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GitHub user sends notification to 400k users

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181–190 of 468 posts

Re: GitHub user sends notification to 400k users

#181
post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree, the PR is some pointless wordsmithing and then to comment "Verify the pull request and merge asap" is a bit ridiculous. Also, no one is going to care in a day.

> Also, no one is going to care in a day. You should ask Sumit Bhatia about that. ;)

What did the guy do?

Re: GitHub user sends notification to 400k users

#182

Fun fact: at some point I wrote @param in a PR comment, talking about a parameter's doc. I only realized after posting that there was an actual user named @param.

Users with Java annotations as their name probably get notified a fair few times each day.

Re: GitHub user sends notification to 400k users

#183
post #5

The toothpaste is out of the tube - notifications are going to be scrutinized more in the future, from this point on. I got the email. And about 20+ responses to that email. Every person who replies to that issue triggers another 400k emails. Personally, my email client is crashing. EpicGames, as a GitHub org is an outlier, it's basically an SSO for Unreal Engine. I forgot I was even a member of it.

It must be hard for GitHub servers, but which e-mail client is crashing from about 100 short, text-only messages received in an hour?

I doubt it but I wonder if OP is lying and didn't realize there would only be a hundred or two emails

Re: GitHub user sends notification to 400k users

#185

Innocent mistake. The kid is barely 18. The emotion and stress resulting from mistakenly sending a notification to 400,000 is likely overwhelming. Now his real name is going to stay at the center of the internet for a while thanks to being 1st on HN. I would definitely not have coped well with that much internet attention at his age. Some Github replies are more immature than the initial action and I hope he does not…

> The kid is barely 18. The emotion and stress resulting from mistakenly sending a notification to 400,000 is likely overwhelming.

Huh? I don't think it's "the kid"'s fault that some random organization is using GitHub orgs as a proxy to get people to sign their Terms of Service. If the org or group is on GitHub, it's only a matter of time before someone is going to mention it.

The emotion and stress should be on the org admins who thought that asking every user who signs their ToS to a group called `developers` would be a good idea.

Re: GitHub user sends notification to 400k users

#186
post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They require you to acknowledge some terms that grant you access to the Unreal Engine source code. They grant it by adding you to their GitHub org which has the engine source code as a private repo.

Maybe it's just me but this seems like a misuse of GitHub orgs...

Is it? How else do you selectively grant access to a repo? Orgs are the normal way, it's just not normal to have a project which is proprietary and somewhat private but available to 400k people.

Github just needs to rethink how tagging all users works and a way to prevent this.

Re: GitHub user sends notification to 400k users

#187

The problem is that GitHub's default subscription behavior is terrible. Unless the repo is mine or my account is directly @'d I shouldn't receive anything.

I don’t necessarily agree. For example, I work in some OSS projects where the core maintainers are in a GH group, and the group is just pinged if their feedback is needed on a decision/conversation/PR. Only a couple dozen people in the group, and it gets maybe 3-4 notifications a day. Easy to ignore if I’m not needed.

It seems like teams of 400k people aren’t quite within the spirit of the intended feature!

Re: GitHub user sends notification to 400k users

#189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember when I worked at an Alphabet company and they offered the option of using your personal phone to sign in to work stuff. (It wasn't Slack, it was one of the seventeen different chat systems they had going at the time.) There was a teensy-weensy little caveat: Google IT could wipe your personal device at any time! No thanks.

That's... odd. Was this a long time ago? Because these days Android has work profiles that specifically exist to let you shove work stuff in its own separate space that can be managed separately from the rest of the device, and Google itself not using the feature that they built into the OS to support that exact situation would seem really weird.

Google does use Android work profiles - if you have an Android device. Unfortunately, iOS doesn't really have an equivalent concept (e: see comment below), so device-wide privileges are necessary there.

Everyone has their own level of comfort, of course. I've worked for two employers now whom I've given the power to erase my personal iPhone in exchange for the convenience of not needing to lug around a second phone.

Disclosure: I work at Google; opinions are my own.

Re: GitHub user sends notification to 400k users

#190
post #156

I honestly don't see what's the big deal, and, if anything, why this isn't grossly abused all the time. I mean, that's just how Github works, isn't it? Anyone can tag anyone, uh, yeah, ok, whatever. Looks like an intended feature to me. Does Github have problems with sending 400k notifications at once? Doesn't look like that, but if it did, I guess they shouldn't have implemented such a feature, or allowed 400k users…

It's somewhat unique because of the odd situation the UE org is in. It isn't an internal company org, you get invited after accepting their terms and conditions which grants you access to the source code. Which means literally anyone can join this org and then ping 400k users. I'm not sure there is any other org/repo which this is possible.

Yes it is expected behavior but its the scale and particular nature here that has turned expected behavior in to a dangerous tool.

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