NFL claims $600M in Super Bowl economic impact. Economists say it's closer to $0 - <AUTHOR> http://www.sportsonearth.com/article/66544296/ <comment><USER2> What ticks me off and isn't mentioned in the article is how the U.S Government gave permission and classifies the NFL as a non-for-profit organization[1]. This classification deters millions in taxes that any other organization of its' size would ultimately be paying.

[1] [http://www.nbcnews.com/business/legal-procedure-critics- cry-...](http://www.nbcnews.com/business/legal-procedure-critics-cry-foul-nfl- defends-nonprofit-status-8C11412804)

<comment><USER3> Why does this tick you off? "Non-profit" doesn't mean it has to be a charity. It just means that they make no profit... All profits are divided among the teams and taxed accordingly. The money is being taxed, just not at the "top" level.

<comment><USER4> _It just means that they make no profit_

LOL. They make plenty, they just funnel cash to affiliates via the cost structure. Having a non-profit status enables this shell game by eliminating economic entropy.

Its 2013...this is not "news", its is standard operating procedures in many walks of life. Have you seen the television contracts for the NCAA?

Oh, wait...those are just a bunch of amateurs =D The players, maybe. But not the accountants, coaches, boosters, and administrators.

<comment><USER5> It is only a confusion of terminology. They have a lot of revenues which they spend before they can be taxed, so they declare a lot of expenditures but no profits. Many charities and religious institutions work like this.

<comment><USER4> This is true, to an extent. By design so-called "non-profits" are truly just restricted from paying dividends (which can only be paid from profits). This is illsutrative, however, in the broader sense most taxable corporate entities forgo dividends for a variety of reasons. That is to say, they find the payment of dividends to required subsequent re-capitalizations via finacial markets to have economic entropy. Companies retain their profits, as a result, for the benefit of management (avoiding market benchmarking) and to a lesser extent, shareholders. A non-profit and a for-profit company are not that much different it turns out once this is considered a point of equivalence. If you take that argument to its logical conclusion, its makes sense also not to pay taxes (more operating cash flow retention). Thus, from the perspective of principal-agent theory, an eefficientnon-profit structure fully capitalized and run equivalently a "non-dividending" but "operating profit" maximizing entity. The purpose of maximizing revenues less costs is to opportunistically extract economic rents.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is a strangely bottom up analysis. If a long chain of assumptions and wild guesses results in $35M sales tax revenue, it should be pretty easy to compare this weeks sales tax revenue to 52 weeks ago and subtract and see how it compares.

As a meta issue its a "belief system" so there's no point dragging math and logic into it. Exactly like debating evolution or other topics.

Comically, we got stuck with a new stadium because it was claimed if the local ball team pouted and left, all of us mere consumers would react by making huge piles of paper cash money in our backyards, and then light the piles of cash on fire. A complete lack of reasoning is BAU WRT sports economics.

As a startup issue you see pretty much the same style and type of arguments about the contribution of startups to the local economy.

<comment><USER7> When I lived in Southern California the NFL and its boosters were continually trying to get the taxpayers to build a stadium complex. The arguments always went something like "There will be X new tax revenue and Y new jobs." And that's probably true.

But if you took the same land and used the same money to build a big shopping mall your X and Y would both be much bigger. Every time local governments did a study that compared a new stadium to just about any other use of the land the alternative was better.

I'm not opposed to stadiums, per se, but professional sports teams are businesses and as such need to pay their own expenses.

<comment><USER8> There is one One Truth above all Else

If Running a Stadium was profitable, the NFL or the Teams would do it, Since they do not want to touch the stadium with a 10 foot pole, then you know it will not be profitable

<comment><USER9> Sorry, this makes no sense. Economic impact is measured in revenue to local businesses. Unless the NFL/team owns all of the local retail, restaurants, tolls, parking lots, tourism and associated taxes, there is no way the NFL/team could ever realize that revenue. We can debate the actual revenue impact (check out the "profitability" of the Olympics: [http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/07/23/157224211/olympic-...](http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/07/23/157224211/olympic- economics-the-pre-games-show)), but the standard you propose is incorrect.

