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We lost 54k GitHub stars

httpie.io

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Re: We lost 54k GitHub stars

#631

Post by yreg »

kif wrote: post #625
kolanos wrote: post #607

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It occurs to me that if your users are mindlessly doing repetitive things, no amount of "Are you sure?" or other hoop jumping is guaranteed to snap them out of it. Humans are pattern recognition machines. GitHub may be better off preventing a repo with this size of a following from being made private without a support request or something requiring a second party to confirm.

At my company, we had like 3-4 steps, each with clear wording to cancel a subscription, and they had to type something in the end to confirm. Guess what? We still had tickets asking to restore their subscriptions :)

I was mesmerised how the Japanese train operators (and perhaps other similar workers) have to follow checklists where they physically point[0] at everything they are doing even when they are alone.

Now I'm wondering whether this approach actually works.

[0] - https://youtu.be/9LmdUz3rOQU?t=66

Re: We lost 54k GitHub stars

#632

Post by golanggeek »

parkingrift wrote: post #583
dmitshur wrote: post #572

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m wondering if you got a chance to see this part of the post: > […] I obviously had no intention to make httpie/httpie private. So, why then? > > The proximate cause was that I thought I was inside a different repo; […] What I actually intended to do was to hide the HTTPie organization’s profile README, […] > > What put me on the wrong path was an otherwise completely unrelated action: I had just done the same (i.e…

I did read that part. He or she had to exactly type out "httpie/httpie" to confirm the action. I don't know what else GitHub could do to prevent this. How much handholding does GitHub need to offer? People need to accept the consequences of their own actions. The amount of manual steps necessary to take httpie private is fairly substantial. This person was careless and learned a lesson on being careless.

Just my 2c.. GitHub, instead of the statement "All stars and watchers", can improve it by showing "All 54000 stars and 32000 watchers" will be deleted.

Re: We lost 54k GitHub stars

#633

Post by BeFlatXIII »

throwaway0x7E6 wrote: post #406
aerovistae wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They did admit they fucked up. Then they tried to make the best of it by looking for possible ways of preventing other people from repeating their mistake. What did you want? A blog post that says "I suck, I'm a failure, thanks for reading"? Why is this your response to someone trying to be contructive while post-morteming a failure?

the guy with 10+ experience of using github went to the "danger zone", pressed the red button, saw the very, very, very explicit warning about the consequences of pressing it and confirmed the action by explicitly typing the exact name of the repository. yes, that blog post would've been apt. as constructive as it gets. >Why is this your response because I don't want to send a notarized request every time I need to d…

This response would get you laughed out of the medical software industry (but welcomed with open arms by CMIOs and hospital administration). Physicians are known to click through all kinds of red-flag warnings because the legal team insisted they all be turned on to maximize patient safety.

Re: We lost 54k GitHub stars

#634

Post by mattcwilson »

alecbz wrote: post #551
mattcwilson wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would you word that sentence and remain factual about the deletion?

“I accidentally made a repo private, which resulted in all of its stars being removed.”

From the post:

> Due to an unfortunate sequence of events, I accidentally made the project’s repository private for a moment. And GitHub cascade-deleted our community that took 10 years to build.

This reads the same, to me, in terms of cause and effect.

Re: We lost 54k GitHub stars

#635

Post by agraddy »

berkes wrote: post #594
agraddy wrote: post #472

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in the process of creating an MVC framework and was curious about the other architectures you mentioned. This comment seems to be down on MVC and Rails so I was curious about the alternatives you mentioned and came across your post that ended with praise of Rails ( https://berk.es/2022/03/08/the-waning-of-ruby-and-rails/ ): > Rails still is a great way to get a prototype demo, or minimum viable product online in…

I'd suggest going through all Uncle Bob Martin[1]s talks on clean code. He has a great article (2014), old, on why you may not want to build that framework at all[2] too: > Using a framework requires a significant commitment. By accepting the framework into your code, you surrender your control over the details that the framework manages. [...] > And yet despite the huge commitment you’ve made to the framework, the f…

Thanks for the detailed breakdown! This is really helpful and exactly the kind of information I was hoping you would share.

