)
  - coderwall 15y ago
    For convenience we didn't want users to be required to create yet another set of credentials. This allows you to still authenticate and control your coderwall settings/profile while using your GitHub acct. When we request public access, github only gives us public access.
    - adulau 15y ago
      I'm pretty sure if you make a version without authentication more GitHub user will use it.
      - abecedarius 15y ago
        Yeah, that's about where I stand -- looks fun but I don't want to bother managing it beyond asking "what does user Foo look like?" where Foo == me.
aaronblohowiak 15y ago
Warning: "Your expected wait time is currently 5 days in this queue." They could just use the JSONp version of the API and trust that users aren't going to submit bad data about their own account (theyd only be cheating themselves.) This way, they wouldn't be subject to API usage limits.
- leon_ 15y ago
  I think this is a way to trick/force people into twittering about it. If you twitter/follow, your acc will be processed within 2hours they say. I did and my acc was ready within 5 minutes.
orblivion 15y ago
I would suggest adding a "how do you find this" for getting your stackoverflow ID. Is it the number in my profile URL?
tete 15y ago
Oh no, it made me cry when Wikia added achievements. IMO this is so ridiculous. But it's still funny and if you like this, I'm fine. Especially when it means more code! I'm sure some of it will be of quality. Maybe it even causes future talents to stay interested.
mtogo 15y ago
Agh, please make mailto: links clear that they are mailto: links.
damncabbage 15y ago
If your site has a 5-day waiting period that I can skip and reduce to 15 minutes by tweeting about you, then with all due respect please do not be surprised if come to think that you may be lying through your teeth.
- damncabbage 15y ago
  Clarification: "... do not be surprised if I come to think..."*, rather. (Typo spotted past the edit timeout.)
lee337 15y ago
I've been beaten to it, but here's how coderwall would have looked in the 80's... http://github-high-scores.heroku.com http://github-high-scores.heroku.com

52 points by jamesjyu 15y ago

Anyone who is already logged into coderwall.com (probably from the story the other day) will be redirected to their own page... Which is a bit disturbing at first. I had to double-check the URL to see if someone linked to my page. ;)

theDoug 15y ago

Must have recently become super-popular > "Thanks for joining. During our beta we can only handle so many new accounts (due to API throttle limits and all). The current demand has us a little backlogged. Your expected wait time is currently 5 days in this queue." Folks may also be interested in http://calendaraboutnothing.com/ http://calendaraboutnothing.com/ which keeps track of your commit streak in hope of building a chain of committing every day.

jackolas 15y ago
I really love that concept, but hate that theres no good deployed one for your own use. [i.e. not committing]

iamdave 15y ago

It's kinda like the Nobel Peace Prize for developers, only better Somewhere a copywriter felt a disturbance in the force..

omouse 15y ago

I'm just going to leave this here: http://adamloving.com/internet-programming/gamification http://adamloving.com/internet-programming/gamification There is good gamification and bad gamification. Bad gamification is slapping extrinsic rewards (or a contrived story) on top of an interaction. Good gamification amplifies the intrinsic rewards of a particular behavior – to increase the feeling of fun, flow, or accomplishment of the player. Players know bad gamification when they see it, because it doesn’t take their interests into consideration. Good gamification aligns the needs of both designer and player.

nonrecursive 15y ago
I'm not sure if you're trying to imply that this is bad gamification. With bad gamification, I feel like I'm slaving away in order to achieve something stupid. Like - Hooray, my orc is level 50! Well, so what? With coderwall, there's no way I'm going to alter my behavior in order to get badges on it. But it's fun - very fun - to see what badges appear, and to compare myself to other people. Coding is something that's already super personal, it's something people do for fun already, and thus I find it very unlikely that someone's going to come away from coderwall feeling something like, "I just slaved away on this code that was exciting to create and all I got was this stupid badge. Damn you coderwall! Damn you for manipulating me into doing something I'm proud of!" My experience with coderwall was that it was very amusing to see the badges I'd gotten, and the fact that I had more than some people I know provided me with data for gloating. But will it send me on a downward spiral, making me grind away at programming so that I can get the "Forked 500" badge while I increasingly lose contact with reality? Will it make me feel like I've been gamed when I do someday create a project that's been forked 500 times? I doubt it. Then again that is a pretty awesome looking badge.
- leon_ 15y ago
  > With coderwall, there's no way I'm going to alter my behavior in order to get badges on it. I was thinking about creating 100 fake github accounts to fork/follow my projects to get a badge ;) j/k I too believe this kind of "gamification" is a nice addon. It's optional - hell it's even outside of the system. If I don't want to use it I don't have to. The bad kind of gamification is the one that is forced upon you.
  - jrockway 15y ago
    I was thinking about creating 100 fake github accounts to fork/follow my projects to get a badge ;) You don't need to do that: you can force any real account to watch your project by adding them as a committer.
    - redthrowaway 15y ago

