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At many hackathons I attended (as a mentor, company sponsor, or judge) approximately a quarter of participants had never used GitHub previously. Such participan
by verst 2y ago
At many hackathons I attended (as a mentor, company sponsor, or judge) approximately a quarter of participants had never used GitHub previously. Such participants often thought of GitHub stars as bookmarks. Many hackathon sponsors provide Hackathon samples or references on GitHub - or guidelines for winning the specific sponsor's prize. As expected, those repos were "bookmarked" by the students.
In this case this is a misunderstanding of the purpose of GitHub stars by these new users, but certainly not a fraudulent action.
- mintplant 2y agoI mean, that's not a misunderstanding, that is what they're for. Conferring clout is a secondary effect. https://docs.github.com/en/get-started/exploring-projects-on-github/saving-repositories-with-stars https://docs.github.com/en/get-started/exploring-projects-on...
- krick 2y agoHuh? These are bookmarks. I never actually use starts for any other purpose.
- HEYGRANDMA 2y agoI've been on github for 10+ years and that's what I use stars for.
- diath 2y agoWhat? That's exactly what I use stars for - to bookmark repositories so I can go through things I've found interesting at a later date, or to keep being updated on their releases.
- cortesoft 2y agoBeen using GitHub since literally the year it started, and stars have always been bookmarks.
- Asraelite 2y agoIt reminds me of how subscribing on YouTube and other platforms turned from "inform me when new videos come out" into "I like this channel".
- lenkite 2y ago> In this case this is a misunderstanding of the purpose of GitHub stars by these new users Were we supposed to use stars some other way ?
- jasonjmcghee 2y agoNo. They are bookmarks.
- verst 2y agoLet me expand on what I meant: Some folks treat GitHub stars as a repo quality or credibility endorsement. I also think stars should just be bookmarks - but some companies are obsessed with the star count (stargazers) as a sign of importance of their repo. Since that is obviously what sparked this research we are discussing to begin with.. just meant to point out that a lot of folks new to GitHub have no idea anyone could possibly care about the repo star count! :)
- saurik 2y agoI do not understand how these two ideas are somehow different (and I even say that as someone who thinks caring about star counts is harmful to both sides): if there were a way to track/surveil how many users had bookmarked your website in their browser, it seems like it would be a sane and even rational (if also annoying and harmful and short-termist) thing to use that as a signal on both sides, to both optimize for as a website as well as as a potential user to judge the popular interest in a website... it certainly is a shitty heuristic, but even I will admit that, usually, a website that is bookmarked by a billion users is likely more "important" than one that is bookmarked by only a few users? But like, any indirect signal, by its very nature, both can be gamed and will be gamed once people care about it, and so you need to be extremely careful ever using such signals on an ongoing basis, certainly once too many people know about them; and, frankly, if you make such a website, you should be doing everything in your power to prevent such signals from existing in the first place (such as by not tracking what users bookmark in the first place; or, if you somehow must, then keeping that information to yourself and not exposing it to users... this is hard to have fortitude on, as it also requires not trying to use it yourself as a signal, as people will figure that out and optimize for it even if they can't see it).