<comment><USER10> The economic impact of a stadium or other large public works project is based in calculators that are usually published by the state economic development agency. It's more of an art than a science, and like any projection made over a period of 30 years, they rarely hit their numbers.

Public financing of something like a stadium or arena does three things: eliminates a tax liability for the teams/other users, eliminates risk, as the local taxing authority ultimately owns the debt, and keeps the labor and trade unions happy, and stadium projects keep the guys on the payroll.

Ultimately, all of people in a taxing district bear the burden of these giveaways. If I could apply for a full property tax exemption in NY, the $6,000/year I pay for my modest home would be used for capital improvements like a kitchen, solar panels and siding. That would give some construction dudes jobs, and generate more value. The government easily spent $100m on Super Bowl security. That's a lot of money spent better elsewhere or not at all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> In the last few days I've received a couple of emails from FedEx with the message below. No doubt other carriers have been sending similar alerts.

I don't know, of course, but I have a strong hunch that _none_ of the costs associated with this message (businesses unable to receive their deliveries, carriers having to make contingency plans and add extra staff to catch up after the "festivities", customers having to work around shipping restrictions and delays, etc.) have been accounted for in NFL's economic analysis.

After a great storm comes through, there are plenty of estimates of the economic damage it causes. Of course the Super Bowl has benefits that a storm lacks, but I have to wonder if the negative externalities are properly accounted for, or if they just tally the benefits.

FedEx message follows...

Operations During Super Bowl XLVIII

FedEx will be operating in the metro New York / New Jersey area during SuperBowl XLVIII festivities through February 5, 2014. Some customers in the metro New York / New Jersey area may experience service delays or disruptions during this time because of government security measures in place for Super Bowl XLVIII. We encourage all customers shipping into the area to check with your recipients to understand their locations relative to the security zones. We encourage metro New York / New Jersey area customers to track packages on fedex.com or by calling 1-800-GO-FEDEX. Our customer service teams can assist you in locating an alternate delivery location as needed. We have implemented contingency plans and our teams will minimize delays to the extent possible.

Please continue to check FedEx Service Alerts for details.

Shipping to affected areas?

To help avoid delays, we encourage you to contact your recipients to verify whether their location is open or able to receive deliveries before and after Super Bowl XLVIII.

Note that potential service disruptions may not affect FedEx Express, FedEx Ground, FedEx Freight, FedEx Office, etc. the same. This may result in different levels of impact as well as cities, states and ZIP Codes serviced.

Continue to check fedex.com for service updates. For specific shipment status information, please track your shipment at fedex.com. You can also contact FedEx Customer Service at 1.800.GoFedEx 1.800.463.3339 or stay up to date by subscribing to FedEx Service Alert email notifications at the FedEx Email Subscription Center. Consistent with the provisions of the FedEx Service Guide, shipments delayed due to Super Bowl XLVIII are not eligible for a refund or credit under the money-back guarantee policy.

</comment><comment><USER12> How about it's a zero-sum game: Entertainment money could be spent elsewhere. Actual economic impact is building a better tool or bringing in the harvest. Paying _this_ or _that_ entertainer to do their thing is meaningless.

(The Gross Domestic Product and other economic figures do not account for this and treats each economic transaction as equal. Additionally the knee injury hospital bill of the young player who never made it to the NFL also increases the GDP, adding to the confusion what "economic impact" is.)

<comment><USER13> Entertainment is essential; through the ages societies have allocated economic resources to entertainment in various forms. That's what the Romans did in the Colosseum. Without entertainment to unwind, people are less happy and they just might riot rather than bring in the harvest. So entertainment is just as essential as building a better tool.

Entertainment like anything in the economy benefits from greater efficiency, and modern economies deliver great value for the resources they spend on entertainment. There is cheap plentiful music everywhere, and lots of quick video available. Pro sports also provide quite efficient entertainment, as people spend tons of time not only watching the events but also tracking them and talking about them. It gives people a lot of enjoyment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> How about a negative economic impact? The event itself creates distortions that many unsophisticated merchants are not able to predict. I work at a restaurant, and the owner almost certainly lost thousands of dollars today due to very little demand. (We were severely overstaffed and also had to throw some food away. We weren't open last year so predicting this was non-trivial.)

