The obvious concern is not that some existing legit users mightn't enjoy it; it's that the gamification will pollute the platform by incentivizing an influx of

The obvious concern is not that some existing legit users mightn't enjoy it; it's that the gamification will pollute the platform by incentivizing an influx of low-grade users, attention-seeking or annoying behavior, garbage commits, pointless chatter, non-issue issues, profiles stuffed with links to add SEO juice to low-grade profiles on social-media/LI/etc.; (the repo equivalent of "Follow, Like and Subscribe!"). How badly depends on how much github incentivize it. I guess we'll know if/when github has gone the way of FB/YT/IG is if/when people pay for fake/compensated followers to star a repo. I don't think we're there yet. Maybe a more constructive way to have this discussion is to subdivide github's social features into those that are good vs those that are open to be abused.