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GitHub user sends notification to 400k users

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321–330 of 468 posts

Re: GitHub user sends notification to 400k users

#321
post #120

I'm confused. Can someone explain why the Epic Games developers team has close to 400k members?

Unreal engine is open source but in a private GitHub repo. Anyone can link their GitHub account with their epic games account which adds them to the team.

if it's open source but in a private repo, couldn't somebody just make a public mirror?

open source implies the right to redistribute source code.

Re: GitHub user sends notification to 400k users

#322

There are quite a few other, uh, interesting PRs for that repo. https://github.com/EpicGames/Signup/pulls https://github.com/EpicGames/Signup/pull/10/files https://github.com/EpicGames/Signup/pull/18/files What is going on?

I would suppose some video aimed at schoolchildren teaching them how to use GitHub has gone viral and they’re taking baby steps. At least that what I think is most likely.

Re: GitHub user sends notification to 400k users

#323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real problem was that so many people felt the urge to reply to that PR making it so much worse than a single ping. I can live with the random message that has nothing to do with me, but having to delete an endless stream of messages because so many people felt the need to reply already knowing that it would go out to everyone is really annoying

The worst is that it becomes clear eventually that people are responding just to troll. The casual vandalism of hundreds of thousands of people’s time and attention is absolutely mind-boggling to me. I saw similar things at large (50k+ employees) companies when some reply-all chain got started — people who clearly knew better, replying just for the lulz. If it were up to me, I would have fired them immediately. Nobod…

I wouldn't go that far.

It's annoying to get useless email, but 95% of the non-spam email I receive everyday is useless crap: T&C changes, some company newsletter that somehow I never unsubscribed to, other notifications deemed so important I cannot unsubscribe to, a GitHub thread I subscribed to years ago and now has a very active discussion.

It's not like every single person received 400k emails in one go, it's 400k people receiving those 10 or 20 messages from the same thread over an hour. Annoying, waste of time, but not unheard of.

Re: GitHub user sends notification to 400k users

#324
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.

Yeah I’m sure they’ll institute some kind of control to make this sort of thing harder, but honestly I’ve never understood why people get so worked up about this sort of thing. It makes me chuckle. The person looks like a dummy or a shit-stirrer and a lot of people have to delete HUNDREDS (oh my) of messages and have LITERAL MINUTES of their time wasted. The megacorp I work for wastes more of my time with silly self-…

There’s no real way to explain why it’s annoying. You just have to accept that other people have different personalities from yours.

Re: GitHub user sends notification to 400k users

#325
post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Is there a word for a statement which inadvertently supports the opposing position in a debate?

No. You have earned the right to coin it.

Re: GitHub user sends notification to 400k users

#326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real problem was that so many people felt the urge to reply to that PR making it so much worse than a single ping. I can live with the random message that has nothing to do with me, but having to delete an endless stream of messages because so many people felt the need to reply already knowing that it would go out to everyone is really annoying

Happened in my wife’s company of around 40k people. Mail to all, replies to stop replying, many hours to stop the firestorm. Then next timezone 8 hours out started replying. I don’t know why they didn’t just kill permissions to the mailing list.

Are you familiar with this story of an email storm at Microsoft already?

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/exchange-team-blog/me...

Re: GitHub user sends notification to 400k users

#327
post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The worst is that it becomes clear eventually that people are responding just to troll. The casual vandalism of hundreds of thousands of people’s time and attention is absolutely mind-boggling to me. I saw similar things at large (50k+ employees) companies when some reply-all chain got started — people who clearly knew better, replying just for the lulz. If it were up to me, I would have fired them immediately. Nobod…

I wouldn't go that far. It's annoying to get useless email, but 95% of the non-spam email I receive everyday is useless crap: T&C changes, some company newsletter that somehow I never unsubscribed to, other notifications deemed so important I cannot unsubscribe to, a GitHub thread I subscribed to years ago and now has a very active discussion. It's not like every single person received 400k emails in one go, it's 400…

The attitude annoys me more than the actual effect.

I’d also fire someone who “trolled” the company by spraying graffiti on the side of the building. Trivial to remove or even ignore, yes, but the unprofessional and juvenile mindset, taking pleasure in annoying everyone else, is enraging all by itself even if no practical harm was done.

Re: GitHub user sends notification to 400k users

#328
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?

For me, it is Thunderbird, but only because Windows Defender scans all incoming emails AFAIK.

Re: GitHub user sends notification to 400k users

#329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I try to not mix work and personal content on the same laptop It's kind of jaw dropping to me at how this is still not the norm and how people gratuitously mix personal and work content on the same devices, both mobile and desktop.

Pretty much no company will pay for a work phone these days, even if you have on-call duty.

I put a prepaid sim card in my old phone and use it exclusively for work 2fa. Now I can turn off that phone at my convenience and when this gig is over I can just switch to a new sim.

Re: GitHub user sends notification to 400k users

#330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got curious and just found PR #20, which made me think this scheme gives Epic a way to hitch onto GitHub's management of export controls. I.e., if you're in a country to which US companies aren't allowed to disclose software, GitHub likely has this figured out, and by Epic requiring a GitHub account, they don't have to figure out all the rules and regulations themselves (again).

Interesting. I'm sure it's still trivial for people in those countries to still get the code, but maybe it's sufficiently distanced from Epic's reasonable ability to control things that they're in the clear legally?

Yeah, epic not being able to share is unrelated to you being able to receive. It means someone else is breaking a rule/law.
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