</comment><comment><USER13> The "tourist displacement" argument makes no sense. The hotel market in any large city depends in part on having large events come to town: conventions, marathons, Super Bowls. Such events help drive the construction of multiple large hotels. Without the large events, there would be fewer hotel rooms in the first place and, thus, fewer potential tourists to displace--no tourists ever materialize without hotel rooms. With the large events, some tourists might be displaced for abnormally large events (and in NYC or in most Super Bowl host cities, the Super Bowl is not going to be abnormally large.) But even if this displacement happens, the tourists benefit during all other times because there are more hotel rooms for them--which lifts numerous other businesses in the city, such as restaurants and shops and entertainment venues.

</comment><comment><USER15> The truth is somewhere in between

<comment><USER16> ^ logical fallacy [https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/middle- ground](https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/middle-ground)

<comment><USER17> ^ Logical fallacy fallacy [http://www.fallacyfiles.org/fallfall.html](http://www.fallacyfiles.org/fallfall.html)

The beauty of logical fallacies is that you can use them to discredit anything you want. "Scientists are in agreement".. Appeal to authority! But that's not how logical fallacies work. You still need to provide a logically sound reasoning why the fallacy applies. Which you didn't.

<comment><USER18> He probably thought it is obvious. If it is so hard to estimate economic impact it might as well be over 600M or under 0.

<comment><USER5> This year, I bought a box of chicken wings for 10$ so I made his argument true</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Tech start-up profile: Huddle.net - <AUTHOR> http://launchlab.co.uk/articles.php?art_id=631

<comment><USER2> This is getting really popular - could anyone explain it?</comment>


GitHub isn't fun anymore - <AUTHOR> https://jaredpalmer.com/github-isnt-fun-anymore <comment><USER2> I've never considered GitHub to be "fun." It's a great _tool_ , though.

Most of my GH interaction is through my desktop system, not a browser (pushing and pulling checkouts).

I've been using some form of source control for nearly 30 years (since Projector, in the 1990s). It's a tool. A very, very important tool.

I appreciate many of the "glossy" features of GH, like hero images and GH Pages, but this shows how "out of touch" I must be, because I have never considered it to be a social venue or competitive arena.

It's just a place I keep my code. I'm quite grateful for it.

<comment><USER3> Tangential: what is up with this inflationary expectation that everything should be "fun" and "exciting" and "thrilling"? I feel like western society as a whole is thinking more and more in terms of a six year old. For adults, there lies incredible satisfaction in mastering _any_ but the most exploitative professions or jobs and fulfilling them dutifully, even if they are be no means "fun".

<comment><USER4> _what is up with this inflationary expectation that everything should be "fun" and "exciting" and "thrilling"_

A couple years ago I dubbed this trend "Flanders Computing" [1]. I haven't really given much thought about its origins, but it's probably got to do with the increasing demand for happiness that we Americans hold dear.

Collectively I think it's entered the American psyche that the answer to happiness is to avoid anything that makes us anxious or uncomfortable, which results in that toddler-level approach in many things. i.e. Ban things labeled "toxic", ban the boo-boos, keep everyone safe with happy feelings in this space only. But admittedly my thoughts are incomplete.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13353106](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13353106)

<comment><USER5> > Ban things labeled "toxic", ban the boo-boos, keep everyone safe with happy > feelings in this space only. But admittedly my thoughts are incomplete.

I think your thoughts are incomplete. What they are missing is the knowledge of and empathy for people who are actually harmed by these behaviors.

<comment><USER6> > _What they are missing is the knowledge of and empathy for people who are > actually harmed by these behaviors._

Don't worry, most people asking for such bans don't have any real empathy for people who are actually harmed by these behaviors either.

And inversely, most people who are actually harmed, don't care for such bans, they prefer substantive and inherent (felt and voluntary) changes, not bans.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Hard pass on the suggestion to add more social network features. Such features are only conducive to drama and anxiety, we need less of that not more.

