5 ms·

I've always maintained: if you put a number next to someone's name, then that person will try everything to try and increase that number. GitHub is no different

I've always maintained: if you put a number next to someone's name, then that person will try everything to try and increase that number. GitHub is no different than any other social media platform, and has various metrics (Stars, Followers, Contributions, etc) that people relentlessly try to game.

meken 4y ago
Yeah, I didn’t see any mention of status in the abstract, which seems like an important driver.
no_butterscotch 4y ago
Yup I always cringe a little bit when I see developers on their repos or social media asking for follows or stars to their repo. If it's good people will do that anyways. It seems like it can be a resume builder for some people though. I've seen resumes where people list their open-source repos and display "Over 500 stars on github" as one of the line-items.
- chillfox 4y ago
  "If it's good people will do that anyways." No, most people wont without being "invited" unless it's exceptional. Good just ain't good enough by itself. People ask because it works.
juunpp 4y ago
Do you mean like how HN puts a number next to your name?
- fleischhauf 4y ago
  yes
- DerekBickerton 4y ago
  Yeah but Hackernews' karma score doesn't really mean anything to me. I mean it's great if one of my posts gets to the frontpage and all, but for me it's a useless metric. The only purpose it serves is optics into how well a post performs, but that's about it.
  - int_19h 4y ago
    What if I told you that there's a top 10 and a top 100 based on karma? https://news.ycombinator.com/leaders https://news.ycombinator.com/leaders
    - lanstin 4y ago
      My happiness would go down for a while.
- whoooooo123 4y ago
  Does it? How much karma do I need before I can see it?
  - spockz 4y ago
    You can see your karma next to your name in the top bar when logged in. Or on your profile.
    - BoorishBears 4y ago
      Actually that's something that annoys me. I used to not be able to: I set my bar to #000000, which is the same color as the text. And unless I'm imagining things, somewhere along the way it changed to #222222 I can set the topbar to #222222, but then everything else shows up in an annoying low-contrast shadow
      - tpxl 4y ago
        I removed the top bar in uBlock origin. Sure, I can't directly click on my profile and some of the links are missing, but number don't go up anymore.
    - whoooooo123 4y ago
      Oh, I thought GP meant I could see the amount of upvotes/downvotes that another person's post has received. I can't see that (yet?)
      - TeMPOraL 4y ago
        > I can't see that (yet?) You can't, period. There used to be a comment-level counter years ago, but it was removed as part of an experiment to see if not having it improves overall discussion quality. Apparently the experiment concluded positively, since the counter hasn't been brought back.
- theteapot 4y ago
  I liked HN much more before I knew karma existed. Seriously first 6m on here didn't know about it. Now I know everything seems tainted.

meken 4y ago

Yeah, I didn’t see any mention of status in the abstract, which seems like an important driver.

no_butterscotch 4y ago

Yup I always cringe a little bit when I see developers on their repos or social media asking for follows or stars to their repo. If it's good people will do that anyways. It seems like it can be a resume builder for some people though. I've seen resumes where people list their open-source repos and display "Over 500 stars on github" as one of the line-items.

chillfox 4y ago
"If it's good people will do that anyways." No, most people wont without being "invited" unless it's exceptional. Good just ain't good enough by itself. People ask because it works.

juunpp 4y ago

Do you mean like how HN puts a number next to your name?

fleischhauf 4y ago
yes
DerekBickerton 4y ago
Yeah but Hackernews' karma score doesn't really mean anything to me. I mean it's great if one of my posts gets to the frontpage and all, but for me it's a useless metric. The only purpose it serves is optics into how well a post performs, but that's about it.
- int_19h 4y ago
  What if I told you that there's a top 10 and a top 100 based on karma? https://news.ycombinator.com/leaders https://news.ycombinator.com/leaders
  - lanstin 4y ago
    My happiness would go down for a while.
whoooooo123 4y ago
Does it? How much karma do I need before I can see it?
- spockz 4y ago
  You can see your karma next to your name in the top bar when logged in. Or on your profile.
  - BoorishBears 4y ago
    Actually that's something that annoys me. I used to not be able to: I set my bar to #000000, which is the same color as the text. And unless I'm imagining things, somewhere along the way it changed to #222222 I can set the topbar to #222222, but then everything else shows up in an annoying low-contrast shadow
    - tpxl 4y ago
      I removed the top bar in uBlock origin. Sure, I can't directly click on my profile and some of the links are missing, but number don't go up anymore.
  - whoooooo123 4y ago
    Oh, I thought GP meant I could see the amount of upvotes/downvotes that another person's post has received. I can't see that (yet?)
    - TeMPOraL 4y ago
      > I can't see that (yet?) You can't, period. There used to be a comment-level counter years ago, but it was removed as part of an experiment to see if not having it improves overall discussion quality. Apparently the experiment concluded positively, since the counter hasn't been brought back.
theteapot 4y ago
I liked HN much more before I knew karma existed. Seriously first 6m on here didn't know about it. Now I know everything seems tainted.