Re: We lost 54k GitHub stars

#636

Post by whoibrar »

nilleo wrote: post #466
wodenokoto wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do lose the title, which is super annoying. "What did I used to have?" Super frustrating feeling. Here's a list of your favourite songs, but two are missing, have fun figuring out which two it is!

I recently discovered a neat trick that if you Google the url for the private video (you still have this in your list), you're likely to find the title of the video, therefore allowing you to at least figure out what it was and seek out a new video.

Thank You! I needed this all my life!

Re: We lost 54k GitHub stars

#637

Post by drewda »

We use a nice SaaS service for time-tracking and invoicing called Harvest. I'm thinking of it, as when you go to delete an existing invoice, it has a similar prompt to this GitHub prompt. But instead of having you type in the org and repo name, you have to type in "YOLO" (as in, "you only live once" :)

Re: We lost 54k GitHub stars

#638

Post by that_guy_iain »

akerl_ wrote: post #61
that_guy_iain wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So all those people got notifications and then some of them looked further at the notifications and then engaged. Now those people won't get those notifications and won't engage. Most of these people won't notice they don't get these notifications. They won't resubscribe. They're lost forever. This is kind of like losing your email list. Your comment reads like you don't understand how a community works.

If the measure of community is “people who get my emails, and wouldn’t notice if they stopped getting my emails”, then yea, I guess we just disagree about what a community is. I’m on an email list for marketing message for a hotel I stayed at last year. TIL that I’m part of their community.

Yea, over simplify it, that's always great.

If you focus solely on the getting notifications part. But the core part of any community is the ability to broadcast news to them. If you remove the ability to broadcast news and falicate communication between members then the community fades. Especially, if it's remove.

Not all members of a community are extremely active, some aren't that active at all if you remove the ability to let the less active people know stuff that may be of interest to them then obivously it'll damage a community.

Re: We lost 54k GitHub stars

#639

Post by canadaduane »

some_random wrote: post #599
sunir wrote: post #585

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t see the need for moralizing. They took responsibility, and offered GitHub money to help. They aren’t leaning in heavily to blame Github here. It’s fine to express the gulf of evaluation and execution that led to the error. It happened. There may not be any better known solutions at the moment to lower the risk any further. Calling them careless is also unjustified. They made a mental error processing the info…

Honestly, they are blaming Github here. They included a whole "Lessons" section, which are complaints about Github's UI, then database design, then community support. I don't think we should be making fun of them for accidentally privating their repo, but I absolutely laughed at >The dialog should be more contextual and, paraphrasing again, it should say “You’re about to kill 55,000 people.” That would’ve certainly m…

> They aren’t leaning in heavily to blame Github here.

> Honestly, they are blaming Github here.

I think both of these statements can be true at the same time. They are taking much of the responsibility while also explaining how some aspects of Github's design are partly responsible for the outcome.

Re: We lost 54k GitHub stars

#640

Post by WesolyKubeczek »

Okay. I just went in and double checked.

600+ comments bashing Github for not having prevented this action. Meanwhile, Github:

1) has this action in the "danger zone", literally the only UI element using RED COLOR; 2) has a warning banner on the dialog box that pops up when you click that button; 3) requires you to type in the name of the repository (which everyone copies and pastes anyway because they don’t get the point of this exercise)

So when you have all those things in place and still fly past all the defenses on an autopilot, you're not that bright to begin with and you should only blame yourself.

Meanwhile, there are 600 comments bashing Github for not putting in undo, or somesuch. The problem is, though, that this kind of carelessness that led to the repository losing its social stats doesn't stay with computers. It may very well carry over to other aspects of life, because an attitude is something ingrained way deeper than just using one computer program.

And then we have Youtube brimming with compilations of how cars don't stand a chance with trains. You would think that: 0) unambiguous warning road signs 1) red blinking lights 2) ringing bells 3) the train itself honking its horn for a couple miles before even approaching the crossing should be enough warning for the driver to move his/her ass off the track, and yet here we are.

So, yep, we may need to have better systems here and there, but being careful where it says "danger" should be a part of basic fucking competence at whatever it is you do. There are, shockingly, areas in life where an undo button doesn't exist. No, the fact that the other side didn't put safeguards in is not an excuse.

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