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We lost 54k GitHub stars

httpie.io

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Re: We lost 54k GitHub stars

#531

Post by [deleted] »

MrBlueIncognito wrote: post #522
rob74 wrote: post #501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But still, I also share the opinion that GitHub's UX for dangerous actions on a repository is currently already best in class, so blaming them for your mistakes is pretty unfair. To make your repo private, you have to: - click "change visibility" in the "Danger Zone" area of the settings. - select "make private" with an additional warning shown that you will lose all stars and watchers. Ok, maybe it should mention ho…

> And yes, sometimes it is important to expect humans to not make mistakes. For example, at railway crossings. Even if you drove over it 100 times and no train came, the 101th time you may still die if you don't check for a train before crossing. For somebody going through a railway crossing, yes, they shouldn't allow themselves to be prone any mistakes there. However, for the people involved in the construction of t…

[deleted]

Re: We lost 54k GitHub stars

#532

Post by dskloet »

rob74 wrote: post #501
wpietri wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suggest you read "The Field Guide to Understanding 'Human Error'". You'd learn a lot. https://www.amazon.com/Field-Guide-Understanding-Human-Error... My view is that expecting humans to stop making mistakes is much less effective than fixing the systems that amplify those mistakes into large, irreversible impacts.

But still, I also share the opinion that GitHub's UX for dangerous actions on a repository is currently already best in class, so blaming them for your mistakes is pretty unfair. To make your repo private, you have to: - click "change visibility" in the "Danger Zone" area of the settings. - select "make private" with an additional warning shown that you will lose all stars and watchers. Ok, maybe it should mention ho…

That's why a level crossing has a barrier that's only there when a train is approaching. Imagine the barrier was always there; that would be asking for people to ignore it.

Re: We lost 54k GitHub stars

#533

Post by decafb »

sriku wrote: post #481
vaishnavsm wrote: post #70

I really like this post. While the author clearly feels bad about the fact that they've lost his community and that GitHub didn't restore it (which is honestly what any of us would've felt under similar circumstances), they're also focusing towards the future and using their personal experience as a parable all of us can learn from. Lesson 1 on UI design I think is really important. I often think scary popup boxes ar…

He did have to type "httpie/httpie" in the box to confirm, no? I'm rather surprised that that didn't snap him out of auto-pilot mode. There ought to have been a DING in the brain seeing that the repo this is being applied to was httpie/httpie? OTOH, I haven't been in such a mode, so I really got no right to comment on this. Best wishes to the team -- that those who saw his post will restar/rewatch the repo -- and (fw…

By now I've become so accustomed to just copy the bold text from the line above it and paste, that it doesn't break me out anymore. I know I should concentrate and type it out, but in my head it has just become visual noise and a boring exercise.

Re: We lost 54k GitHub stars

#534

Post by kif »

davedx wrote: post #508

Contrarian opinion here. While things can always be better the Github UX is good enough here. I am reminded of an old phrase: “A bad workman always blames his tools.” At some point you just need to accept responsibility for your actions and stop blaming others.

Maybe the UX is not great, but surely having to type "httpie/httpie" would have given me a pause.

Regardless, to make mistakes is human. What I don't really like is how the author starts attacking Github and Microsoft, just because they can't afford to fix the author's mistake. A huge red flag for me.

Re: We lost 54k GitHub stars

#535

Post by jagged-chisel »

cmeacham98 wrote: post #111
vaishnavsm wrote: post #70

I really like this post. While the author clearly feels bad about the fact that they've lost his community and that GitHub didn't restore it (which is honestly what any of us would've felt under similar circumstances), they're also focusing towards the future and using their personal experience as a parable all of us can learn from. Lesson 1 on UI design I think is really important. I often think scary popup boxes ar…

I specifically dislike the "Lessons" section, as it throws all the blame on github and doesn't mention the seemingly obvious advice: "make sure you're not on autopilot when taking potentially dangerous actions, on github or any website". Yes, GitHub probably should show the stars in the warning UI, and hopefully that will prevent some of these mistakes. But GitHub makes it pretty hard to make this mistake already - t…

> the author had to _type out_ the name of the repo

I copy/paste the repo name every time I delete a repo on GitHub. Yeah, it’s still a minor impediment, but it’s definitely not “TYPE the account and repo name.”

