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What exactly does "optimizing for Github recommendations" mean? I'm not writing and debugging 10,000 lines of C just to farm Github stars. It seems crazy to th

What exactly does "optimizing for Github recommendations" mean? I'm not writing and debugging 10,000 lines of C just to farm Github stars. It seems crazy to think anyone would change how they work for that. Whereas, people on Youtube/Twitter/Facebook/etc. really do change their videos or writing to spread better.

genocidicbunny 5y ago
That will really depend on how the algorithm weighs different signals. For example, lets say that projects that have a high issue resolution rate are promoted more -- that will just spur people to create small easily fixed issues to boost their ranking. Any metric the algorithm uses will be subject to being gamed in some way.
AlexandrB 5y ago
Commerce finds a way. As soon as there's potential for financial benefit, someone will figure out how to optimize repos for the feed's algorithm. Perhaps this will mean clickbaity README.md files or frequent, trivial code changes to make a repo look more "active". We'll see, I guess.
epicide 5y ago
> I'm not writing and debugging 10,000 lines of C just to farm Github stars. And neither would anybody else. That's the problem. (i.e. they'll do something else besides write and debug code to farm stars) Let's say I determine (or at least believe) that the GitHub algorithm prefers projects with a README with lots of images and emoji, MIT-licensed, and lots of forks. Obviously, there are already some really great projects out there that have exactly that! The problem is that now I'm incentivized to do those things as well, even if it doesn't always make sense. Sure, I might not create actual spam, but I might choose a license based on partly on that. Or I might inflate my README with an unreadable number of images. After all, my project is pretty important -- if only I could get a few more people interacting with it. And of course, there's outright abuse. Maybe I'm desperate and build a bot that creates a bunch of forks. The point is that it doesn't always require the latter scenario when there's also the former. Sure, it's not as bad, but I expect there to be more cases of it, and those cases are harder to determine and retroactively fix.
- lamontcg 5y ago
  Create 100 different npm projects that should be one bit of functionality but ship every single method as a different github repo and update all of them continuously with new content in their README.md and such in order to suggest to the AI that you're super busy in maintenance. Then abandon all of them once you land the FAANG job you're looking for.
  - samb1729 5y ago
    Jon Schlinkert was ahead of his time in this regard :)
- hedora 5y ago
  When I was a young child wandering the streets of $EXOTIC_LOCATION, I came across a street stall full of $OBSOLETE_COMPUTER. I've searched far and wide for a $TRIVIAL_ALGORITHM_IMPLEMENTATION that brings back the nostalgia of that day. Before running this code, it is important to have a proper computer to do it full justice. I recommend the $AMAZON_AFFILIATE_LINK ... 20 more screens, and 200MiB of JavaScript trackers later: One line of code that does not compile, copy pasted from stack overflow.
kissgyorgy 5y ago
Here is an example of possible abuse: it is already showing releases, so I can imagine a project would release more often with crappy updates just to show up in your feed more often.

genocidicbunny 5y ago

That will really depend on how the algorithm weighs different signals. For example, lets say that projects that have a high issue resolution rate are promoted more -- that will just spur people to create small easily fixed issues to boost their ranking. Any metric the algorithm uses will be subject to being gamed in some way.

AlexandrB 5y ago

Commerce finds a way. As soon as there's potential for financial benefit, someone will figure out how to optimize repos for the feed's algorithm. Perhaps this will mean clickbaity README.md files or frequent, trivial code changes to make a repo look more "active". We'll see, I guess.

epicide 5y ago

> I'm not writing and debugging 10,000 lines of C just to farm Github stars. And neither would anybody else. That's the problem. (i.e. they'll do something else besides write and debug code to farm stars) Let's say I determine (or at least believe) that the GitHub algorithm prefers projects with a README with lots of images and emoji, MIT-licensed, and lots of forks. Obviously, there are already some really great projects out there that have exactly that! The problem is that now I'm incentivized to do those things as well, even if it doesn't always make sense. Sure, I might not create actual spam, but I might choose a license based on partly on that. Or I might inflate my README with an unreadable number of images. After all, my project is pretty important -- if only I could get a few more people interacting with it. And of course, there's outright abuse. Maybe I'm desperate and build a bot that creates a bunch of forks. The point is that it doesn't always require the latter scenario when there's also the former. Sure, it's not as bad, but I expect there to be more cases of it, and those cases are harder to determine and retroactively fix.

lamontcg 5y ago
Create 100 different npm projects that should be one bit of functionality but ship every single method as a different github repo and update all of them continuously with new content in their README.md and such in order to suggest to the AI that you're super busy in maintenance. Then abandon all of them once you land the FAANG job you're looking for.
- samb1729 5y ago
  Jon Schlinkert was ahead of his time in this regard :)
hedora 5y ago
When I was a young child wandering the streets of $EXOTIC_LOCATION, I came across a street stall full of $OBSOLETE_COMPUTER. I've searched far and wide for a $TRIVIAL_ALGORITHM_IMPLEMENTATION that brings back the nostalgia of that day. Before running this code, it is important to have a proper computer to do it full justice. I recommend the $AMAZON_AFFILIATE_LINK ... 20 more screens, and 200MiB of JavaScript trackers later: One line of code that does not compile, copy pasted from stack overflow.

kissgyorgy 5y ago

Here is an example of possible abuse: it is already showing releases, so I can imagine a project would release more often with crappy updates just to show up in your feed more often.