Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Just Wanted to Say Thanks

github.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

251–257 of 257 posts

Re: Just Wanted to Say Thanks

#251

Post by RealStickman_ »

plibither8 wrote: post #230
rsync wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I’ve learned that when I have a positive thought about someone, it’s generally worth communicating it." I've started to do this on a regular, almost daily basis. If I come across something that sparks joy or interest - usually something I find here, on HN - I reach out to the author and let them know with a personal email. I also sometimes offer a free-forever-no-strings-attached rsync.net account on the off chance…

I've been using rsync for months now to backup my files onto Google Drive, but that's hardly ideal. Ideally, I'd want to self-host or use a storage service other than Google Drive, but as a student I've got barely any money to spend on subscriptions.

If you don't regularly download these files, Backlaze B2 seems to be the cheapest way to store backups.

Re: Just Wanted to Say Thanks

#252

Post by eyelidlessness »

6gvONxR4sf7o wrote: post #90

I’ve learned that when I have a positive thought about someone, it’s generally worth communicating it. If I think a coworker saved me on some project, I tell them. If my partner is making me feel warm and fuzzy, I tell her. If someone impresses me, I say so. I don’t think people express these things nearly as often as they feel them, and I expect that many of the positive things that do end up communicated have anoth…

In my last job (currently unemployed) I made a conscious effort to:

1. Always publicly thank contributors for each unit of work I encountered, no matter how mundane, and especially when I recognized the value where it wouldn’t necessarily be visible/“hot” otherwise.

2. To make regular time for specific recognition of work that stood out to me, both public and direct, again especially highlighting important work that wouldn’t otherwise get a lot of light. (By now it should be obvious that I tend to work in libraries/infrastructure where good work tends to be mostly invisible.)

3. To try to continuously add visibility where work tended to be more foundational/less visible, so others would be encouraged to add to that recognition.

4. To make sure positive feedback was included wherever general or even critical feedback was warranted.

I’m not perfect and never perfected execution on those goals, but it was always an underlying part of how I interacted with my team. It improved my relationship with every team member who I most butted heads with (save one who was reflexively adversarial and invented conflict for even the tiniest work items; some people are just jerks!). And it also made a lot of people just generally more comfortable with their own contributions and better able to see their own value.

Re: Just Wanted to Say Thanks

#253

Post by yeray »

applecrazy wrote: post #146
yeray wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's just a misconfiguration of the GitHub app I haven't gone around to fix yet. We certainly don't act on your behalf, we only check basic information.

I had that issue too when building something w/ GitHub auth. Instead of making your app a GitHub App, make it an OAuth App (which should only ask for profile data). Edit: see https://docs.github.com/en/free-pro-team@latest/developers/a...

That was it, all fixed now. Thanks for the suggestion :)

Re: Just Wanted to Say Thanks

#255

Post by cutemonster »

cutemonster wrote: post #250
berkes wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't do that in public. Maybe when someone somewhere asks why I don't want to include X-lib or Y-dependency, I'll explain why for this case its not a good choice. Generally, I keep this to the consultancy-reports and on-premise discussions though.

Thanks for explaining I would have appreciated working with you/people who gave some critical thoughts to third party dependencies. I hope that each time you go to a new employer, you try again and see if they're happy with getting such warnings

Edit: now i noticed you've founded your own company

Re: Just Wanted to Say Thanks

#256

Post by corobo »

from wrote: post #144
the_arun wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you put it that way, I think GitHub could enable a platform feature to collect finance contributions from fans/users. Heck, even licensing costs. That makes open source programmers earn some money as well - of course along with a text field to say “thanks”.

https://github.com/sponsors Github launched Github Sponsors in 2019. It does basically everything you described aside from the "thanks" part.

This feels like corp every meeting I've been in hahah

"No I said don't do th.. ah forget it"

Re: Just Wanted to Say Thanks

#257

Post by jononor »

delgaudm wrote: post #88
nicbou wrote: post #51

I've been on the receiving end of such gratitude, and it always brightens my day. It's easy to think your hard work isn't noticed, until you realize how seldom you acknowledge other people's work. Unfortunately, explicit gratitude is very rare. Donations are even rarer. The "ask a question" and "support this site" buttons on my website are next to each other. I get 15 questions for every donation. About 30€ per 100 0…

>Those who email me with questions never donate. Can you ask them to? It's not exactly the same problem, but I have a modestly successful youtube channel, and I get unsolicited email questions seeking help every day, and I personally try and answer all that I can. I've used the following technique and it helped me receive donations to offset the support effort. I added a quiet but clear call to action my support repl…

Nicely formulated. It is a clear ask, without making things too "transactional" (which can sometimes degrade the experience for everyone).
Post reply on HN