adamesque 15y ago

I'm all for merit badges, but I can't shake the feeling that github is already gamified pretty damn well. As in, the rewards you get for being a good "player" are super tangible and awesome. Few things feel as rewarding as getting a pull request accepted. Even filing a bug with enough detail that the project owner is able to take action feels great. But, that's how software developers are wired; I get a rush when I make something work. I suppose the challenge is drawing more people into that cycle of participation and reward, but it's an angle of the game I'm not sure this project addresses.

leon_ 15y ago

yeah! 4 points: http://coderwall.com/jsz http://coderwall.com/jsz ;) btw. is there a list of other github apps? calendaraboutnothing was nice too. have some free time toady that I'd like to waste :)

cliftonmckinney 15y ago
We're doing something with Githib called Work for Pie. It aggregates info from Githib, Stack Overflow, HN, Bitbucket and gives you a score based on activity and participation. Then you get a profile where you can highlight code, languages, etc. Kind of a portfolio for developers. We're still in private beta, but invites will come pretty pretty quickly after you sign up. www.workforpie.com
- leon_ 15y ago
  nice, just signed up.
salsakran 15y ago
I'll also plug www.gitalytics.com ;)

geuis 15y ago

Lets not do this.

adulau 15y ago

Why do they need to log into your GitHub account to generate such page? It seems that the information gathered can be directly from your public profile or did I miss something?

joshuacc 15y ago
Perhaps to access private repositories?
abecedarius 15y ago
I'm confused too because github asks me to authorize them reading my public information. If it's public, what's there to authorize? (Since this github authorization thing was new to me, I didn't grant it. Paranoid, sure.)
- coderwall 15y ago
  For convenience we didn't want users to be required to create yet another set of credentials. This allows you to still authenticate and control your coderwall settings/profile while using your GitHub acct. When we request public access, github only gives us public access.
  - adulau 15y ago
    I'm pretty sure if you make a version without authentication more GitHub user will use it.
    - abecedarius 15y ago
      Yeah, that's about where I stand -- looks fun but I don't want to bother managing it beyond asking "what does user Foo look like?" where Foo == me.

aaronblohowiak 15y ago

Warning: "Your expected wait time is currently 5 days in this queue." They could just use the JSONp version of the API and trust that users aren't going to submit bad data about their own account (theyd only be cheating themselves.) This way, they wouldn't be subject to API usage limits.

leon_ 15y ago
I think this is a way to trick/force people into twittering about it. If you twitter/follow, your acc will be processed within 2hours they say. I did and my acc was ready within 5 minutes.

orblivion 15y ago

I would suggest adding a "how do you find this" for getting your stackoverflow ID. Is it the number in my profile URL?

tete 15y ago

Oh no, it made me cry when Wikia added achievements. IMO this is so ridiculous. But it's still funny and if you like this, I'm fine. Especially when it means more code! I'm sure some of it will be of quality. Maybe it even causes future talents to stay interested.

mtogo 15y ago

Agh, please make mailto: links clear that they are mailto: links.

damncabbage 15y ago

If your site has a 5-day waiting period that I can skip and reduce to 15 minutes by tweeting about you, then with all due respect please do not be surprised if come to think that you may be lying through your teeth.

damncabbage 15y ago
Clarification: "... do not be surprised if I come to think..."*, rather. (Typo spotted past the edit timeout.)

lee337 15y ago

I've been beaten to it, but here's how coderwall would have looked in the 80's... http://github-high-scores.heroku.com http://github-high-scores.heroku.com