4 ms·

Badges are toxic because they divert a subset of people away from their current open source workflow to focus on getting badges. In reality, the incentive of a

Badges are toxic because they divert a subset of people away from their current open source workflow to focus on getting badges. In reality, the incentive of a lot of these badges is for GitHub's best interest and not necessarily a project's. This is insidious. To finish my badge collection, I need: * Merged a pull request without a review - 100% toxic. * Answer 32 discussions - this is a strong incentive to enable GitHub Discussions on a project, which is the wrong move * Create a repository and get 4096 stars - diverting focus from the projects I maintain (although I'm a core contributor to a project which meets this requirement, I didn't create it) * Coauthor 38 more commits on merged pull requests - this'll happen over time. Not a 'bad' thing, but not something I want to take time to achieve.

urthor 4y ago
Above needs to be more prominent.
derekbaker783 4y ago
Why is enabling Discussions "the wrong move"? Genuinely curious, as I've gotten help from maintainers using Discussions.
- david_allison 4y ago
  (personal opinion) Last month we had ~25 code contributors and ~2.32 million users. About 100,000 users per code contributor. As a user-facing app, rather than 'open source infrastructure', we receive a very large number of support queries from end-users. A significant number of these will be users who are entirely non-technical, or don't speak English at all (looking at my last support efforts, ~20% were non-English + resolved via screenshots, videos + Google Translate). I'd much rather have our community triage via one of: Forum, Discord, Reddit, StackExchange, Google Play, Mailing List, Twitter, or Facebook Messenger and leave GitHub for code/documentation-level discussions. Opening up GitHub discussions adds another level of distraction to GitHub notifications, and provides little benefit in return given the existing established support channels. EDIT: I do have GitHub discussions on other repos, but they're not always suitable.
  - nightpool 4y ago
    Yes, this is a good summary of how I feel about discussions too. Non-technical users are going to be more comfortable using non-Github platforms anyway, and for technical users issues or chat are probably a better fit in 95% of cases. Not worth opening an entirely separate forum for.
lupire 4y ago
Is there a badge for using powers of 2 in the wrong places in an attempt to look nerdy like eyeglasses with window glass lenses?
- xigoi 4y ago
  Powers of 2 are just as arbitrary as any other number.
boredtofears 4y ago
Just turn them off in your account settings. I did the day the badges feature went live.
- david_allison 4y ago
  I don't badge hunt. Others do, and it's worth pointing out the toxicity occasionally. By staying quiet, we're incentivising the following: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/72662385/how-to-merge-a-pull-request-without-reviewing-the-code-to-get-the-github-yolo https://stackoverflow.com/questions/72662385/how-to-merge-a-...
  - bombolo 4y ago
    He could have just created a second account to farm it by himself.
    - david_allison 4y ago
      1) That's against the GitHub ToS. Both accounts will be banned and the user will be permanently banned from setting up a new account. 2) Even if it was kosher, how exactly is this improving Open Source?
      - bombolo 4y ago
        1. Only if they catch you. 2. What does farming weird achievement have to do with freedom?
PhasmaFelis 4y ago
I'm with the grandparent poster in that I see a badge/achievement/whatever and think "neat," but I don't feel a visceral compulsion to collect the whole set. It seems there are people who do feel that way. I wonder if the folks who set up the badge system are all of the first type, and didn't realize that some people would be thrown completely off the rails by it.
jamie_ca 4y ago
> Merged a pull request without a review - 100% toxic. There's a case where this is not just ok, but healthy (especially on smaller teams) - if you're comfortable doing trunk-based development then you can use a PR to "snapshot" a set of changes and either invite commentary or just have a link to share as an FYI around the change, without the awkwardness of linking to an unnamed commit sequence. https://martinfowler.com/articles/ship-show-ask.html https://martinfowler.com/articles/ship-show-ask.html
- nuc1e0n 4y ago
  I would say this is never healthy, even for a team of 2 people. These days merging code without at least asking for a review should be anathema for devs. Even a 'rubber stamping' review at least signifies a shared awareness of changes.
  - NoahTheDuke 4y ago
    Other workflows exist; pretty silly to act like you’ve found the One True Way.
    - nuc1e0n 4y ago
      If you don't care about code reviews, why care about a PR process? don't protect the branch and just make your commits. The notion of a pull request is you're requesting someone pull in your changes. But you don't want them to review those changes?!
- pferde 4y ago
  Yes, you can get that badge safely only if you adjust your project's development flow. This exactly proves the central point of the article - gamification affects software developers.
- belmont_sup 4y ago
  Viewed from a different lens, these achievements seem intended for new GitHub users. I recall merging my OWN pr into my own new repo. I was surprised with a badge. No harm in that.

