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This is a very good feature, but I am also afraid it will make Zed Shaw and others think that his attempt to out-troll the trolls and multiply internet drama wa

This is a very good feature, but I am also afraid it will make Zed Shaw and others think that his attempt to out-troll the trolls and multiply internet drama was a force for positive change. "If you throw a big enough temper tantrum and incite a large enough shitstorm, developers will address your concerns" is an unfortunate precedent. The fact that controversy and negativity attracts eyeballs and can trigger improvements is understandable, but it also creates perverse incentives.

marcusbooster 15y ago
You could chalk it up to stress testing that pointed out a flaw. And to GitHub's credit they provided a quick fix and a professional response, kudos to them. Peace has been restored in the Valley, and the trolls are left to twiddle their ASCII dongs.
compay 15y ago
Sometimes you have to look at what somebody says, and not how they say it. I personally wouldn't have approached the trolls the way Zed did, but he was right that this was broken and needed to be fixed. Github did a great job - as far as I can tell they handled things professionally and cranked out a fix in just a few days. Everybody wins (except the trolls).
- endlessvoid94 15y ago
  I do not agree. You can't simply ignore HOW somebody says something. How you say something almost more important than what you say. If Zed hadn't written a blog post detailing how he fucked everything up (in all his greatness, apparently) it wouldn't have gotten such exposure and would likely have died out. He had to make his point with a hammer or it wouldn't have mattered. And it's unfortunate that it took a hammer to make the point. I'd even go so far as to say this feature isn't actually all that important. Zed Shaw just MADE it important.
  - catch23 15y ago
    You still have to admit that zed went through a lot of trouble just to stop the harassment. I'd probably make a blog post too if the harassment went on for as long as it did for zed.
  - zedshaw 15y ago
    > If Zed hadn't written a blog post detailing how he fucked everything up (in all his greatness, apparently) it wouldn't have gotten such exposure and would likely have died out. Can you explain where in my blog post I claim I'm great? I think all I did was explain what was happening and how this was someone who bothered me in the past and followed me to github, and then there was nothing I could do about it.
    - endlessvoid94 15y ago
      I guess I figured it was implied. With your influence, you totally could've emailed the github guys and voice your concerns privately. Instead, you chose to do your own thing and publicize it and how awesomely you pwned the dude. And then you claimed it was all to improve the github experience. Cmon.
      - zedshaw 15y ago
        So, you basically were stirring up drama by exaggerating what I said for effect, yet I'm the drama queen and attention whore. Next time, actually read what I write instead of just imagining you read it after seeing a stream of tweets and your buddies on reddit tell it to you 4th person in some comments. For example, I didn't contact github because I knew one of the peole working there was in on the joke. If you read what I wrote you would have known that, idiot.
        deleted 15y ago
        [deleted]
        rycole 15y ago
        You sure do enjoy referring to yourself as a queen, don't you? Hrm.
rhizome 15y ago
Just because you can identify the mechanism by which this most-basic feature of social networks was implemented, that doesn't mean that it's a bad thing. The cart should not be put before the horse by implying that this missing feature was simply used as an excuse to be negative. What's the perverse incentive here, that it's actually in GitHub's interest to prevent users from blocking each other? "The squeaky wheel gets the grease" and public shame were invented way before the Internet, so this makes no precedent. It's just one of the myriad ways in which things get done. Ever had a boss?
- trafficlight 15y ago
  Ralph Nader was also pretty good at it.
chollida1 15y ago
> will make Zed Shaw and others think that his attempt to out-troll the trolls and multiply internet drama was a force for positive change. To be fair, in this case, that does appear to be exactly what happened. Github had a problem. Someone exposed it and then Zed used his considerable influence to "force" github to fix it.
bxr 15y ago
>"If you throw a big enough temper tantrum and incite a large enough shitstorm, developers will address your concerns" is an unfortunate precedent. Its unfortunate for many reasons, not the least of which is that they either were, or were perceived as (which is just as bad for the customer), so out of touch with the user base that such action was necessary. >it also creates perverse incentives No, it was created by a general disregard for customer service. The attitude that an issue is fine to ignore unless it is boiling over is what created the incentive, that was ages ago.
- aplusbi 15y ago
  I don't know much about github's customer service,= but from what I can extrapolate from Shaw's rant, their service had a flaw which was likely just an oversight. Shaw never made an attempt to contact github about it (under the belief that they were in on it) and instead chose to exploit another flaw in their service and then angrily blog about it. I don't see how that makes github "out of touch" nor do I see how this situation was created by a "general disregard of customer service." Granted this might be true, but it doesn't sound like it had anything to do with this particular incident.
jerf 15y ago
'"If you throw a big enough temper tantrum and incite a large enough shitstorm, developers will address your concerns" is an unfortunate precedent.' Perhaps so, but Zed Shaw is not the one that set it. The age of the phrase "the squeaky wheel gets the grease" is measured in decades, not days.
- chittis 15y ago
  centuries, perhaps? http://www.answers.com/topic/squeaky-wheel-gets-the-grease http://www.answers.com/topic/squeaky-wheel-gets-the-grease
  - jerf 15y ago
    I actually wanted to say that, but couldn't establish it quickly. Plus days -> decades is a bit more euphonious, so I didn't fight it too hard.
bad_user 15y ago
At least he's a creative dick.
zedshaw 15y ago
I love how you're this paragon of stoic virtue, and I'm a drama queen, yet, here you are talking about it even more instead of ignoring it and going back to whatever it was you were doing.
- overcyn 15y ago
  Theres a difference between discussing the concept of "internet drama" and actually creating "internet drama". Mycroftiv is doing the former whereas you do the latter.
  - ctide 15y ago
    You do realize that discussing internet drama is what spurs people to create internet drama, right?
    - ramchip 15y ago
      Citation needed. This doesn't look self-evident at all to me.
      - ctide 15y ago
        The goal of internet drama is to make the instigator and everyone they know laugh at what they've done. The initial 'poke' will generate some of that, but a 'successful' attack will generate days of discussion that 'everyone' laughs at. I get that there are lots of people who don't understand this on this forum, but, asking for citations to understand concepts that are described on wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drama http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drama) is a bit ridiculous, don't you agree?
      - mcosta 15y ago
        A situation is not an "internet drama" by itself. It needs people talking and/or arguing about it. It is evident to me.
    - overcyn 15y ago
      What I mean to say is, OP is talking about internet drama as a whole and how this incident sets a bad example for the community. And I realize that simply because Zed is even mentioned a certain amount of drama is brought in but the intent is clearly different.
odiroot 15y ago
In my opinion, they should thank Zed. Github missed a really important issue and he proved it. First thing in social and content driven system is to spam-proof it. Especially that Github is all about productivity.
raz0r 15y ago
Oh come on shut the fuck up. The guy had a problem, he complained, and it was fixed. What the fuck is the problem?