Re: We lost 54k GitHub stars

#536

Post by hutzlibu »

fourseventy wrote: post #527
davedx wrote: post #508

Contrarian opinion here. While things can always be better the Github UX is good enough here. I am reminded of an old phrase: “A bad workman always blames his tools.” At some point you just need to accept responsibility for your actions and stop blaming others.

Couldn't agree more. The author not only messes up his own repo while blaming the GitHub UI, he proceeds to then whine that GitHub employees won't restore his data from a backup.

But the point he makes, is that Github made the same misstake - and for themself they could restore it.

Re: We lost 54k GitHub stars

#537

Post by legedemon »

berkes wrote: post #437
vaishnavsm wrote: post #70

I really like this post. While the author clearly feels bad about the fact that they've lost his community and that GitHub didn't restore it (which is honestly what any of us would've felt under similar circumstances), they're also focusing towards the future and using their personal experience as a parable all of us can learn from. Lesson 1 on UI design I think is really important. I often think scary popup boxes ar…

Github is built with MVC. On rails no less. Where problems like soft delete are hard, or even impossible to solve (in scale). Yet there are many architectures beside MVC. Many of them decades old. Proven. Established. Yet unknown to devs who picked up a rails book on day 1 and never looked back (I've been guilty of that for years). This particular problem is a textbook candidate for Command Pattern. The problem of un…

https://github.com/rubysherpas/paranoia is enough to solve problems at very large scales.

There is nothing about Rails or MVC preventing someone from doing this. This is a very common design principle for all kind of ERP and BPM systems: don't ever delete anything.

Re: We lost 54k GitHub stars

#538

Post by hutzlibu »

davedx wrote: post #508

Contrarian opinion here. While things can always be better the Github UX is good enough here. I am reminded of an old phrase: “A bad workman always blames his tools.” At some point you just need to accept responsibility for your actions and stop blaming others.

“A bad workman always blames his tools.”

It is a workman, who builds a very succesful tool for others. Not a bad workman by my definition.

And his suggestions of improving the UI sound very solid. Also I am not sure, if you got the part, where he pointed out, that Github themself made the same misstake for one if their repos. Sure, sure, all bad workman.

Re: We lost 54k GitHub stars

#539

Post by db_admin »

WalterBright wrote: post #196
wpietri wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suggest you read "The Field Guide to Understanding 'Human Error'". You'd learn a lot. https://www.amazon.com/Field-Guide-Understanding-Human-Error... My view is that expecting humans to stop making mistakes is much less effective than fixing the systems that amplify those mistakes into large, irreversible impacts.

My favorite is "let's imprison people who make mistakes". It doesn't stop mistakes, it just covers them up.

People are imprisoned when they are a danger to others or at risk of flight. Their time in prison is meant to reform them and help them back into society. The community is protected from further "mistakes" from a person, while allowing the person to learn not to make the same mistake again.

At least that is the idea.

Re: We lost 54k GitHub stars

#540

Post by WesolyKubeczek »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #290
ghoomketu wrote: post #17

That comparison spot the difference pic is really scary. I had to check it 2 times myself before I could spot that the last line is different. Now that you're on the HN's frontpage, hopefully somebody from Github upper management will see this and all will be good soon thanks to gold old HN (especially when they did the same thing themselves and restored it). Wish you the best.

In both cases the dialog clearly warns you, with bolded text, on a separate line, of the consequences of your actions. "We were in the top Xth percentile" makes the author sound like a complete tool and I have little sympathy for them, especially given they're already back to 3k stars. Expecting the dialog to say "now, you've got 50,000 stars, are you REALLY REALLY SURE?" is just infantile, but really matches the ove…

I'm afraid to think that these same people, having attitudes like this, are driving cars on public roads.
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