<comment><USER8> Social network features are such a 2015 me-too fad feature anyway. What they should add is AI, or maybe blockchain.

<comment><USER9> Before adding the newest fad features, maybe the should go back and add old fads that they missed.

One big fad from 50+ years ago that I'd welcome is folders. I don't want to just have all my repositories appear in a flat list ordered by time since last update. I want to make folders so I can organize repositories by topic--just like I have my repositories organized in my computer.

<comment><USER10> The modern version is tags, but they lack good sorting/viewing for tags

<comment><USER11> Not wanting to start a discussion about graphs vs trees for organizing, but in my opinion simple folders are great to fulfill basic needs. I cannot imagine a book having no table of contents and just a list of tags with numbers indicating relevant page numbers.

That is just dumbing yourself down in favor of machine classification or search algorithms while a simple solution exists for this problem for higher order classification and context, which tags alone fail to provide, even with sorting.

<comment><USER12> Depends on a book type I suppose. Most have "index" section, which is just a list of tags. In recipe books I find it more useful than ToC actually.

<comment><USER13> I think it depends on your goal. If I want to browse new chicken recipes, I am going to open the table of contents, find the section on poultry and start flipping through recipes. On the other hand, if I want to cook a chicken curry, I am going to go to the index and look up curry, then find the relevant page.

Folders are great for when you don't know what you want and just want to browse or explore based on broad topics. Tags/indexes are better when you know basically what you want, and you just need a way to find it or items similar to it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Imo, Github has only been moving further in the right direction lately — and more social features ain't it, chief.

The better value proposition lift from giving folks and teams more free private repos was huge, and the increasingly-prominent integration of Github into enterprise tools is facilitating (if not helping to force) the modernization of enterprise dev outside the software industry.

I've never been a bigger fan of Github, personally. Microsoft seems to be doing the same with Github that it did with Minecraft: amplifying what it does well, fixing what it didn't, and making it more accessible to more folks the way they want to consume it — all while not compromising what made it great to begin with.

<comment><USER15> Second this. With GH now letting you create Organizations with private repositories, it's starting to transform how I store core on GH.

All of my "big" projects on GH have more than one repo, usually 2-5 depending on what all work needs to be done. Before GH allowed you to create private repos in orgs for free I had hundreds of repositories and had to name them like projectname-website. Now I create orgs for my biggest projects so all my repos are starting to look more like projectname/website instead.

I'll admit, very small change but helps me keep my Github organized.

\---

Overall Github has gotten only more and more important in my workflow. I find it amazing that this site went from "cool tool" back in my college years to "I literally cannot live without this tool" now.

<comment><USER16> >With GH now letting you create Organizations with private repositories

I thought this was always the point of Organizations..?

<comment><USER17> Previously, organizations only allowed creating public repositories, so they were limited to open source projects unless you paid $9/user/month. Now they enable free private repo creation for organizations, although many "business" features like protected branches still require the Team plan (now $4/user/month) [https://github.com/pricing](https://github.com/pricing).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I've sworn off Github for my own toy projects. The code I write off the clock is a form of escapism, I don't want to run the risk of having my repos nuked from orbit for any inadvertent profanity, nor do I want to triage issues from people taking issue with how I've named things, or forcing me to adopt an ultimately meaningless boilerplate CoC. I don't want to have to write a novel on why I'm not a racist or a fascist like Antirez recently had to.

I'm not implying that I would face all of these issues on Github currently. But I don't want to run the risk of being in that position and getting into a shouting match with someone - and then having to deal with all of the consequences.

<comment><USER19> The master and slave debate was dumb, and reflects a creeping of political correctness into coding and software over the years that I do not look forward to. React's keywords have been similarly attacked for promoting a "bro" culture with use of words like props or mount. And man-in-the-middle attacks are increasingly being described as person-in-the-middle, at the expense of alliteration. So many other examples out there.

<comment><USER20> This is a bit longer than I intended, but is my point of view, and not intended to dismiss what you're saying at all.

