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Complaints mount after GitHub launches new algorithmic feed

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Re: Complaints mount after GitHub launches new algorithmic feed

#11
post #4
post #2

Why do developer companies keep thinking they are aocial twitter-facebook-like things? It goes from small things like hiding exact timestamps behind meaningless "2d ago" to this bullshit

> Why do developer companies keep thinking they are aocial twitter-facebook-like things? Because open source is significantly social in nature; it's not just an available blob of code. I don't necessarily agree with their direction, but the social aspect is certainly a foundational component.

I think the issue is not with it being social in general, but rather with it becoming a similar flavour of social to the likes of Facebook, Twitter, etc.

Github has always been a social tool without the need for a newsfeed-type thing.

Re: Complaints mount after GitHub launches new algorithmic feed

#12
post #6

I look forward to the quasi-spam slurry of infiniscroll feed crap once growth hackers start trying to game the algorithm to get more traction for their project. I don’t think you can introduce a recommendation algorithm without it having a negative effect on the content it’s supposed to aid discovery of. Pre-recsys, the content is made for human consumption, but once you add the recsys, the AI itself becomes part of…

What exactly does "optimizing for Github recommendations" mean?

I'm not writing and debugging 10,000 lines of C just to farm Github stars. It seems crazy to think anyone would change how they work for that.

Whereas, people on Youtube/Twitter/Facebook/etc. really do change their videos or writing to spread better.

Re: Complaints mount after GitHub launches new algorithmic feed

#14
post #6

I look forward to the quasi-spam slurry of infiniscroll feed crap once growth hackers start trying to game the algorithm to get more traction for their project. I don’t think you can introduce a recommendation algorithm without it having a negative effect on the content it’s supposed to aid discovery of. Pre-recsys, the content is made for human consumption, but once you add the recsys, the AI itself becomes part of…

I’m convinced the ai recommendation audience is the origin of the “death of the internet”

Re: Complaints mount after GitHub launches new algorithmic feed

#16
post #8

Can't you just... not look at it? github is not a social website; I see no reason to ever visit the home page.

>github is not a social website you may not like it, but Github has always been a social website, and now more than ever, just like LinkedIn.

Also interesting that MS owns both of those networks. Both pretty smart investments.

Re: Complaints mount after GitHub launches new algorithmic feed

#17
While I cannot trust algorithmic feeds anymore and I expect this to become an issue in the future, I have to say that based on what I've seen in my own "For you" tab, GitHub is doing a good job on showing updates from repositories that I starred and then forgot about, and I actually find that feature nice.

Re: Complaints mount after GitHub launches new algorithmic feed

#18
post #8

Can't you just... not look at it? github is not a social website; I see no reason to ever visit the home page.

>github is not a social website you may not like it, but Github has always been a social website, and now more than ever, just like LinkedIn.

Nonsense. GitHub is for working with git repositories. It might have some weird social feed stuff tacked on, but I've never used it in 13 years and to say it's not the main point is an understatement. OTOH social interactions is very obviously the main point of LinkedIn?

Re: Complaints mount after GitHub launches new algorithmic feed

#19

No wonder why microsoft bought them, they wanted to kill github

Why would MS want to kill github? It's huge, it serves a vital need, and if MS does manage to strangle it in some way, someone else will fork a similar service and everyone will flock to that, similarly to how everyone left Sourceforge for Github, as I understand it.

Re: Complaints mount after GitHub launches new algorithmic feed

#20
Now you can easily clean up the regular feed with uBlock Origin `github.com###dashboard [aria-labelledby="feed-original"] :is(.follow, .watch_started)` will remove "someone followed something" and "someone starred something" which can help you focus on the updates that are critical aspects of updated issues and releases, and can just click over to the social media feed "For You (Beta)" for that kind of stuff if you feel so inclined (or you can ignore it). I have `github.com##aside[aria-label="Explore"]` as well to not get distracted with the recommendations I didn't ask for on the index page either.
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