urthor 4y ago

Above needs to be more prominent.

derekbaker783 4y ago

Why is enabling Discussions "the wrong move"? Genuinely curious, as I've gotten help from maintainers using Discussions.

david_allison 4y ago
(personal opinion) Last month we had ~25 code contributors and ~2.32 million users. About 100,000 users per code contributor. As a user-facing app, rather than 'open source infrastructure', we receive a very large number of support queries from end-users. A significant number of these will be users who are entirely non-technical, or don't speak English at all (looking at my last support efforts, ~20% were non-English + resolved via screenshots, videos + Google Translate). I'd much rather have our community triage via one of: Forum, Discord, Reddit, StackExchange, Google Play, Mailing List, Twitter, or Facebook Messenger and leave GitHub for code/documentation-level discussions. Opening up GitHub discussions adds another level of distraction to GitHub notifications, and provides little benefit in return given the existing established support channels. EDIT: I do have GitHub discussions on other repos, but they're not always suitable.
- nightpool 4y ago
  Yes, this is a good summary of how I feel about discussions too. Non-technical users are going to be more comfortable using non-Github platforms anyway, and for technical users issues or chat are probably a better fit in 95% of cases. Not worth opening an entirely separate forum for.

lupire 4y ago

Is there a badge for using powers of 2 in the wrong places in an attempt to look nerdy like eyeglasses with window glass lenses?

xigoi 4y ago
Powers of 2 are just as arbitrary as any other number.

boredtofears 4y ago

Just turn them off in your account settings. I did the day the badges feature went live.

david_allison 4y ago
I don't badge hunt. Others do, and it's worth pointing out the toxicity occasionally. By staying quiet, we're incentivising the following: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/72662385/how-to-merge-a-pull-request-without-reviewing-the-code-to-get-the-github-yolo https://stackoverflow.com/questions/72662385/how-to-merge-a-...
- bombolo 4y ago
  He could have just created a second account to farm it by himself.
  - david_allison 4y ago
    1) That's against the GitHub ToS. Both accounts will be banned and the user will be permanently banned from setting up a new account. 2) Even if it was kosher, how exactly is this improving Open Source?
    - bombolo 4y ago
      1. Only if they catch you. 2. What does farming weird achievement have to do with freedom?

PhasmaFelis 4y ago

I'm with the grandparent poster in that I see a badge/achievement/whatever and think "neat," but I don't feel a visceral compulsion to collect the whole set. It seems there are people who do feel that way. I wonder if the folks who set up the badge system are all of the first type, and didn't realize that some people would be thrown completely off the rails by it.

jamie_ca 4y ago

> Merged a pull request without a review - 100% toxic. There's a case where this is not just ok, but healthy (especially on smaller teams) - if you're comfortable doing trunk-based development then you can use a PR to "snapshot" a set of changes and either invite commentary or just have a link to share as an FYI around the change, without the awkwardness of linking to an unnamed commit sequence. https://martinfowler.com/articles/ship-show-ask.html https://martinfowler.com/articles/ship-show-ask.html

nuc1e0n 4y ago
I would say this is never healthy, even for a team of 2 people. These days merging code without at least asking for a review should be anathema for devs. Even a 'rubber stamping' review at least signifies a shared awareness of changes.
- NoahTheDuke 4y ago
  Other workflows exist; pretty silly to act like you’ve found the One True Way.
  - nuc1e0n 4y ago
    If you don't care about code reviews, why care about a PR process? don't protect the branch and just make your commits. The notion of a pull request is you're requesting someone pull in your changes. But you don't want them to review those changes?!
pferde 4y ago
Yes, you can get that badge safely only if you adjust your project's development flow. This exactly proves the central point of the article - gamification affects software developers.
belmont_sup 4y ago
Viewed from a different lens, these achievements seem intended for new GitHub users. I recall merging my OWN pr into my own new repo. I was surprised with a badge. No harm in that.