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GitHub: Private Profiles beta
- BruceBlacklaws 5y agoI'm glad this feature has come just over a week after I complained about how social SCM hosting is a bad idea https://www.bruceblacklaws.com/blog/1649808000 https://www.bruceblacklaws.com/blog/1649808000
- MaxLeiter 5y agoThe screenshot in the post mentions hiding “leaderboards”. What are those in the context of github? Google isnt showing anything
- bombcar 5y agoI took that to be these kind of things: https://github.com/mysql/mysql-server/graphs/contributors https://github.com/mysql/mysql-server/graphs/contributors
- martinwoodward 5y agoMartin from GitHub here. The "leaderboards" are actually what you see as "Most Helpful" tables in GitHub Discussions (see https://github.com/github/feedback/discussions https://github.com/github/feedback/discussions for an example). We should probably change the language on that settings screen - thanks!
- ushakov 5y agoi'd like to ask a question about the "Include private contributions on my profile" feature if i'm a member of private org does it count my contributions too? and if i'm no longer a member of the org are my contributions still counted to my profile?
- martinwoodward 5y agoYes, and I think yes but I would need to test it to be sure. I do know the contributions disappear if you only have public contributions enabled and then turn a repo private but if you have private enabled then as long as the contributions still map to your ID it should show up. Does it not work that way for you?
- ushakov 5y agothe first one i can confirm, but the second one i actually do not remember the scenario is the following: somebody invites me to their org to do some work on their private repo, then after the work is done they remove me from the org what i expect in this case is that my contributions are still counted as long as the repository is on GitHub, even when i'm no longer a member of the org it's a very minor feature but a very nice one for contractors like me who want to show some progress!
- martinwoodward 5y agoSounds good - LMK if you find it's not working that way for you.
- nitrix 5y agoOn a similar note, the screenshot should probably put emphasis on the first bullet point "Make profile private and hide activity". What jumps to the eye right now is that second option checked, as if that's the new feature.
- Shadonototra 5y agoGreat! one thing that made me move away from github and actually self host gitea was how invasive their social features were without being able to opt out
- ushakov 5y agohow is this feature good for GitHub as a community? GitHub has always been a social coding platform i remember what happened when VK allowed people to make their profiles private everyone just made their VK profile private and now you can't see beyond a person's name and avatar which sucks, because it makes VK look like a ghost town edit: why am i getting downvoted?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- reidjs 5y agoI think this is a great idea. Some people may choose not to use the social aspects of github and prefer using it only as a personal source code repository.
- jimmy2020 5y agoYou could do it when enable hiding private contribution. This features actually enable anonymous users. I don't think it has anything to do with using the code privately.
- toomuchtodo 5y agoGitHub is using enterprise features as a revenue driver, especially appsec tooling. There is a large cohort of users who will need a GitHub profile for using GitHub, but the social aspects would be a net negative. I personally love this feature and have been waiting forever for it. Default to privacy over social features.
- encryptluks2 5y agoTranslation, how is privacy a good feature for users?
- jreese 5y agoIt also sucks when terrible people abuse public profiles to harass and intimidate people. Privacy should always be an option for those who want or need it, otherwise we indirectly force marginalized people out of these spaces entirely.
- lmc 5y agoS'alright. More granular controls would be nice.
- ushakov 5y agoyep, especially around the newsfeed in the new feed i see every release update from 800+ repositories i starred would be nice if there was a way to exclude releases from the feed, because it actually discourages me from reading the things i care about (like what my friends star and updates to repositories i'm watching)
- saagarjha 5y agoDid you also “watch” those repositories? Just starring something doesn’t usually give you updates on its development.
- ushakov 5y agothat’s the thing: i am not watching them here’s my GitHub discussion so you get an idea how it looks like: https://github.com/github/feedback/discussions/13318 https://github.com/github/feedback/discussions/13318 the register also has covered this: https://www.theregister.com/2022/03/23/github_for_you/ https://www.theregister.com/2022/03/23/github_for_you/
- saagarjha 5y agoAh, yes, the algorithmic feed does that unfortunately. Sorry for polluting it with iSH daily builds :(
- intunderflow 5y agoGitHub loves all-or-nothing settings, they're all over the platform Try and give people permissions in an org between a regular user and a super admin, even on Enterprise Cloud you don't get much granularity
- dhzhzjsbevs 5y agoI just discovered r/overemployed. And my biggest concern was the fact my j1 is mostly open source on GitHub. Thank you Microsoft? Eugh nope. Still weird.
- dicknuckle 5y agoyour work visa is on GitHub? why?
