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Poll: Do you use GitHub stars for bookmarking or for “Liking”?
The intended purpose of stars is bookmarking. "Starring a repository allows you to keep track of projects that you find interesting, even if you aren't associated with the project." [1]
However, I rarely browse my list of starred repos. I use star as a way to show my appreciation. It is sort of "Like" button for me.
[1] https://help.github.com/articles/about-stars/
- INTPenis 11y agoBookmarking is liking. Bookmarking means "I like this and I want to look closer at it later when I have the time" to me.
- soegaard 11y agoBoth
- jonbaer 11y agoGood point, almost like an "I approve for use" type of situation, I began using Watch for a while but didn't seem to get the same notifications. I do however wish there was some alternative view to your star(ed) collection (breakup by tech/domain) because you can't really organize. Something similar to explore (https://github.com/explore https://github.com/explore) but your own items based from what you have approved.
- hanula 11y agoI made something simple for this: http://stuff.hanula.com/starhub/ http://stuff.hanula.com/starhub/ and me too, I also wish GH had some easier way to navigate and arrange your bookmarks. StarHub was primarily built for fast search.
- Daiz 11y agoPrimarily bookmarking. I just really wish you could create categories for your own stars (similar to how you can create your own playlists on YouTube for example), because it's really annoying having everything from "just something fun" to "actually useful for work" in just one big star pile that you can barely do anything about.
- tomkinstinch 11y agoCategorization like this would be great. I'd also like to be able to bin things as "useful today" vs "something under development to keep an eye on for the future."
- bsima 11y agoSounds like a GitHub bookmarking app would be useful, or a browser plugin...
- knd775 11y agoAstral (http://astralapp.com/ http://astralapp.com/) has been mentioned in this thread and is great. It does exactly this.
- jonbaer 11y agoYeah an easy to spot (and understandable) "staleness" rating would be +1
- popasmurf 11y agoThis already exists, check out http://astralapp.com/ http://astralapp.com/
- michaelmior 11y agoI really like Astral. I do wish it were open source though.
- bnycum 11y agoHere's what I did because I had the same thoughts. I just save everything to delicious as a bookmark, then first tag everything with 'github' then any other tags after that.
- dimatura 11y agoI have the same problem. I usually end up bookmarking to pinboard instead, where I can add tags. Also, I often find bookmarking at the repo level too coarse - often I am only interested in a specific file or class.
- ssebastianj 11y agoBoth
- izietto 11y agoThere should be a "Both" option IMHO
- jrslv 11y agoI'm using astralapp.com, which is a nice application for viewing, searching and tagging my favs.
- Naushad 11y agoBookmarking, for liking, i "Watch"
- jqueryin 11y agoInteresting poll. I can only imagine you have a use case for building something. I'm in the same boat. If anybody is interested on working on a Github star related project with me, let me know. It'll have a huge impact on how individuals use Github. I intend on this being for-profit with Stripe payments. I've been working on it in stealth as my pet project but it's closing in on being publicly available. It uses Laravel 4.2, MySQL, supervisord, and beanstalkd for those interested. Contact info in my profile.
- eatitraw 11y ago> I can only imagine you have a use case for building something. Not really! It's just simple curiosity.
- arihant 11y agoI feel stupid. I never even thought of it as a bookmarking tool. When I have to bookmark, I just bookmark the repo page in the browser. I never thought of GitHub stars as anything more than a "Kudos, Good job" tool.
- 4ad 11y agoNone. I never click on stars. Projects that I care about have developer mailing lists, and mailing lists where people review and discuss patches. I subscribe to those. Projects that don't have that and only rely on GitHub are toy/non-serious projects that I don't care about. For bookmarking I have actual bookmarks.
- subv3rsion 11y agoMostly for bookmarking.
- nezo 11y agoI mainly use it as a like button, but if I'm really interested by a project I might instead start Watching it.
- indykish1 11y agoI use it for liking, interesting to read that it can be used for bookmarking
- indykish1 11y agoI use it for liking, interesting to read that it can be used for bookmarking
- peterjmag 11y agoI voted for bookmarking, but I use it for a bit of both, confusingly. I feel like what I'm missing is some sort of mechanism for privately bookmarking repositories, perhaps with optional tagging or personal notes. I usually star a repo with a particular purpose in mind, e.g. "oh this could be an interesting way to solve problem X at work" or "ah finally, an MIT-licensed alternative to Project Y". As it stands, there's not really any good way to store that kind of info. (On a related note, I don't really like the fact that your starred repos can't be made private.)
- S_A_P 11y agoI rarely can keep up with/remember bookmarks so I usually will fork a repo that I "like", even if I dont do anything with the code. This may not work for everyone, but in my case seeing it in my repo list happens much more frequently than visiting my list of bookmarks.
- popasmurf 11y agoI've replied to someones comment with this already, I think it deserves more attention though. For those of you using Stars for bookmarking check out http://astralapp.com/ http://astralapp.com/ for organisational purposes.
- thebouv 11y agoBoth, really. I like this enough to look at it again when I have time. I rarely "watch" a project however.
- builtinnya 11y agobookmarking +1 I use https://github.com/Sliim/helm-github-stars https://github.com/Sliim/helm-github-stars to browse my stars
- taitooz 11y agoBookmarking
- taitooz 11y agoBookmarking
- hellbanner 11y agoBoth, but I will watch a repo if it's more for bookmarking something I plan to use.
- txdv 11y agoIsn't it really the same? If you bookmark something then you are ultimately thinking that at least it is worthy your attention, hence, liking?
- chrisseaton 11y agoYou could be bookmarking it because you think it's infringing on someone's copyright and need to go back and take another look.
- emiunet 11y agoI bookmark something most likely because I like it. However, I may like many things but still do not bookmark them.
- wildpeaks 11y agoFor liking / encouraging the author to continue development. I'd use the browser bookmarks or my wiki for bookmarking things instead.
- fellomellow 11y agobookmarking cause github people are retarded
- chadwilken 11y agoBoth, but usually more of a bookmarking system.
- grandalf 11y agoMostly for bookmarking, and occasionally for liking + bookmarking.
- lobo_tuerto 11y agoI use it for liking. You can already bookmark and categorize with your browser.
- sangupta 11y agoAlmost always bookmarking.
- davegaeddert 11y agoI give a repo a star if it's something I use or think there's a pretty good chance I'll use in the future (bookmarking). It also means I like to stay up-to-date with their development, as least at the surface level. I built http://sibbell.com http://sibbell.com for exactly that purpose - it will notify you any time a repo that you star (or watch) has a new release. I don't like to "watch" repos on GitHub though because on a project of any size, you get flooded with emails...
- dhagz 11y agoI guess bookmarking primarily. I'm either going to use it or I'm currently using it. I think "Watching" a repo is more like "Liking" it, since that give you updates on the repo's status. But it stinks since you can't fine-tune what updates you get.
- bertocq 11y agoBoth >_<
- yellowapple 11y agoIf I want to bookmark something, I just use the bookmarking features of my browser. In which case, I generally only star things I like (and even then).
- perlgeek 11y agoI don't use them at all. I like github for contributing, but I don't really buy into the "social" of it aspect beyond that. And my browser history / address bar completion have substituted bookmarks for me.