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GitHub's fake star economy

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Re: GitHub's fake star economy

#381

Post by wolvesechoes »

nradov wrote: post #289
palmotea wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Again, VCs don't care if you'll make a profitable business some day. They're just interested in if someone else will come along and pay out giant bags of cash for it later in a liquidity event. If they get even one of those successes, all the stupid GH star watching pays off. And if that's true, they should be slapped, hard. They're no longer performing a socially useful function, and and have degraded towards pure…

You should start your own VC firm, solicit cash from LPs, and invest in companies like Helios. Go ahead, no one will stop you.

"Companies systematically operate in a way that negatively impacts the society" "Just start you own company bro"

This was, is, and always will be a most braindead response in such conversations. I bet you even use the word entrepreneur unironically.

Re: GitHub's fake star economy

#382

Post by godelski »

bsuvc wrote: post #143
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 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.
Sounds like it is wasting your time.

Just because you make a decision quicker doesn't mean you saved any time. It is good to save time, but not at the sake of quality. You spend more buying cheap boots, and they don't even keep your feet dry.

Re: GitHub's fake star economy

#384

Post by xnorswap »

triceratops wrote: post #327
mkovach wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 prevailing narrative here is that the team was actively looking to lose to acquire draft picks But if they don't care about winning, why bother getting good draft picks?

From doing more research about this, it seems they don't want to use the good draft picks, but to sell them on to teams that do want to win.

The draft pick is itself a commodity that can be traded*, so by losing they get a premium commodity, that they can sell on, and by selling their picks they ensure that they continue to lose to get the valuable commodity.

They even lobbied to tweak rules around selling draft picks: https://www.reuters.com/sports/browns-ask-nfl-allow-draft-pi...

* This seems completely absurd to me, but perhaps there would just be backroom deals otherwise, and having it sanctioned brings it into the light?

Re: GitHub's fake star economy

#385

Post by notamario »

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…

With this approach, which I wholly agree with, many stars means approximately nothing, but few stars signals risk.

It’s a bloom filter of sorts for finding the right library.

Re: GitHub's fake star economy

#386

Post by hnben »

matt_kantor wrote: post #193
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…

> If one library has 1,000 stars and the other has 15, I'm going to default to the 1,000 stars. Will you continue to do this after reading TFA?

<10 Stars is a strong signal, that a repo is not relevant to anyone except maybe the maintainer. This fact does not change even if other repos have bough 10.000 stars.

Re: GitHub's fake star economy

#387

Post by netdevphoenix »

whatisthiseven wrote: post #115
netdevphoenix wrote: post #110

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. You might not have but the makers of dependencies that you use might so still problematic.

True, but that is beyond my control. I am not evaluating every package within a dependency tree unless something happens, out of practicality. I have limited time on this Earth and at my employer. My job is not critical to life. I am comfortable with this level of pragmatism.

The same response applies to the dependencies that you choose.

Re: GitHub's fake star economy

#388

Post by gauravsc »

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…

They're doing it for VCs because VCs consider it proof of traction. They're not doing it to impress you and they don't care whether you check stars or not.

Re: GitHub's fake star economy

#389

Post by inanutshellus »

lukasgelbmann wrote: post #195
inanutshellus wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes and to be clear, one uses "TFA" to imply annoyance that TFA hasn't been read. e.g. "TFA covers this already."

That’s not something I wanted to imply. It can also stand for "the fine article". Is there a better shorthand for "the article linked at top of the page" / "the original article"?

And for clarity to @lukasgelbmann - I answered the questioner that clearly didn't know the term. I wasn't referring to your usage of it.

Context and tone tell the reader whether it's used "normally", tongue-in-cheek, or neutrally. ~\_O_/~

To ESL folk out there - the "F" definitely never means "fine". It's a cute and crass ... just like America. ;^)

Re: GitHub's fake star economy

#390

Post by matt_kantor »

hnben wrote: post #386
matt_kantor wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If one library has 1,000 stars and the other has 15, I'm going to default to the 1,000 stars. Will you continue to do this after reading TFA?

<10 Stars is a strong signal, that a repo is not relevant to anyone except maybe the maintainer. This fact does not change even if other repos have bough 10.000 stars.

I don't know how often this happens, but what about repositories that would "naturally" have <10 stars if not for buying them? Is the signal you're referring to still useful if it can be artificially silenced by spending some money?
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