- tailspin2019 5y agoEDIT: Judging by the upvotes, my issue below might be a common problem. Read below and be warned :) --- Well I guess they did say Beta... I turned this on immediately and now get HTTP 500 errors on every page on GitHub while logged in. Clear cache and login again does not solve. Oh dear. Thankfully their support portal does still work. For anyone as unlucky as me: https://support.github.com/ https://support.github.com/
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- Beltalowda 5y agoI just get 500 on the homepage, and my profile also 500s when logged out. Most other things still seem to work, including https://github.com/settings/profile https://github.com/settings/profile where I could turn it off.
- bm5k 5y agoSame. As soon as I made my profile private github.com started 500ing for me. It seems like none of the other pages I've hit are affected. Edit: Spoke a little soon, my profile page is also 500 when logged out.
- bamboozled 5y agoThis almost seems worse that it’s so inconsistent between accounts
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- judge2020 5y agoInterestingly, while the changelog says "Private profiles are in public beta" this is neither a 'feature preview' (in the top right profile dropdown) nor does /settings/profile indicate it's in beta.
- dboreham 5y agoAm I mis-reading this, or does it really mean "public"?
- vanshg 5y agoIt's a beta of the "Private Profiles" features (as opposed to the status quo where all profiles are public)
- tailspin2019 5y agoYour attention may be being inadvertently drawn towards the "checked" box in their screenshot ("Include private contributions on my profile"), where it is the unchecked box which is actually the new feature they're announcing.
- alfiedotwtf 5y agoI thought by "Profiles" it was going to be a Resume-like feature (aka how Stack Overflow does it), but it's not... which makes me think - why hasn't GitHub done something like this, as it seems like an obvious thing to do? ... I guess we could set a de facto standard and create a "resume" repository. Though, it would be better if it were a standard feature and searchable too.
- schipplock 5y agoIf your github username is "foo4711", create a "foo4711" repository and add a "README.md". Add some content, push it. Now visit your profile at https://github.com/foo4711 https://github.com/foo4711 and the rendered README should be visible right at the top of your profile. You can use this to tell more about yourself, your projects etc...
- alfiedotwtf 5y agooh! TIL. Thanks for that. I feel like this isn't widely known
- The_rationalist 5y ago
- artdigital 5y agoGood. Yeah it doesn't do much for the community, but I got scolded in the past for squeezing in commits to open source repositories that aren't work related during work hours. I know, I know, I shouldn't be doing that in the first place, but it still sometimes happens, and just being able to keep the profile private is easier than waiting with committing until after work hours. Not everything I do on GitHub should be broadcasted to my entire workplace
- WhyNotHugo 5y agoI've seen colleagues scrolling Facebook or similar crap during working hours. Contributing to a FLOSS project is equally work-unrelated, but seems like a better way to slack of TBH.
- crossroadsguy 5y ago> Not everything I do on GitHub should be broadcasted to my entire workplace And vice versa. That’s why I’ve to keep two separate accounts - main/personal @firstname and another @shortname-work.
- Lammy 5y agoWhile in practice they probably won't ever care, this is technically against the terms of service unless work is a Github Enterprise customer: https://docs.github.com/en/site-policy/github-terms/github-terms-of-service#b-account-terms https://docs.github.com/en/site-policy/github-terms/github-t... > One person or legal entity may maintain no more than one free Account (if you choose to control a machine account as well, that's fine, but it can only be used for running a machine).
- tomsthumb 5y agopresumably work accounts are paid
- eyelidlessness 5y agoThe accounts aren’t but the orgs typically are and I think that passes muster. Ultimately they just don’t want people astroturfing or otherwise deceptively maintaining multiple accounts on behalf of paying customers.
- wantguns 5y agoI can see this being used on bot accounts for private orgs.
- jimmy2020 5y agoYes. Enable hiding the user activity but keep the user active. Imagine someone spamming some repository with issues and still can't be known or detected because it's anonymous now.
- jimmy2020 5y agoMore privacy is always good but why it's important to hide what I am staring and what kind of GitHub repositories I like? It's anti transparent and against what's github is and has been for a while not just for hosting the code but for sharing the development experience. It feels more like we can ship this feature so let's do it.
- px43 5y agoGithub is Microsoft now, the open dev experience is on life support, and likely to soon be extinguished.
- zauguin 5y agoIMO hiding the stars is the most useful feature here because I never understood why stars are public in the first place. People just use stars in completely different ways such that the information that someone starred something ends up being basically pointless. E.g. people star stuff just because they want to look at them later and having a public link to these profiles isn't really reflecting their relationship with them. I know multiple users (myself included) who were pretty surprised when they first learned that this is all visible. Of course instead of hiding the stars it might be better to add a private similar feature instead... Anyway the whole "sharing the development experience" features in GitHub are IMO mostly weird. I'm using GitHub to develop open source software, not because I'm looking for another social network.
