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> I feel GitHub has taken an incredibly toxic turn with its emphasis on social features This the first time I've seen this view of GitHub, and I'm struggling t

> I feel GitHub has taken an incredibly toxic turn with its emphasis on social features This the first time I've seen this view of GitHub, and I'm struggling to figure out what specifically he's referring to.

pelagicAustral 4y ago
Sneedacity debacle.
- baisq 4y ago
  Funny you'd mention this. I installed Audacity a few hours ago and much to my dismay the application informed me upon starting it for the first time that update checks were enabled by default - in other words, Audacity had already called home and I couldn't have done anything to stop it from doing so. So yes, they deserved the abuse.
  - ntauthority 4y ago
    First off, nobody deserves any sort of abuse. Secondly, the Sneedacity incident was abuse targeted at a fork of the Audacity project, not at the original 'hostile takeover' project itself. The fork was intended to remove said abuse you feel is deserving of more abuse.
Xeoncross 4y ago
This is a great gift to the community, but I really wish it would be hosted where the community is active. It seems like a lot of people will miss out because they won't be able to discover this. I find a lot of projects because I follow people on github that star or fork really neat projects. I download projects from bitbucket, gitlab, and other self-hosted instances. I don't know that I've ever contributed a PR back as it's just a more friction-prone process. However, I've opened hundreds of PR's and Issues on github because it's already a part of my daily process. Thanks again
- robertlagrant 4y ago
  Thinking that a community lives in a git provider is a bad idea. It shouldn't matter who hosts a git instance, and I would argue it's better to fight for diversity here.
  - Xeoncross 4y ago
    It might be better to fight for diversity, but I was pointing out the actuality of it all. Networks effects are real, and this isn't the project I want to see die because of it.
    - robertlagrant 4y ago
      I don't really understand this. Is there much more to it than a new login in terms of network effects?
      - Xeoncross 4y ago
        So, github is the daily workflow for many people. You're in it, your around it, your using it. It's kind of the same as out-of-sight, out-of-mind. If I want to, I can signup for yet another site and do git-things with this codebase, but I have to change my daily process to include a one-off change to a new location. There are real costs with this mental flow change.
        robertlagrant 4y ago
        I don't really see the downside. The providers seem pretty similar, and I can have more than one tab open on my browser. But thanks for the explanation; I don't feel it myself but it's good to know!
rhn_mk1 4y ago
Seconded. GitHub's social features are undeniable (why distribute a VCS if not to make it more social?), but I'm curious about the toxicity.
- daptaq 4y ago
  > why distribute a VCS if not to make it more social? Because it is easier to set up?
- t-3 4y ago
  Distributed version control is about making code and patches easier to share, if anything the point is to reduce the socialization. It's a more convenient and development-centric form of mailing lists, not a more social version.
- metadat 4y ago
  The GitHub UI forces their view of the world and their development flow on you. It doesn't bother me personally, but perhaps I've already been indoctrinated over the past ten years.
- mssdvd 4y ago
  I think things like the personalized timeline and comments reactions may be considered toxic by some people.
  - semiquaver 4y ago
    (Disclaimer: github employee speaking for myself) Reactions are not really about fostering “social” aspects of code review and issue triage as much as they are to prevent the need for a build up of low effort “+1” style comments. I view them as a community management tool that OSS maintainers would be much worse off without.
cookiengineer 4y ago
I would guess that the chan board members and other asshats raided their projects in the past, because they regularly attack / harass these kind of projects when they're not fully open source. And let's put it this way: the moderation tools at GitHub are a bad joke. Can't even disallow abusive language, so they're 100% ineffective.
- charcircuit 4y ago
  The author of the article was saying that Github was toxic and I personally do not see an issue tracker as a social feature.
  - ntauthority 4y ago
    Comment threads everywhere (including on commits and lines of code), these comment threads then having emoji reactions, and the inability to disable any of that (same for the pull request feature, which also leads to more comment threads) can get somewhat annoying when a group has decided to target you for arbitrary reasons, and such potential 'needing to see harassment' being deeply embedded in one's code workflow (i.e. in your own repository) can get tedious. Not everything needs to be turned into an embedded discussion forum.
    - marginalia_nu 4y ago
      Yeah, this is largely my objection to GitHub. I feel the design of GH encourages a performative communication style, especially from outsiders with no actual interest in furthering the project. I also object to how the platform encourages low-effort drive-by participation from bots and the like.
- baisq 4y ago
  "disallow abusive language"? Do you think chan board users are too stupid to know how to bypass an "abusive language" filter?
  - daptaq 4y ago

pelagicAustral 4y ago

Sneedacity debacle.