I think it's easy to dismiss conversations like master/slave whitelist/blacklist as overly PC or childish. I certainly don't appreciate the overly-preachy feeling I sometimes get from people pushing their point of view. And my nature is to find pleasure in giving The Man the proverbial finger. The self righteousness can be intentional on their part, of course, but many times it's not. I honestly get the similar feelings about the diet- of-the-year fad, too. I have been very lucky in life so far, in that I haven't struggled with weight or the negative impacts of racism. But I'm discovering that language is an incredibly powerful tool for changing deeply-rooted habits, like which foods you find comfort in, or your default reaction to conflict. When I've become an unwilling participant in these changes, I have to ask myself: what is the balance of pros/cons for me and for others? Also, what is my net influence on others who are attempting to do good (no matter my opinion on its effectiveness)? I don't think I've ever changed the default branch for any GitHub repo I've worked with. It should theoretically cause no issues at all, I suppose, but I can't state that with certainty. So there's a bit of a challenge that I'll actually enjoy. And I'm not aware of any culture or richness of vocabulary that depends on the dynamic of this set of nomenclature. Besides, I still see words like "serf" and "lord" on a semi- regular basis despite it's remove from our lifestyles, so these words aren't disappearing any time soon. On the other hand, it's hard to deny that racism has scarred our society very deeply. I remember being shocked when my wife told me how young age was when someone first attempted to take advantage of her for sex. I recently felt the same level of shock when my friend told me that she gets called the n word multiple times every day. If our vocabulary can change our mindset, then maybe removing the master/slave dynamic can be a net positive, like removing the vocabulary of war from our daily interactions. We end up turning to other defaults instead of the old ones. Maybe we end up no better off, and decide to change again. Who knows? But personally I don't see a lot of downside in the attempt to better our world.

<comment><USER21> My initial thoughts on the matter were similar to yours. Why not perform a simple search and replace on the source code for a contentious word? Or click a few buttons to change the default branch?

The problem is in the unintended consequences. Once we started accommodating requests to change potentially-problematic words at my last company, those words went from "possibly problematic to someone" to "officially confirmed as offensive by company policy".

From that point forward, many people assumed that anyone accidentally using those words had ill intent. This peaked when an interviewer chastised a candidate for referring to the "master branch" during an interview. We also had someone try to cause problems because our Linux systems had "man pages", which they believed was proof that Linux distributions were sexist. It's one thing to search/replace your documentation for a specific word, but just wait until you have a team of people brainstorming complex plans to remove "man pages" from every Linux PC and server in the company.

Ironically, once we stopped making company-endorsed efforts to navigate problematic vocabulary, the number of people offended or insulted started to decline. The policies had the opposite of the intended effect.

It's one thing to make a personal effort to use a less contentious vocabulary. I have no problem with that, nor should anyone else. However, the problems come when using industry-standard vocabulary is assumed to have ill intent. No one wants to operate in an environment where they can be declared to be racist, sexist, or otherwise prejudiced for using a basic technology term without ill intent.

<comment><USER22> > people assumed that anyone accidentally using those words had ill intent

That's becoming a thing at my current job. I'm just accepting that I will eventually slip (or even just fail to keep up with the trendy list of bad words) and get fired.

Guess it's better than being eaten by a bear.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> >I'd also be interested to see more social network-like features on GitHub.I wouldn't be opposed to a GitHub NewsFeed

This would genuinely make me migrate off github permanently, both for personal projects and work.

>project chat

IRC/Slack/Discord already exist

>or even DMs

A new avenue for recruiter spam? No thank you.

<comment><USER24> Agreed. HN and reddit are way better at helping me find repos that are relevant to my skill set and interest. It's like the author doesn't even try to utilize these other social spaces that have already largely solved this problem.

Sometimes I come across people whose idea of a perfect world is an app that knows exactly what to show them and when without any curiosity or effort, and it blows my mind. That is my hell.

<comment><USER25> I find HN and Reddit largely useless for finding new and interesting code.

The Reddit python subreddit is truly awful - it's just beginners sharing their first projects.

Whereas HN is largely biased to what's extremely popular and/or "cool".

<comment><USER24> Have you tried r/coolgithubprojects? There are a ton of great projects in that sub and you can filter by language, and they're not all trendy.

