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GitHub's fake star economy

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Re: GitHub's fake star economy

#151

Post by duzer65657 »

mentalgear wrote: post #94

> VC funding pipeline that treats GitHub popularity as proof of traction Why am I not surprised big Capital corrupts everything. Also, Goodhart's law applies again: "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure". HN Folks: What reliant, diverse signals do you use to quickly eval a repo's quality? For me it is: Maintenance status, age, elegance of API and maybe commit history. PS: From the article:…

I tend to look at other people involved, like contributors but not just the volume but actual people and their other activity. If the original author is still around and active that tends to be a good sign IME

Re: GitHub's fake star economy

#152

Post by lordgrenville »

bombcar wrote: post #137
xnorswap wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't follow American Football so I don't know how coaching contracts work for you guys, but how does someone go 1W 15L one season, survive as head coach to go 0W 16L the next season, and still start the next season after that as head coach? Over here the fans would be singing "You're getting sacked in the morning" halfway through that first season. I guess not having relegation makes things slightly less ruthless…

Owners don’t care about winning, but about profitability. And you can make a lot of money with a failing football team (selling/trading draft picks, etc) and your fans get used to losing …

More to the point, in the US losing teams get rewarded in the form of draft picks, which sometimes creates perverse incentives. This doesn't exist in European football. (Disclaimer: I know almost nothing about American sports.)

Re: GitHub's fake star economy

#154

Post by mkovach »

mauvehaus wrote: post #124

Can anyone explain why on earth VC's are making actual investment decisions based on imaginary internet points ? This would be like an NFL team drafting a quarterback based on how many instagram followers they have rather than a relevant metric like pass completion, or god forbid, doing some work and actually scouting candidates. Maybe the Cleveland Browns would do that[0], but it's not a way to mount a serious Super…

> This would be like an NFL team drafting a quarterback based on how many instagram followers

I believe that is how they made the final decision on Watson over Mayfield. Oh, wait, I don't think anything can explain that decision.

Also from Cleveland.

Go Guardians! Go Cavs!

Re: GitHub's fake star economy

#155

Post by xnorswap »

bombcar wrote: post #137
xnorswap wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't follow American Football so I don't know how coaching contracts work for you guys, but how does someone go 1W 15L one season, survive as head coach to go 0W 16L the next season, and still start the next season after that as head coach? Over here the fans would be singing "You're getting sacked in the morning" halfway through that first season. I guess not having relegation makes things slightly less ruthless…

Owners don’t care about winning, but about profitability. And you can make a lot of money with a failing football team (selling/trading draft picks, etc) and your fans get used to losing …

Right, I forgot you guys have "The Draft", so failing is an advantage, doubly so if you can sell your draft picks, because then you can keep losing by having sold away the mechanism for getting you competitive again.

I am so glad the proposed "European super league" was killed off so hard, so that we don't get a franchise model, it produces so many adverse incentives.

Re: GitHub's fake star economy

#156

Post by jordemort »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #145
mauvehaus wrote: post #124

Can anyone explain why on earth VC's are making actual investment decisions based on imaginary internet points ? This would be like an NFL team drafting a quarterback based on how many instagram followers they have rather than a relevant metric like pass completion, or god forbid, doing some work and actually scouting candidates. Maybe the Cleveland Browns would do that[0], but it's not a way to mount a serious Super…

When I took over MLAgents at the end of 2021, before Unity fully shit themselves after the insane Weta acquisition, the main metric they were using to promote the project internally were github stars Yes actually Needless to say they didn’t like when I said this was a worthless metric and we needed to be using something like “working policies” or “time saved training”

should have bought a few thousand stars on the internet and then taken the promotion to director

Re: GitHub's fake star economy

#157

Post by The_Blade »

xnorswap wrote: post #133
mauvehaus wrote: post #124

Can anyone explain why on earth VC's are making actual investment decisions based on imaginary internet points ? This would be like an NFL team drafting a quarterback based on how many instagram followers they have rather than a relevant metric like pass completion, or god forbid, doing some work and actually scouting candidates. Maybe the Cleveland Browns would do that[0], but it's not a way to mount a serious Super…

I don't follow American Football so I don't know how coaching contracts work for you guys, but how does someone go 1W 15L one season, survive as head coach to go 0W 16L the next season, and still start the next season after that as head coach? Over here the fans would be singing "You're getting sacked in the morning" halfway through that first season. I guess not having relegation makes things slightly less ruthless…

Browns fan in. We're owned by a criminal (truck stop-related fraud) who was convinced by a homeless person to draft Johnny Manziel. trust me, we want to put him (and Paul Dolan) into graveyard orbit. but it's not like Vercel where you can just go use AWS or Cloudflare or whatever; and it's not like switching makes you weak, you stand by your team through the hard times!

plus, what is an NFL fan going to do, stop watching football? hahahahahaha

Re: GitHub's fake star economy

#158

Post by kevinsync »

whatisthiseven wrote: post #106

I don't think I have ever used stars in making a decision to use a library and I don't understand why anyone would. Here are the things I look at in order: * last commit date. Newer is better * age. old is best if still updating. New is not great but tolerable if commits aren't rapid * issues. Not the count, mind you, just looking at them. How are they handled, what kind of issues are lingering open. * some of the co…

I usually use stars as bookmarks to maybe come back to some repo I thought looked interesting a year later. Terrible metric to invest based on!

Re: GitHub's fake star economy

#159

Post by mkovach »

xnorswap wrote: post #133
mauvehaus wrote: post #124

Can anyone explain why on earth VC's are making actual investment decisions based on imaginary internet points ? This would be like an NFL team drafting a quarterback based on how many instagram followers they have rather than a relevant metric like pass completion, or god forbid, doing some work and actually scouting candidates. Maybe the Cleveland Browns would do that[0], but it's not a way to mount a serious Super…

I don't follow American Football so I don't know how coaching contracts work for you guys, but how does someone go 1W 15L one season, survive as head coach to go 0W 16L the next season, and still start the next season after that as head coach? Over here the fans would be singing "You're getting sacked in the morning" halfway through that first season. I guess not having relegation makes things slightly less ruthless…

The prevailing narrative here is that the team was actively looking to lose to acquire draft picks. Hugh Jackson was extremely good at losing, so he stayed.

The owner of the Cleveland Browns uses the team to generate more revenue. For NFL teams, performance has little to do with their value or ability to generate additional revenue.

There is no strong financial incentive to win in the NFL, aside from the owner's ego. The Browns' owner's ego is driven by money, and the result shows on the field.

Re: GitHub's fake star economy

#160

Post by The_Blade »

lordgrenville wrote: post #152
bombcar wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Owners don’t care about winning, but about profitability. And you can make a lot of money with a failing football team (selling/trading draft picks, etc) and your fans get used to losing …

More to the point, in the US losing teams get rewarded in the form of draft picks, which sometimes creates perverse incentives. This doesn't exist in European football. (Disclaimer: I know almost nothing about American sports.)

just wait until you get to the subject of tanking in the NBA

is there a tech equivalent? like you do a crappy job with your series A on purpose which helps you get a better series B. although there is the notion of a big round of layoffs to secure further investment

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