baisq 4y ago
Funny you'd mention this. I installed Audacity a few hours ago and much to my dismay the application informed me upon starting it for the first time that update checks were enabled by default - in other words, Audacity had already called home and I couldn't have done anything to stop it from doing so. So yes, they deserved the abuse.
- ntauthority 4y ago
  First off, nobody deserves any sort of abuse. Secondly, the Sneedacity incident was abuse targeted at a fork of the Audacity project, not at the original 'hostile takeover' project itself. The fork was intended to remove said abuse you feel is deserving of more abuse.

Xeoncross 4y ago

This is a great gift to the community, but I really wish it would be hosted where the community is active. It seems like a lot of people will miss out because they won't be able to discover this. I find a lot of projects because I follow people on github that star or fork really neat projects. I download projects from bitbucket, gitlab, and other self-hosted instances. I don't know that I've ever contributed a PR back as it's just a more friction-prone process. However, I've opened hundreds of PR's and Issues on github because it's already a part of my daily process. Thanks again

robertlagrant 4y ago
Thinking that a community lives in a git provider is a bad idea. It shouldn't matter who hosts a git instance, and I would argue it's better to fight for diversity here.
- Xeoncross 4y ago
  It might be better to fight for diversity, but I was pointing out the actuality of it all. Networks effects are real, and this isn't the project I want to see die because of it.
  - robertlagrant 4y ago
    I don't really understand this. Is there much more to it than a new login in terms of network effects?
    - Xeoncross 4y ago
      So, github is the daily workflow for many people. You're in it, your around it, your using it. It's kind of the same as out-of-sight, out-of-mind. If I want to, I can signup for yet another site and do git-things with this codebase, but I have to change my daily process to include a one-off change to a new location. There are real costs with this mental flow change.
      - robertlagrant 4y ago
        I don't really see the downside. The providers seem pretty similar, and I can have more than one tab open on my browser. But thanks for the explanation; I don't feel it myself but it's good to know!

rhn_mk1 4y ago

Seconded. GitHub's social features are undeniable (why distribute a VCS if not to make it more social?), but I'm curious about the toxicity.

daptaq 4y ago
> why distribute a VCS if not to make it more social? Because it is easier to set up?
t-3 4y ago
Distributed version control is about making code and patches easier to share, if anything the point is to reduce the socialization. It's a more convenient and development-centric form of mailing lists, not a more social version.
metadat 4y ago
The GitHub UI forces their view of the world and their development flow on you. It doesn't bother me personally, but perhaps I've already been indoctrinated over the past ten years.
mssdvd 4y ago
I think things like the personalized timeline and comments reactions may be considered toxic by some people.
- semiquaver 4y ago
  (Disclaimer: github employee speaking for myself) Reactions are not really about fostering “social” aspects of code review and issue triage as much as they are to prevent the need for a build up of low effort “+1” style comments. I view them as a community management tool that OSS maintainers would be much worse off without.

cookiengineer 4y ago

I would guess that the chan board members and other asshats raided their projects in the past, because they regularly attack / harass these kind of projects when they're not fully open source. And let's put it this way: the moderation tools at GitHub are a bad joke. Can't even disallow abusive language, so they're 100% ineffective.

charcircuit 4y ago
The author of the article was saying that Github was toxic and I personally do not see an issue tracker as a social feature.
- ntauthority 4y ago
  Comment threads everywhere (including on commits and lines of code), these comment threads then having emoji reactions, and the inability to disable any of that (same for the pull request feature, which also leads to more comment threads) can get somewhat annoying when a group has decided to target you for arbitrary reasons, and such potential 'needing to see harassment' being deeply embedded in one's code workflow (i.e. in your own repository) can get tedious. Not everything needs to be turned into an embedded discussion forum.
  - marginalia_nu 4y ago
    Yeah, this is largely my objection to GitHub. I feel the design of GH encourages a performative communication style, especially from outsiders with no actual interest in furthering the project. I also object to how the platform encourages low-effort drive-by participation from bots and the like.
baisq 4y ago
"disallow abusive language"? Do you think chan board users are too stupid to know how to bypass an "abusive language" filter?
- daptaq 4y ago