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how 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 th

how 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 ago
I 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 ago
  You 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 ago
GitHub 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 ago
Translation, how is privacy a good feature for users?
jreese 5y ago
It 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.
- ushakov 5y ago
  well social networks are per se public profiles if make your whole profile private this would exclude you from the network
  - JoshTriplett 5y ago
    GitHub is first and foremost a development platform, not a social network. People should always have the option of opting out of "social network" features.
- nullc 5y ago
  Exactly. As someone who's been subject to harassment based on info on the github profiles, this couldn't have come soon enough. Prior to this my only other option was deleting my account but if I did that the name would have been instantly re-registered by the harassers and used to impersonate me for harassment purposes.
textadventure 5y ago
Choice is generally good in my opinion. Considering what the majority of Github is as a community I would very much doubt that the majority is going to be making their profiles private. Making it private makes no sense if you collaborate and contribute with open source projects (or host your own), and it doesn't help with having a public profile that you can potentially show off to companies you want to be hired by. So who is this feature for? Those who have no interest in the social aspects of Github and want to use it privately. I'm sure that's going to be a minority.
- monkeybutton 5y ago
  Me. I'm in that minority! I have no interest in the social aspects or the weird and forced extroversion of curating of an online coder persona.
  - notreallyserio 5y ago
    If I could (without hassle) I'd use a different identity per commit. I don't see any value in consistent identity here. Maaaybe if I was using it for a resume.
- cxr 5y ago
  > Those who have no interest in the social aspects of Github and want to use it privately Or people who don't want to use GitHub in the first place (esp. because of its less than appealing position on privacy), but they don't have a choice because it's the Facebook of the tech world and seemingly everyone else insists on it in order to get anything done.
charcircuit 5y ago
I never use github's social features. They aren't useful to me compared to their features like source code hosting, issues / pull requests, wiki, and version release.
- motoxpro 5y ago
  Same. I'm not looking for employers to see me, or people to see my "coding clout"
- tomtheelder 5y ago
  Yeah I'd go a step further and say that any social features are anti-features for me. I really don't need people seeing my activity. Going to make my profile private immediately, and I'm really happy they did this.
martinwoodward 5y ago
FWIW we have a quite a bit of history of allowing people to protect their privacy. https://github.blog/2020-12-17-no-cookie-for-you/ https://github.blog/2020-12-17-no-cookie-for-you/ https://docs.github.com/en/account-and-profile/setting-up-and-managing-your-github-user-account/managing-email-preferences/setting-your-commit-email-address https://docs.github.com/en/account-and-profile/setting-up-an... In this instance we don't think it will hurt the social coding experience of open source and in fact might encourage folks who would otherwise be put off. But we are testing this particular feature and will keep iterating on it depending how things go and what the feedback is.
- tailspin2019 5y ago
  One thing I would personally really like is a bit more control around the creation of Public vs Private repositories in my enterprise (Cloud) account. Namely, I'd like to be able to stop myself (the org owner) from inadvertently creating a public repo, or at least make it much more difficult to make that mistake. I can do this for other users in my account (of which I have none), but not for myself as the org owner. I live in fear of clicking the wrong pixel one day and pushing private customer code to a "not meant to be public" repo.
- cxr 5y ago
  > FWIW we have a quite a bit of history of allowing people to protect their privacy Don't overstate it. Out of all the big social networks, GitHub's handling of user privacy is the worst by far. It took 1 1/2 decades to give a switch to toggle off the default behavior of "provide a public index of my activity across the site to anyone, even though I never asked for this (and was never asked if it was okay, either)". To really spell it out, what this means is that for its entire existence, GitHub has offered even worse privacy controls for what a user chooses to share about themselves than Facebook. For the longest time—until now—the only way to get around this was to regularly delete and then recreate your account (which is still an imperfect solution, not to mention labor intensive) or to disengage completely. Given the way that GitHub has positioned itself, it being even harder to avoid than Facebook has had a hugely deleterious effect on privacy for those who actually care about it. This should have been table stakes 10 years ago.
bredren 5y ago
Perhaps because some may not have a choice to work on a project that lives on GitHub. So they may not be electing in to the community you are describing. Or they may have a different idea I’d what GitHub should be than the company did at the start or how you’ve described it. Forcing public profiles may also a wee bit too close to zuck’s view if the world.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

reidjs 5y ago

I 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 ago
You 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 ago

