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GitHub backtracks on deprecating the trending tabs page

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Re: GitHub backtracks on deprecating the trending tabs page

#31

Post by jimminy »

I do find it a little odd all the comments in this thread are focusing on it as though it was a straight telemetry/metric decision.

From the update, this feels more like it was problem area for maintenance purposes, then had its telemetry assessed for decision.

"The data pipeline that powers the page has historically proven problematic to maintain and so given the low usage, we decided to switch off the Trending page."

The maintainers likely considered the resources and effort in maintaining it were too high. When they looked at the telemetry and saw it wasn't utilized considerably, they assessed it was better to cut it, than keep it or create an alternative.

If it didn't have a cost associated with it, it would likely have never become a target.

Re: GitHub backtracks on deprecating the trending tabs page

#32

Post by ryanisnan »

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #30
ryanisnan wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is bad logic. Almost everyone goes to the doctor in a year. And again, what is the importance of a doctor’s office. I once used a security tool that looked at the world in a very narrow sense. Despite being a general purpose tool, it would often flag really bad false-positives like “this security group allows all ingress!”, while applied to zero resources, while completely missing other, real, consequential issu…

It's not bad logic, it's an imperfect analogy which you are taking at face value instead of understanding the point that something can be useful even if infrequently used. Wether or not it applies at this case is not determined, but it does underline the fact using only visit metrics for this particular page does not give the whole story. Which is congruent with the reaction the announcement got.

To be clear, I don’t know what telemetry they are using, I only used percentage of users who visited as an example. It does sound like, of the small group of folks who use it, they do enjoy it.

Sounds like GitHub has to find a way to either expand that pool, or decrease the maintenance cost of the feature, or it’s possibly not worth it.

Re: GitHub backtracks on deprecating the trending tabs page

#33

Post by vivegi »

People new to GitHub may want to look at the Trending / Explore pages to get a feel for the site. Those who are frequent users may skip that in the normal course of their business but drop in once in a while, if they are curious.

It is okay. At least in the segment of GH users who cared about the feature, there was a significant enough outcry from GH's perspective that they chose to rollback their decision.

Re: GitHub backtracks on deprecating the trending tabs page

#35

Post by kgeist »

julienreszka wrote: post #21
polygamous_bat wrote: post #8

I am incredibly glad they are keeping it around for now -- for now being the key word here. From the way they worded it, doesn't seem like they were prepared for the feedback they received, in terms of (paraphrased) "the few people who used the page seem to love it". How do they not know such an important metric? Shouldn't they be able to measure the number of recurring users? Shouldn't that metric tell them that ins…

Lots of devs use ad blockers that block telemetry

I'd expect such telemetry to be entirely server-side

Re: GitHub backtracks on deprecating the trending tabs page

#36

Post by AmericanChopper »

p-e-w wrote: post #19

In an age where "no we are still correct and everyone who disagrees is just too myopic to see our grand design" has become the standard response to any backlash against corporate decisions, I have great respect for people who are able to simply say "we heard you, and we are reconsidering".

Luckily the headline for this post doesn’t contain any prejudicial language intended to disparage Microsoft for making this decision. Actually, wait a minute…

Re: GitHub backtracks on deprecating the trending tabs page

#38

Post by iLoveOncall »

vivegi wrote: post #33

People new to GitHub may want to look at the Trending / Explore pages to get a feel for the site. Those who are frequent users may skip that in the normal course of their business but drop in once in a while, if they are curious. It is okay. At least in the segment of GH users who cared about the feature, there was a significant enough outcry from GH's perspective that they chose to rollback their decision.

People new to GitHub want to create a repository and do a git push, nothing else.

Re: GitHub backtracks on deprecating the trending tabs page

#39

Post by baq »

ryanisnan wrote: post #16
robmoore121 wrote: post #12

The initial call to deprecate this page was quite obviously driven by usage telemetry (i.e. "engagement" metrics), rather than actually speaking to users about what they like and don't like. I suspect that companies sometimes believe they can automate their way into quality designs, by relying on analytics, rather than empathizing deeply with their customers.

I mean, how exactly do you argue with something like "0.5% of users have visited this page in the past 12 months, and 0.3% of users have only visited once"? I don't know what their telemetry said, but generally it's something like this. This is empirical enough to say decisively "most people do not care about this feature."

0.5% of 100M is still a lot, right?

Re: GitHub backtracks on deprecating the trending tabs page

#40

Post by polote »

They are incompetent honestly. If you were to discontinue this page you would at least talk to a few power users of the page and know their mind before taking the decion. They either didn't do it or did it. If they did it but backtrack now it show they don't have much confidence in their decisions, and if they didn't it, what are their pm payed for? That is pm 101
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