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GitHub's fake star economy

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Re: GitHub's fake star economy

#291

Post by ninjahawk1 »

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…

$1M-$10M is basically nothing for the big companies investing, they can literally mark it off as costs, and if one of them so happens to actually succeed they make it all back plus some.

It’s not that they’re necessarily careless, it’s just that the bigger the net the more fish you catch. And when you own both all the fishing boats and all the nets…might as well cast wide.

Re: GitHub's fake star economy

#293

Post by strbean »

whatisthiseven wrote: post #180
bsuvc wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 I do it all the time, whenever there are competing libraries to choose among. It's a heuristic that saves me time. If one library has 1,000 stars and the other has 15, I'm going to default to the 1,000 stars. I also look at download count and release frequency. Basically I don't want to use some obscur…

> It's a heuristic that saves me time. A bad one. I listed many other useful heuristics. Do you not find value in them? Do you find stars more valuable than them? Take a moment to consider stars as a useful metric may only be useful for packages created prior to ~2015 when they weren't such a strong vanity metric, and are already very well established. This is preconditioning you to think "stars can still sometimes b…

Having stars isn't a positive metric, it's more that not having stars is a disqualifier unless I want to use someones brand new toy.

My first scan of a GitHub repository is typically: check age of latest commit, check star count, check age of project. All of these things can be gamed, but this weeds out the majority of the noise when looking for a package to serve my needs. If the use case is serious, proper due diligence follows.

Re: GitHub's fake star economy

#294

Post by jordanb »

HoldOnAMinute wrote: post #283
next_xibalba wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually think this take is wrong... but the moment Travis Kalanick was a guest and claimed that he was on the verge of discovering new physics with the aid of ChatGPT was an eye opening moment.

"new-to-me" physics

Not even that it was just a bunch of AI-psychosis nonsense:

https://futurism.com/former-ceo-uber-ai

Re: GitHub's fake star economy

#297

Post by nozzlegear »

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 always treated stars like a bookmark "I'll come back to this project" and never thought of it as a quality metric. Years ago when this problem first surfaced I was surprised (but should not have been in retrospect) they had become a substitute for quality.

Same here. I've starred over 1500 projects on Github over the years, and only because I wanted to save them for later use or as a reference for something I was working on. These days I'll occasionally use the star metric as a signal to avoid certain projects as overhyped (especially if the project has a stars-per-day meter).

Re: GitHub's fake star economy

#298

Post by rib3ye »

necubi wrote: post #273
rib3ye wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is compounded by young, newly rich tech workers (no kids, no mortgage, maybe not even a car) experimenting with being a VC because they've recently reached accredited investor status. and it's not just ZIRP. every recent IPO or liquidity event creates literally 500 more of these guys.

Those would be angels, not VCs. VCs manage outside money.

That's a really good distinction. I realize this is a little snide, but I imagine when they look in the mirror they still see themselves as Marc Andreessen.
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