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I check this page everyday. A lot of my starred repos come from this page. For me, the Trending page is even more useful than Explore page. Still wondering why

I check this page everyday. A lot of my starred repos come from this page. For me, the Trending page is even more useful than Explore page. Still wondering why Explore page has more spotlight than Trending page.

kungfufrog 4y ago
Agreed, it's also how I keep my finger on the pulse of languages I enjoy that I'm not professionally using at the current moment and also to keep up with niche domain specific languages as to where and how they are being used. Boo!
matsemann 4y ago
Just curious, but why star them at all? I've starred 11 repos in my many years on github, to bookmark some specific projects. But others in my feed star projects daily and have over a thousand projects in their star list. I'm curious to why. Will you ever check them out again? Isn't the list now so long it's hard to find things in it?
- zebracanevra 4y ago
  fwiw, I use github stars also as simple bookmark list, with about 100 stars. When one of my (quite obscure) repos get stars, I feel joy. I like to think starring someone else's repo has that same reaction for them, too.
- IshKebab 4y ago
  I use it as both a bookmark so I can find a repo again in future, but also as a kind of "I think this project is great" thumbs up. It's pretty clear that that's a common reason for stars.
  - blooalien 4y ago
    Ya, exactly. It can help give the project author some indication that a certain number of folks are interested in their project.
- rgoulter 4y ago
  While maybe it's not very useful for your own bookmarking, there are other useful effects: - Saying "I think it's neat" internet points is kindof a nice kudos. It's relatively pleasing to see some stars on your repositories. - It's an indication of popularity/usage. If you have to rely on some dependency, "choose the one with the most stars" will probably give you a good result for next to no effort. - In terms of social networking: I can then see what repositories others have starred.
  - andirk 4y ago
    I use it to bookmark but also as a "thank you". I'm sure most devs would much prefer a star than a helpful contribution to the repo or a donation.
5350-uiop-1130 4y ago
micro$oft would rather "recommend" you things which are adverts, then things which are organically trending
zebracanevra 4y ago
For me, the explore page ALWAYS says I'm interested in the topic "vorbis audio" because of the 'topics that i follow' (I follow no topics), so that's a nice bug. 75% of the repos there never change for me. The trending page otoh is nice and fresh, though I wish they'd change it to prevent already popular repos like typescript from "trending" (why are people starring this? ridiculous.)
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
onion2k 4y ago
I check this page everyday. A lot of my starred repos come from this page. I think this hints at part of the problem with Github as a social hub for tech. I do the same thing, and star things I've seen in the Trending page. Very often I never actually go back to those things though. That star is essentially a signal to the repo owner saying "I'm happy this exists." The problem is that there are also people who star things to say "I love this" or "I am using this" or simply "I'm bookmarking this." That's fine, of course, but then repo owners then start saying things like "My library has 5000 stars, it's clearly the best library for X!" and "My library got to 20000 stars much more quickly than Y and Z, so people must think it's better than Y and Z!" Github probably should turn off the social features unless they can think up a way of discouraging people using the social aspect as a measure of quality or popularity when they're really not those things.
- andirk 4y ago
  I see GitHub stars in orders of magnitude (1-9, 10-99, 100-...). If interested, I also look at the other public metrics: # of branches, forks, open and closed PRs, time since last update. I have also used <10 star repos in high traffic prod env with no issues. I think you're right and I'm fine with 1 star = 1 person took interest for at least a moment and liked what they saw.
- lhnz 4y ago
  Hm, I use the star as "interesting; maybe good". It's a very weak signal that I didn't think something was awful and wanted to be able to find it again. I wouldn't assume that a repository is amazing just because it gets 10+k stars -- this only means that it became viral.
- layer8 4y ago
  GitHub should reduce starring to just be a bookmarking feature, that is, not show the numbers of stars a repo has. Showing it is what makes it an ambiguous social feature.
pmontra 4y ago
Anecdotally I'm not sure I ever used our knew about the Trending and Explore pages. I land on GitHub following links from searches, HN, etc.
- water-your-self 4y ago
  Likewise. Im only looking at someone's repo as a terminal state, typically.

