Stars have some value in they at least let you see that (the potential for funny business aside) many people have looked at the repo and upvoted it for whatever

Stars have some value in they at least let you see that (the potential for funny business aside) many people have looked at the repo and upvoted it for whatever reason. I'm sure there are buggy or otherwise sketchy repos with many stars, and various gems with few stars (I have some :p ), though overall it's a signal Incidentally karma on HN is similar to the extent that it lets you how active a participant someone is, and that they're not a troll or throwaway. Again, it can certainly be gamed, and throwaway accounts often add valuable comments, but its still a signal