marcusbooster 15y ago

You could chalk it up to stress testing that pointed out a flaw. And to GitHub's credit they provided a quick fix and a professional response, kudos to them. Peace has been restored in the Valley, and the trolls are left to twiddle their ASCII dongs.

compay 15y ago

Sometimes you have to look at what somebody says, and not how they say it. I personally wouldn't have approached the trolls the way Zed did, but he was right that this was broken and needed to be fixed. Github did a great job - as far as I can tell they handled things professionally and cranked out a fix in just a few days. Everybody wins (except the trolls).

endlessvoid94 15y ago
I do not agree. You can't simply ignore HOW somebody says something. How you say something almost more important than what you say. If Zed hadn't written a blog post detailing how he fucked everything up (in all his greatness, apparently) it wouldn't have gotten such exposure and would likely have died out. He had to make his point with a hammer or it wouldn't have mattered. And it's unfortunate that it took a hammer to make the point. I'd even go so far as to say this feature isn't actually all that important. Zed Shaw just MADE it important.
- catch23 15y ago
  You still have to admit that zed went through a lot of trouble just to stop the harassment. I'd probably make a blog post too if the harassment went on for as long as it did for zed.
- zedshaw 15y ago
  > If Zed hadn't written a blog post detailing how he fucked everything up (in all his greatness, apparently) it wouldn't have gotten such exposure and would likely have died out. Can you explain where in my blog post I claim I'm great? I think all I did was explain what was happening and how this was someone who bothered me in the past and followed me to github, and then there was nothing I could do about it.
  - endlessvoid94 15y ago
    I guess I figured it was implied. With your influence, you totally could've emailed the github guys and voice your concerns privately. Instead, you chose to do your own thing and publicize it and how awesomely you pwned the dude. And then you claimed it was all to improve the github experience. Cmon.
    - zedshaw 15y ago
      So, you basically were stirring up drama by exaggerating what I said for effect, yet I'm the drama queen and attention whore. Next time, actually read what I write instead of just imagining you read it after seeing a stream of tweets and your buddies on reddit tell it to you 4th person in some comments. For example, I didn't contact github because I knew one of the peole working there was in on the joke. If you read what I wrote you would have known that, idiot.
      - deleted 15y ago
        [deleted]
      - rycole 15y ago
        You sure do enjoy referring to yourself as a queen, don't you? Hrm.