kungfufrog 4y ago

Agreed, it's also how I keep my finger on the pulse of languages I enjoy that I'm not professionally using at the current moment and also to keep up with niche domain specific languages as to where and how they are being used. Boo!

matsemann 4y ago

Just curious, but why star them at all? I've starred 11 repos in my many years on github, to bookmark some specific projects. But others in my feed star projects daily and have over a thousand projects in their star list. I'm curious to why. Will you ever check them out again? Isn't the list now so long it's hard to find things in it?

zebracanevra 4y ago
fwiw, I use github stars also as simple bookmark list, with about 100 stars. When one of my (quite obscure) repos get stars, I feel joy. I like to think starring someone else's repo has that same reaction for them, too.
IshKebab 4y ago
I use it as both a bookmark so I can find a repo again in future, but also as a kind of "I think this project is great" thumbs up. It's pretty clear that that's a common reason for stars.
- blooalien 4y ago
  Ya, exactly. It can help give the project author some indication that a certain number of folks are interested in their project.
rgoulter 4y ago
While maybe it's not very useful for your own bookmarking, there are other useful effects: - Saying "I think it's neat" internet points is kindof a nice kudos. It's relatively pleasing to see some stars on your repositories. - It's an indication of popularity/usage. If you have to rely on some dependency, "choose the one with the most stars" will probably give you a good result for next to no effort. - In terms of social networking: I can then see what repositories others have starred.
- andirk 4y ago
  I use it to bookmark but also as a "thank you". I'm sure most devs would much prefer a star than a helpful contribution to the repo or a donation.

5350-uiop-1130 4y ago

micro$oft would rather "recommend" you things which are adverts, then things which are organically trending

zebracanevra 4y ago

For me, the explore page ALWAYS says I'm interested in the topic "vorbis audio" because of the 'topics that i follow' (I follow no topics), so that's a nice bug. 75% of the repos there never change for me. The trending page otoh is nice and fresh, though I wish they'd change it to prevent already popular repos like typescript from "trending" (why are people starring this? ridiculous.)

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

onion2k 4y ago

I check this page everyday. A lot of my starred repos come from this page. I think this hints at part of the problem with Github as a social hub for tech. I do the same thing, and star things I've seen in the Trending page. Very often I never actually go back to those things though. That star is essentially a signal to the repo owner saying "I'm happy this exists." The problem is that there are also people who star things to say "I love this" or "I am using this" or simply "I'm bookmarking this." That's fine, of course, but then repo owners then start saying things like "My library has 5000 stars, it's clearly the best library for X!" and "My library got to 20000 stars much more quickly than Y and Z, so people must think it's better than Y and Z!" Github probably should turn off the social features unless they can think up a way of discouraging people using the social aspect as a measure of quality or popularity when they're really not those things.

andirk 4y ago
I see GitHub stars in orders of magnitude (1-9, 10-99, 100-...). If interested, I also look at the other public metrics: # of branches, forks, open and closed PRs, time since last update. I have also used <10 star repos in high traffic prod env with no issues. I think you're right and I'm fine with 1 star = 1 person took interest for at least a moment and liked what they saw.
lhnz 4y ago
Hm, I use the star as "interesting; maybe good". It's a very weak signal that I didn't think something was awful and wanted to be able to find it again. I wouldn't assume that a repository is amazing just because it gets 10+k stars -- this only means that it became viral.
layer8 4y ago
GitHub should reduce starring to just be a bookmarking feature, that is, not show the numbers of stars a repo has. Showing it is what makes it an ambiguous social feature.

pmontra 4y ago

Anecdotally I'm not sure I ever used our knew about the Trending and Explore pages. I land on GitHub following links from searches, HN, etc.

water-your-self 4y ago
Likewise. Im only looking at someone's repo as a terminal state, typically.