- jimmy2020 5y ago
- nirui 5y agoI like the most of it, but I've noticed that if you enable this feature, your profile page will stop showing the Top/Pined Repository list while visitors can still see those repositories on the Repositories tab. Maybe just keep the Top/Pined repository list since they only show public repositories anyway? Also, based on my test, even if I set my profile to private, I can still see my activities through GitHub API (say https://api.github.com/users/<UserName>/events https://api.github.com/users/<UserName>/events). I mean...???
- jasonkester 5y agoI don’t think I’ve ever looked at anybody’s profile on github, and I can’t imagine that anybody has ever looked at mine (including me). It would just be a list of commits to source control, right? Can anybody who uses this feature explain what github profiles are for? I don’t know that I’d go so far as to explicitly hide that information, mostly because it is so mundane as to have no value to anybody.
- donatj 5y agoI look at profiles all the time to see what else people have made and in generally trying to judge the quality of their work. Basically whenever I find a package I really like, or I'm skeptical about the profiles the first place I go. What use is private profiles? Basically nil, but they want to turn GitHub into OnlyFans
- EnKopVand 5y agoI would personally be vary of judging people on what they put on their GitHub accounts, because a lot of the real work people do is often locked away in private repositories (or on other platforms). I can use myself as an anecdotal example. I use GitHub mainly to store guides and neat tricks for myself, and to sometimes share some excellent code. All my current professional work lives in Azure DevOps, locked away so that you would never know so if I didn’t tell you. I have a NPM package that should be private but is public because we share it with some contractors and nonsense occurred (loooong story that is basically answered by “above my pay grade”). If you found it and looked at my GitHub profile, then you might use it, and you’d experience some breaking changes that you typically wouldn’t with good OSS NPM packages every time we make some major updates to it. Because we don’t really factor external user into our processes.
- ChrisMarshallNY 5y agoFor me, it's just a data point. Usually, people have their stuff spread around, and the GH profile can be a "gateway" to the rest of their information. In my case, I have a ton of open-source stuff, so my GH profile is a good starting point.
- app4soft 5y ago> When your profile is private, the following content is hidden from your profile page: > Follow and Sponsor buttons. Thanks, but no.[0] [0] https://git.io/DailySolveSpace https://git.io/DailySolveSpace
- dewey 5y ago> Thanks, but no. How does this affect you? It's just another option for people who want to use it.
- buro9 5y agoA question: Who has multiple github profiles and why, or why not? Do you separate work commits from personal/oss/hobby commits? Do you have different github accounts per employer you've had? If so... why? If not... why? I personally use only 1 profile, but it has occurred to me that this is perhaps unwise and mixing work and pleasure together is a good way to create a diluted and messy situation regarding IP and who owns copyright on something. Not that I delude myself that separate profiles would solve it, only that separate profiles would mitigate a lot of the risk and make it a lot clearer when I'm acting on behalf of my employer vs just as a lay person.
- xnorswap 5y agoOne of the first things I do upon joining a new company is use the new company email address to register a github account, assuming there isn't an enterprise Github and it's allowed as part of policy. ( I also register a new HN account, it just keeps things cleaner although I want to be clear this is still a personal account and doesn't represent work. ) Work and home emails / github / phones / everything are separate, I wouldn't want to ever mix them. Yes, that means losing some history when changing employers, but that's part of the deal. You work for your employer and while they are tolerant (to various degrees) of engaging with open source, in return they get to retain ownership of that email address and their brand. In a new company I have a new "hat" on, and while I can see and interact with my previous issues, I'm no longer that person with a new hat on and can only indirectly interact with my other self as if a different person.
- zxspectrum1982 5y agoSame here. Last thing I want when I move to a new job, especially if moving to a competitor, is have people ask me to fix bugs/answer their questions about my old code, which would be creating a conflict of interest.
- move-on-by 5y agoI keep work and personal accounts separate as well. I do a fair amount of open source work and maybe one day I will find a way to generate some passive income. If that day ever comes, I want there to be a clear separation between work done for my employer and work done for myself. It is important to maintain a clear separation between the two.
- drakonka 5y agoFinally! I hope they will introduce more granular privacy features down the line, but this is a great first step. I am now tempted to merge my secondary account into my private one, but with this being a beta I'm not quite sure if it's safe to assume the feature will stick around yet...
- mfbx9da4 5y agoThis is a great step in the direction. On the one hand I actually want the credit for all the open source I've done. On the other I don't want my boss to see if I'm contributing to some open source repo when we have a looming deadline. I would appreciate fine grained control * Hide activity newer than a certain date. The reason this would be super useful is that it's okay / good for me to contribute to OS during work hours but I don't want the question of "Is now the best time to be doing this?" * Hide activity on certain repos temporarily * Hide activity to certain users temporarily
- leroman 5y agoThis is great for our Jenkins github account we use to manage autorizations for… the Jenkins server
- dimitrisnl 5y agoSo how does it look? I don't see any previews on their blog.