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GitHub contribution graph can be harmful to contributors

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Re: GitHub contribution graph can be harmful to contributors

#61

Post by grantcox »

MBCook wrote: post #29
grantcox wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that it's a largely irrelevant / frivolous feature, and if someone cares deeply about it, it's likely a sign of some deeper psychological issue. But deeper psychological issues are real, and gamification definitely pushes a certain agenda. When that agenda (in this case "streaks" and "commits per day") isn't really serving a community, it would be sensible for the community to tweak those rules. Putting some…

Just because you don't see a problem you assign mental illness in the poster? That seems very harsh.

"Mental illness" and "psychological problems" both have such unfair negative connotations. But yes, if someone is finding the pressure of an activity graph and "breaking a streak" is negatively impacting their work-life balance, I think they likely have a problem.

These problems are quite common, hence the great success of free-to-play, extremely-gamified mobile apps. In many of those cases exploiting the most vulnerable users is the entire point, but not so for Github. So for Github to consider how they can maintain the interesting / fun / motivating (or irrelevant) aspect for most of their users, but temper the positive/negative reinforcements that some people may find literally addictive, it seems quite responsible.

Re: GitHub contribution graph can be harmful to contributors

#62

Post by ocdtrekkie »

I use the contribution graph and streak count to encourage me to keep working on a side project of mine. I don't do development for my job, and my side projects I regularly abandon.

Trying to use the GitHub streaks feature to encourage me to make at least a small commit to my side project every day has actually led to me getting much further on it and working much more on it than I ever expected. It keeps me looking at and going back to my code.

Yes, it's irrelevant and frivolous. Yes, it's easy to cheat on (if you feel like cheating yourself). But you can use it for good if you want to, and I'm glad it's there.

Re: GitHub contribution graph can be harmful to contributors

#63

Post by ronnier »

Khao wrote: post #2

Is this an April Fools joke? I've never seen anyone who gave a fuck about their contribution graph and record streak, except for devs who developped clever git repos that make your contribution graph show pixel art (which is pretty awesome). I want to say if you feel pressure when looking at your contribution graph, it's all in your head and you should take a break because you're clearly not thinking straight.

I saw people talk about it at Amazon (internally there's the exact same concept as github's contribution graph)

Re: GitHub contribution graph can be harmful to contributors

#64

Post by p4wnc6 »

Khao wrote: post #60
p4wnc6 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people would not prefer that this information about them is easily publicly available like that, as I mentioned in my other comment about how this has come up in job interviews in a negative way.

If you contribute open source, your contribution will be out in the open. That's the whole point of it. If you remove it from Github, any website will be able to pull the same info and display it since it's all public information.

But few employers will navigate to a site other than your actual GitHub profile. If a third-party scrapes that data from commit logs, the employer has to trust the third party and also do the extra work of going to their site in addition to your provided profile, and that's far less likely.

Hosting the stats directly on someone's profile landing page at GitHub is incredibly, hugely different and more problematic than if someone else aggregates it later and hosts it elsewhere.

Re: GitHub contribution graph can be harmful to contributors

#65

Post by hk__2 »

emodendroket wrote: post #47
Khao wrote: post #2

Is this an April Fools joke? I've never seen anyone who gave a fuck about their contribution graph and record streak, except for devs who developped clever git repos that make your contribution graph show pixel art (which is pretty awesome). I want to say if you feel pressure when looking at your contribution graph, it's all in your head and you should take a break because you're clearly not thinking straight.

Why does this site, and Github, and StackOverflow, among others, all feature a points/reputation system? After all, they're all meaningless; you can't go cash them in somewhere. And yet it still affects user behavior.

You can’t cash personal satisfaction; that doesn’t mean it’s meaningless. The reputation system feeds you with rewards so you continue.

Re: GitHub contribution graph can be harmful to contributors

#66

Post by bjourne »

Everybody should know that working on free software in general is not healthy. :) There is no way that the fame, name recognition in the community, gratefulness received, CV padding or whatever makes up for your hours of free work. The time investment wont pay off.

BUT if it is the act of writing code you like, then that doesn't matter. The "work" itself is the reward.

Re: GitHub contribution graph can be harmful to contributors

#68

Post by mitchty »

whichdan wrote: post #48
jerf wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Exclusionary" connotes a lot of things nowadays, especially something like "something that 80% of the people within the culture can do and they lock out those that can't". But the reality is that the vast majority of people really can't commit usefully every day. If I see a perfectly green graph, I assume it's been gamed. Even if the commits are real, I'm confident many days will have useless commits in them. Given…

Okay, that's a fair point. I do think you bring up something important: we're all aware that a perfectly green graph means that it's either been gamed, or that the person spends an inordinate amount of time coding, but someone new to the field would have no idea.

I guess I'm glad that my github graph looks like the end of a minesweeper game. >.Its not that I'm not working, just that most of the stuff I do I tend to either cleanup and squash commits for, or they tend to be very much research project type deals that sure I can commit something but most of the time it would end up as: "this didn't work", "neither did this".

I'd love to commit something meaningful every day but honestly can't be arsed most of the time. If I'm sitting there at a serial terminal figuring out why I can't boot on an arm board, what silly thing should i commit? I have org notes that document that stuff, commits are for semi useful things not a measure of work/worth.

Re: GitHub contribution graph can be harmful to contributors

#69

Post by emodendroket »

hk__2 wrote: post #65
emodendroket wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does this site, and Github, and StackOverflow, among others, all feature a points/reputation system? After all, they're all meaningless; you can't go cash them in somewhere. And yet it still affects user behavior.

You can’t cash personal satisfaction; that doesn’t mean it’s meaningless. The reputation system feeds you with rewards so you continue.

Yes. I agree.
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