GitHub 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 ago

Translation, how is privacy a good feature for users?

jreese 5y ago

It 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.

ushakov 5y ago
well social networks are per se public profiles if make your whole profile private this would exclude you from the network
- JoshTriplett 5y ago
  GitHub is first and foremost a development platform, not a social network. People should always have the option of opting out of "social network" features.
nullc 5y ago
Exactly. As someone who's been subject to harassment based on info on the github profiles, this couldn't have come soon enough. Prior to this my only other option was deleting my account but if I did that the name would have been instantly re-registered by the harassers and used to impersonate me for harassment purposes.

textadventure 5y ago

Choice is generally good in my opinion. Considering what the majority of Github is as a community I would very much doubt that the majority is going to be making their profiles private. Making it private makes no sense if you collaborate and contribute with open source projects (or host your own), and it doesn't help with having a public profile that you can potentially show off to companies you want to be hired by. So who is this feature for? Those who have no interest in the social aspects of Github and want to use it privately. I'm sure that's going to be a minority.

monkeybutton 5y ago
Me. I'm in that minority! I have no interest in the social aspects or the weird and forced extroversion of curating of an online coder persona.
- notreallyserio 5y ago
  If I could (without hassle) I'd use a different identity per commit. I don't see any value in consistent identity here. Maaaybe if I was using it for a resume.
cxr 5y ago
> Those who have no interest in the social aspects of Github and want to use it privately Or people who don't want to use GitHub in the first place (esp. because of its less than appealing position on privacy), but they don't have a choice because it's the Facebook of the tech world and seemingly everyone else insists on it in order to get anything done.

charcircuit 5y ago

I never use github's social features. They aren't useful to me compared to their features like source code hosting, issues / pull requests, wiki, and version release.

motoxpro 5y ago
Same. I'm not looking for employers to see me, or people to see my "coding clout"
tomtheelder 5y ago
Yeah I'd go a step further and say that any social features are anti-features for me. I really don't need people seeing my activity. Going to make my profile private immediately, and I'm really happy they did this.

martinwoodward 5y ago

FWIW we have a quite a bit of history of allowing people to protect their privacy. https://github.blog/2020-12-17-no-cookie-for-you/ https://github.blog/2020-12-17-no-cookie-for-you/ https://docs.github.com/en/account-and-profile/setting-up-and-managing-your-github-user-account/managing-email-preferences/setting-your-commit-email-address https://docs.github.com/en/account-and-profile/setting-up-an... In this instance we don't think it will hurt the social coding experience of open source and in fact might encourage folks who would otherwise be put off. But we are testing this particular feature and will keep iterating on it depending how things go and what the feedback is.

tailspin2019 5y ago
One thing I would personally really like is a bit more control around the creation of Public vs Private repositories in my enterprise (Cloud) account. Namely, I'd like to be able to stop myself (the org owner) from inadvertently creating a public repo, or at least make it much more difficult to make that mistake. I can do this for other users in my account (of which I have none), but not for myself as the org owner. I live in fear of clicking the wrong pixel one day and pushing private customer code to a "not meant to be public" repo.
cxr 5y ago
> FWIW we have a quite a bit of history of allowing people to protect their privacy Don't overstate it. Out of all the big social networks, GitHub's handling of user privacy is the worst by far. It took 1 1/2 decades to give a switch to toggle off the default behavior of "provide a public index of my activity across the site to anyone, even though I never asked for this (and was never asked if it was okay, either)". To really spell it out, what this means is that for its entire existence, GitHub has offered even worse privacy controls for what a user chooses to share about themselves than Facebook. For the longest time—until now—the only way to get around this was to regularly delete and then recreate your account (which is still an imperfect solution, not to mention labor intensive) or to disengage completely. Given the way that GitHub has positioned itself, it being even harder to avoid than Facebook has had a hugely deleterious effect on privacy for those who actually care about it. This should have been table stakes 10 years ago.

bredren 5y ago

Perhaps because some may not have a choice to work on a project that lives on GitHub. So they may not be electing in to the community you are describing. Or they may have a different idea I’d what GitHub should be than the company did at the start or how you’ve described it. Forcing public profiles may also a wee bit too close to zuck’s view if the world.