rhizome 15y ago

Just because you can identify the mechanism by which this most-basic feature of social networks was implemented, that doesn't mean that it's a bad thing. The cart should not be put before the horse by implying that this missing feature was simply used as an excuse to be negative. What's the perverse incentive here, that it's actually in GitHub's interest to prevent users from blocking each other? "The squeaky wheel gets the grease" and public shame were invented way before the Internet, so this makes no precedent. It's just one of the myriad ways in which things get done. Ever had a boss?

trafficlight 15y ago
Ralph Nader was also pretty good at it.

chollida1 15y ago

> will make Zed Shaw and others think that his attempt to out-troll the trolls and multiply internet drama was a force for positive change. To be fair, in this case, that does appear to be exactly what happened. Github had a problem. Someone exposed it and then Zed used his considerable influence to "force" github to fix it.

bxr 15y ago

>"If you throw a big enough temper tantrum and incite a large enough shitstorm, developers will address your concerns" is an unfortunate precedent. Its unfortunate for many reasons, not the least of which is that they either were, or were perceived as (which is just as bad for the customer), so out of touch with the user base that such action was necessary. >it also creates perverse incentives No, it was created by a general disregard for customer service. The attitude that an issue is fine to ignore unless it is boiling over is what created the incentive, that was ages ago.

aplusbi 15y ago
I don't know much about github's customer service,= but from what I can extrapolate from Shaw's rant, their service had a flaw which was likely just an oversight. Shaw never made an attempt to contact github about it (under the belief that they were in on it) and instead chose to exploit another flaw in their service and then angrily blog about it. I don't see how that makes github "out of touch" nor do I see how this situation was created by a "general disregard of customer service." Granted this might be true, but it doesn't sound like it had anything to do with this particular incident.

jerf 15y ago

'"If you throw a big enough temper tantrum and incite a large enough shitstorm, developers will address your concerns" is an unfortunate precedent.' Perhaps so, but Zed Shaw is not the one that set it. The age of the phrase "the squeaky wheel gets the grease" is measured in decades, not days.

chittis 15y ago
centuries, perhaps? http://www.answers.com/topic/squeaky-wheel-gets-the-grease http://www.answers.com/topic/squeaky-wheel-gets-the-grease
- jerf 15y ago
  I actually wanted to say that, but couldn't establish it quickly. Plus days -> decades is a bit more euphonious, so I didn't fight it too hard.

bad_user 15y ago

At least he's a creative dick.

zedshaw 15y ago

I love how you're this paragon of stoic virtue, and I'm a drama queen, yet, here you are talking about it even more instead of ignoring it and going back to whatever it was you were doing.

overcyn 15y ago
Theres a difference between discussing the concept of "internet drama" and actually creating "internet drama". Mycroftiv is doing the former whereas you do the latter.
- ctide 15y ago
  You do realize that discussing internet drama is what spurs people to create internet drama, right?
  - ramchip 15y ago
    Citation needed. This doesn't look self-evident at all to me.
    - ctide 15y ago
      The goal of internet drama is to make the instigator and everyone they know laugh at what they've done. The initial 'poke' will generate some of that, but a 'successful' attack will generate days of discussion that 'everyone' laughs at. I get that there are lots of people who don't understand this on this forum, but, asking for citations to understand concepts that are described on wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drama http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drama) is a bit ridiculous, don't you agree?
    - mcosta 15y ago
      A situation is not an "internet drama" by itself. It needs people talking and/or arguing about it. It is evident to me.
  - overcyn 15y ago
    What I mean to say is, OP is talking about internet drama as a whole and how this incident sets a bad example for the community. And I realize that simply because Zed is even mentioned a certain amount of drama is brought in but the intent is clearly different.

odiroot 15y ago

In my opinion, they should thank Zed. Github missed a really important issue and he proved it. First thing in social and content driven system is to spam-proof it. Especially that Github is all about productivity.

raz0r 15y ago

Oh come on shut the fuck up. The guy had a problem, he complained, and it was fixed. What the fuck is the problem?