Either way, feels sleazy.
[0] https://docs.github.com/en/site-policy/acceptable-use-polici...
1) it's a response to a user's request, i.e., not initiated by the repo author
2) it depends on consensus of the user.
3) it's not automated (most of the items from the policy are related to automation).
4) the repo author has no obligation whatsoever of maintaining the project. He is not paid or forced to do it.
5) if the user really wants to apply this change or disagrees with this practice, he/she can always fork it.
That said, I understand that it may still not feel "fair" compared to other projects that don't follow this practice. Or the feeling of "wanting to help but you're asked to do some things first".
Companies already do that to accept your pull requests though [0], which takes way longer than giving a star - and I didn't see a complaint about it on HN
Which may well be against GitHub rules but more than that, it's a stupid thing to do. Bug reporting helps projects get better. They're blocking real bug reports until they get a star. Seems like self-harm to me.
And dae's star count is basically a lie - it does not represent how many people liked it, but rather how many people had found annoying bugs in it. Someone who is forced to use dae and hates it would still need to star it. And as you said, other projects who don't have this practice are in disadvantage.
(And that's why I have no problem with things like CLAs, or requiring details bug reports: they are not user-visible and they don't mess with global rating.)
versus
gaining one (1) point on GitHub
Truly craven that this is coming from an automated bot. The extent to which social media likes have broken peoples' brains is something to behold.
I really don't understand the "seems fair" comments.
I (stupidly I see now) treat the stars as feature just for me, like a bookmark in my own browser. There for my use, not anyone else's.
Obviously that was silly since they are public and anything that is public is someone somewhere's currency, and anything that is currency will expose the lowest of the low human behavior.
And this IS automated. The automation is in the form of a policy rather than a scripting language, but it's still a mechanistic rule where a star is produced by application of an if-this-then-that, and by a transaction, purchased exactly like with money. By at least those TWO different means this is not an honest reflection of a users regard or admiration or expression of value.
Github surely would see that as devaluing stars and harming a feature of their site. Surely github does not want stars to become like amazon reviews.
1) The best possible reason is work-life balance, "hey I'm not getting paid for this," etc etc. I am not demanding that dae's maintainers accept the change simply because it's a good idea.
2) An unpleasant but probably acceptable reason is obstinance, stubbornness, etc. Maybe you're wrong, the feature is a bad idea. But even if you're right, sometimes you have to accept the aesthetic/ideological quirks of the devs.
3) The worst possible reason for denying a feature request is pettiness or narcissism, which is exactly what dae is doing. Perhaps the user had legitimate reasons for not starring the repo (GitHub "learns from" your stars and will suggest related repos in discovery, which can be annoying). But the idea of labelling CI tests as a "wontfix" until you get a stupid GitHub star is just horrendous open-source management.
I like that it lets me open files without JavaScript enabled and search the code without logging in. I still use GitHub.com to read the issues on a couple repos though.
Example of what gitweb looks like: https://sourceware.org/git/ - There's also cgit which is similar: https://git.kernel.org/
1) Good: This adds "just" a touch of friction to things. You can't just do a drive-by on the project like so many thanks to ill-advised "social good" corporate review policies (screw you, Google, for pioneering that). You have to at least star it which at least signifies some level of commitment, identity, and existence.
2) Bad: This causes an inflation war between those projects that do this organically and those that force people to star them. It squashes the signal in the idea of stars.
Github is going to have to remove identity from the stars if they want to stop this from descending into chaos.
They were still of use to me, and in cases did implement those features later on.
Also, as a rebellious streak I am much less likely to star something that already has (proportionately) a bunch of stars.
What signal? To me, starring a Github project means "I'm interested enough in this project to want to be able to find it again". That's a significantly lower bar than the poster had here, of "I've a new feature proposed for this project, and I'm even interested in implementing it myself if the maintainer agrees".
There's a loose correlation of stars with quality/popularity/ activity. All of those correlations should become stronger by having active users and bug reporters star the project.
Well if you're policy is to keep track of issues based on who stars the project, having a lot of stars means poor quality then.
I kind of understand their twisted logic but at the end of the day it just doesn't feel right.
There are plenty of projects who do not need this kind of policy to have a lot of stars.
1. The issue writer will invest time and efforts, and publish their findings. Nobody's time is free: the maintainer's time is precious, and so is a user's.
2. Now, _after_ the issue is published, the maintainer additionally asks for a certain condition (give money or a star) to be satisfied.
What if the issue writer does not want to give that thing? The maintainer is now in an unfair position: they can still read the published issue, improve their software, but is not obliged to give any feedback or even credit the reporter.
It would be fairer if the condition was clearly conveyed to the reporter before they write any words. The system should simply not allow these issues written by the dissents to be created in the first place, and in that case the funny duck would also not appear before our eyes.
All this for a measly 1500 stars
- more bug reports
- more community documentation
- more user testing
- etc
I don't mind being prompted for a review after the fact (because sure, I will forget otherwise), but it should be a prompt, not a beg.
A star is me saying "I admire this".
This is saying "hey you, admire me."
Super gross. How is anyone here trying to say that's reasonable?
And aside from being low, forget that, it's also stupid because it hurts your own self. Some users do submit feature requests in a demanding entitled manner, but most don't and even those that do are all still useful information about what the users want.
This user is only submitting an idea for consideration, and offering to do the work themselves if the idea is agreed with.
The devs* response to this is utterly bizarre in that context. "I won't hear your idea unless you like me." ??? The user is trying to GIVE them something!
Not all gifts are desirable of course but the value or fitness of the pr was never even considered in this case. They are refusing to even look in the bag to see if it's a turd or a gold brick unless the user claims to like them.
* devs bot, aka, which would seem to pretty squarely hit the acceptable use terms that specifically covers stars and automation and authentic user interactions. Not only is the devs policy a form of automation in that it's a plain mechanistic rule no different from a line of code, and is also a transaction like buying amazon reviews, on top of that it's literally a bot implementing the policy!
Automated scanners, fuzzers, security researchers, and people who found an issue via a dependent codebase, are all examples where an issue might be filed but the person otherwise has no interest.
What a nonsense thing to have. It's not harmless, especially for large projects. It'll discourage and even runs the risk of artificially covering up potential security issues.
In this case it's a "hey I want to make a patch, would you accept it?" type of question, and not really a bug report or feature request as such. I'd say that's valuable.
What some might not realize is the sheer volume of requests that maintainers of popular open source software projects have competing for their attention on a daily basis (I do not speak from experience but from reading/listening to reports from those that do).
Adding a bit of friction to any of those attention grabbing things, like here through the use of an bot, is a good way of reducing that noise at least somewhat. It isn't a perfect system, but it is the one this maintainer choose to use.
iconic
Filing an issue is not equivalent or a reasonable stand-in for interest and DEFINITELY not for regard or admiration.
It actually makes the star count represent the interest in project. After all no one would be making bug report if they didn't have a reason. Probably because they have problem or want to use project.
If GH had levels of stars it might have be been better.
Can't projects say they'll only support people who really like the project or are people thinking OSS comes with entitlements for unpaying users.
> It's not like you pay for stars or it is burdensome to click on the star button.
Imagine being allowed to comment here only after [starring] something. It's not like you pay for [stars] or it is burdensome to click on the [star] button.
