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We lost 54k GitHub stars

httpie.io

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Re: We lost 54k GitHub stars

#661

Post by bmacho »

yreg wrote: post #631
kif wrote: post #625

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At my company, we had like 3-4 steps, each with clear wording to cancel a subscription, and they had to type something in the end to confirm. Guess what? We still had tickets asking to restore their subscriptions :)

I was mesmerised how the Japanese train operators (and perhaps other similar workers) have to follow checklists where they physically point[0] at everything they are doing even when they are alone. Now I'm wondering whether this approach actually works. [0] - https://youtu.be/9LmdUz3rOQU?t=66

I think that's a different matter. Using checklists to automate a task, and make sure you don't skip any is working. Random obstacles before dangerous acts IMO make little to no use. Before destroying a house a checklist can ensure that they checked if there are anyone in the building (i seriously have no idea how they do that), but requiring them to stand on one leg with pinched nose, I don't think that'd have any use.

Re: We lost 54k GitHub stars

#662

Post by chefandy »

wpietri wrote: post #618
chefandy wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty much agree— Universal human fallibility is not an avoidable moral failure, but looking down on those who've made, admitted, and taken responsibility for simple mistakes sure is. Unrealistic assumptions about people's attention, processing capability, and physical capabilities may be the greatest hurdle when trying to actually solve people's problems with software. It can even be a safety issue— consider the Th…

> The challenge screen does require typing in the repo name which is a pretty solid attention-getter. This is not quite correct. In requires inputting the repo name. It's attention-getting the first time. But recently with some colleagues as part of a handoff we went through 50+ repos and archived the irrelevant ones. Very quickly the person doing the actual archiving went from typing to just copy-pasting the repo na…

That's fine. The goals of designing a sanity check prompt to snap people out of autopilot are entirely different from goals you might have in a security system— their being defeatable isn't even a flaw. Jersey barriers vs rumble strips.

If someone deliberately doing the same thing over-and-over can avoid the manual effort, that's fine. Their frustration would likely make them think about it less. You don't, and shouldn't get prompted to do the same thing using the API, either.

Re: We lost 54k GitHub stars

#663

Post by ncmncm »

layer8 wrote: post #254
ncmncm wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless, of course, if they just changed the column setting from "starred" to "was starred". As they could do. If they cared.

That’s why I wrote “IF they delete everything”. You’re saying they shouldn’t delete everything, which I agree with, but that’s not the case I was addressing.

OK, sorry.

Re: We lost 54k GitHub stars

#665

Post by loa_in_ »

judge2020 wrote: post #629
loa_in_ wrote: post #490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was known and there are many sites scraping GH for metadata that will have it anyway

Not whether or not a repo exists after it's set private.

This information is useless. It leaks nothing but name and existence of something once public (that vanished from public view). Most importantly it's not confidential or critical in any way

Re: We lost 54k GitHub stars

#666

Post by alecbz »

mattcwilson wrote: post #634
alecbz wrote: post #551

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“I accidentally made a repo private, which resulted in all of its stars being removed.”

From the post: > Due to an unfortunate sequence of events, I accidentally made the project’s repository private for a moment. And GitHub cascade-deleted our community that took 10 years to build. This reads the same, to me, in terms of cause and effect.

In terms of cause and effect yes, in terms of attribution no.

Re: We lost 54k GitHub stars

#667

Post by sriku »

decafb wrote: post #533
sriku wrote: post #481

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Aha .. perhaps the interface can be changed to prevent copy-paste into that field.

Re: We lost 54k GitHub stars

#668

Post by Thorentis »

NoboruWataya wrote: post #569

> The problem is that the box looks exactly the same for repos with no commits and stars and for repos with a decade-long history and 55k stargazers and watchers. And it says “Warning: this is a potentially destructive action.” It seems a bit much to expect the website to show you a warning of different levels of severity depending on the stars a repos has, particularly when the standard message is pretty severe and…

The issue wasn't that the warning was different, it's that the user level README repo is named "username/username", but the organisation README is named "org/.githib". The person typed "org/org" on autopilot, thinking that orgs worked the same as users. This is a product inconsistency that is not immediately obvious and since there are product differences, the dialog for orgs vs users should definitely be different.

Re: We lost 54k GitHub stars

#669

Post by swiftcoder »

jacobsenscott wrote: post #658
swiftcoder wrote: post #489

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But you would hope there are a few gh engineers who would be motivated to do so without manager approval in the dead of night because httpie is great On the other hand, you should really, really, really hope that GitHub has internal guardrails to prevent their engineers making cowboy edits to the production databases without manager approval.

Haven't worked there, but I assume one engineer just needs one other engineer to approve their PR. I would be pretty surprised if it was more robust that that.

I haven't worked at GitHub either, but I did work at AWS, where a change to a production database required filing a detailed CM (change management form) with step-by-step details of the operations to be completed + monitoring criteria + rollback plans. That CM had to be approved by the senior eng staff of all affected teams, plus the full management chain, and in a high-profile issue like this, the PR/comms teams as well.

Re: We lost 54k GitHub stars

#670

Post by burnished »

mattcwilson wrote: post #370
burnished wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think in the "But theres a confirmation box, right?" and if I had to quote a portion I'd quote >>"To paraphrase, the box tells you “You’re about to demolish a house. If there are any people inside, they will all die”. But it doesn’t include anything specific to break you out of your auto-pilot mode if you’ve confused the address and think you’re looking at an empty house." >>"The dialog should be more contextual an…

Thank you for quoting. I see where you’re coming from - the comparison to killing people is pretty hyperbolic. Do you agree that, hyperbolic metaphors aside, the UI improvement suggestion is a good one?

go back and re-read the comment you originally replied to
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