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One Guy Ruined Hacktoberfest 2020

joel.net

271–280 of 511 posts

Re: One Guy Ruined Hacktoberfest 2020

#271
post #24
post #4

Misaligned incentives always cause trouble, scapegoats not withstanding.

> Misaligned incentives always cause trouble, scapegoats not withstanding. Yes. Exactly. Couldn't have said it better myself. Stepping on a soapbox, I think a certain kind of economics thinking should be introduced to students at a reasonably young age, no later than secondary education, that thinking being "Incentive Analysis" where students are taught to think through where various people's and groups' incentives a…

Check your faulty logic there. The statement "if A, then B", does not imply "if not A, then not B".

There's nothing wrong with accuracy of "If you aren't paying, you're the product".

Re: One Guy Ruined Hacktoberfest 2020

#272
post #62

I received two pull requests for two projects on GitHub last night. I am the author of one and the maintainer of the other. At first, the pull requests did not make sense at all. One of them made minor changes to a README, e.g., changing "this book" to "the book". It was not fixing a typo or incorrect grammar. It was merely choosing a word different from the one I had chosen. In fact, I preferred "this book", so the…

But this is not spam. It's based on morons trying to make it in the software world without any basis that they should be there. They're doing this so that they can put "I have x amount of accepted pullrequests on github" and fool an employer to hire them. To become shit team members or outsourced to become shit offshore team members*. I have seen these kinds in many a project. Real world experience. Real talk.

No kidding

There is a good amount of questions on SO or tutorial blog posts that are basic, really basic stuff. Things that if you had barely any idea of what you were doing you would figure out but you don't.

Oh and now guess what, this flood of PRs raises the bar and annoyances for everybody.

Re: One Guy Ruined Hacktoberfest 2020

#273

As an Indian, I think here some points I think western world needs to know about India. * "Gaming the system" to get your desired outcome is widely accepted in Indian society. Especially if it doesn't involve breaking any laws (not ethics). Even in many cases Gaming the system by breaking the law is considered OK as long as one doesn't get caught doing it. (In fact this might be the only way to come up in politics in…

I wouldn't say it's an Indian only phenomenon, plenty of that everywhere

But to that intensity, ingrained-ness? That's not how it is in the UK[0] - to anywhere near that degree I mean.

edit: the UK is the only culture I'm really familiar with

Re: One Guy Ruined Hacktoberfest 2020

#274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't say it's an Indian only phenomenon, plenty of that everywhere

But to that intensity, ingrained-ness? That's not how it is in the UK[0] - to anywhere near that degree I mean. edit: the UK is the only culture I'm really familiar with

you did rob us with unparalleled intensity over 300 years, is that ingrained? edit: I only know UK as an imperialist

Re: One Guy Ruined Hacktoberfest 2020

#275
post #25

I have a couple of vaguely popular repos on github (~100,000 downloads a month) Generally speaking, (T-shirt farming aside), if you find a genuine typo, or small way to improve documentation, then that PR will be very much appreciated. README-typos are quite visible, yet easy for maintainers to overlook. If you are new to GitHub, please do not be discouraged, and as with editing Wikipedia- be bold. (In the large sche…

On the other hand, I was told by boost project that my one line fix for a typo was "waste of maintainer time", so it seems to vary on per-project basis :)

Re: One Guy Ruined Hacktoberfest 2020

#276

As an Indian, I think here some points I think western world needs to know about India. * "Gaming the system" to get your desired outcome is widely accepted in Indian society. Especially if it doesn't involve breaking any laws (not ethics). Even in many cases Gaming the system by breaking the law is considered OK as long as one doesn't get caught doing it. (In fact this might be the only way to come up in politics in…

I live in a post-soviet country and the ~50 years of soviet planned-economy, arbitrary laws and constant shortages combined with an illegitimate regime (as any foreign power that is ruling by force on your turf is by definition) meant that people got a pretty deep ingrained attitude of "gaming the system" even tho there's almost 30 years of self rule. It is slowly fading away and being replaced by the capitalist "gro…

> It is slowly fading away and being replaced by the capitalist "growth hacking" which I'm not sure is a lot different.

There's definitely a blurry line there. I'm not completely clear what "growth hacking" means, but I definitely think SEO crosses a line (basically hacking google's algorithm to mislead them and their customers). Even worse would be things like paying for fake traffic to drive up ad revenue. People generally understand there is a line between legitimate business and scamming people, even when greed/desperation drives them to bend the rules somewhat and rationalize it.

Re: One Guy Ruined Hacktoberfest 2020

#277
post #223
post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also bad from Hacktoberfest that they reward unmerged PRs. It would be better if they only rewarded PRs that are actually accepted or at least do something meaningful.

I worry the spammy set would then turn into a competition on how to harass maintainers to "merge my PR really quickly please please please!", but maybe.

I've already seen (and dismissed) almost exactly that wording.

Re: One Guy Ruined Hacktoberfest 2020

#278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But to that intensity, ingrained-ness? That's not how it is in the UK[0] - to anywhere near that degree I mean. edit: the UK is the only culture I'm really familiar with

you did rob us with unparalleled intensity over 300 years, is that ingrained? edit: I only know UK as an imperialist

This made me chuckle. I only know US as an immigrant.

Re: One Guy Ruined Hacktoberfest 2020

#279

I fail to see how that person can be blamed for making a video showing how to make pull requests. It's the organizers of the Hacktoberfest who make people look for his tutorial. What's next, blaming people who create "Learning To Program" videos on all the bad code that exists in the world?

> making a video showing how to make pull requests

Except when it's a video clearly titled "win free shit" by abusing a system and the means to do it involve a pull request.

If I make a video on how-to insurance fraud by setting a car on fire, would you defend me by saying it's just a video about combustion?

Re: One Guy Ruined Hacktoberfest 2020

#280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I request every one of my followers to make 20 spam PRs so at least 4 sit for more than a week Is this true? I don’t speak Hindi but this is exactly opposite to what the pull quotes on the original article say that he said.

He did, his statements (translated to English) were: -"Don't send PR to popular repos, they'll mark it as spam" -"Send PR to repo with little activity, it'll increase the chances that it'll sit for 7 days. The lesser known a repo is the better, 4 out of 20 is doable" -"Hacktoberfest has had seasons when they didn't get enough participants and had leftover merch. I request every single one of you to go grab one" The t…

Ah that’s why my 10 year old dormant repository got multiple PRs yesterday
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