<comment><USER25> I have. I like it but it's a shame it's not a bit more active.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> GitHub's time as the "cool" option has ended. It has matured and moved beyond the early adopter community, and presence on it is no longer a social signal of any significant relevance.

I use GitHub to get work done, either on my projects or on others. I do not expect GitHub to innately provide me a degree of fun. That's the job of the projects, not of GitHub itself.

Zoom exited the early adopter phase this past pandemic. It promptly was given significant attention, reasons were found to declare it "uncool", and Jitsi was elevated as the next "cool" replacement.

This article confirms that GitHub is now exiting the early adopter phase. Significant attention is being paid to it, reasons are being found to declare it "uncool" — _but_ , no replacement has yet been elevated as the next "cool" replacement for it.

What will GitHub's replacement "cool" service be?

<comment><USER27> > What will GitHub's replacement "cool" service be?

Hopefully this will be ForgeFed [0] standards support, allowing forges such as github, github, gitea, sourcehut, notabug, etc. to interoperate via ActivityPub-based federation.

ForgeFed opens walled gardens and allows anyone to interact with any repo with a single account regardless on where it resides. It is still in early development stage, but received funding from NLNet which will be distributed among contributors working on roadmap items [1]. Additionally feedback is requested via the Feneas forum [2] so make yourself heard :)

[0] [https://forgefed.peers.community/](https://forgefed.peers.community/)

[1] [https://notabug.org/peers/forgefed/issues/87](https://notabug.org/peers/forgefed/issues/87)

[2] [https://talk.feneas.org/c/forgefed](https://talk.feneas.org/c/forgefed)

<comment><USER28> Will have to check this out :)

But is GitHub big enough they can just ignore it and go "bah we're too big now to care about others"?

<comment><USER27> Well possible. But probably based on GH API and Actions you can still support a bunch of federation features.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> _I believe the turning point was when they changed how the ranking system on the Trending page worked._

I had no idea Github had a "trending" mechanism. I just use it as a free place to store code repositories, of which I have about 20. About the only social feature of Github I use is "Issues", to report or deal with bugs.

In fact, I rarely visit the site with a browser. Most usage is from "git". Which is what it's supposed to be for.

<comment><USER30> >I had no idea Github had a "trending" mechanism.

Sounds like this article doesn't apply to you then.

>Which is what it's supposed to be for.

That's just your opinion. Clearly people have been using github for discovering new software and more. I have found plenty of cool projects through the sites features.

<comment><USER31> I use Github for discovering new software, and more. And a trending algorithm is of no use to me. I use search and filter based on practically applicable keywords and other facets that are relevant to my need at the time.

The author uses the phrase `the new JavaScript "hotness"` in the context of this somehow being a positive. Engineers going after libraries because of their "hotness" instead of because of their utility is exactly the problem with the Javascript (and other "cool" / "trending") ecosystems.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I don't think I've ever used the trending page in my 12 years of using GitHub.

<comment><USER33> Apparently that's where all the fun was. Live and learn.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> This reads like satire on the culture of trend-chasing, framework-of-the-week young developers that dominate in certain circles. Life imitates The Onion, Poe's law and all that.

If you're not one of them, and feel alone and outdated - don't. There's enough graybeards toiling away at the boring software that supports the world, oblivious of what killed last week's React killer. This too shall pass.

<comment><USER35> It's really fascinating how humanity can twist almost everything around and start seeing it from a bad perspective.

Maybe the author is a very engaged developer who already knows a huge part of the "boring software that supports the world"? Maybe he is so engaged that he wants to follow new developments in his professional area to get even better? Maybe he hopes that he will discover new and interesting algorithms that can help him improve his skills?

I think there is a point that simple algorithms are a better user interface, because of their predictability (although they show their flaws, like he specifically mentions with JS). Just try to remember how much discussion there was about Twitter's feed and their move away from a classic timeline. They still haven't abandoned the latter one.

But who knows in the end? Maybe your comment was just an attempt of satire a la The Onion? Personally I try not to prematurely judge and stay positive. To each his own I guess.

<comment><USER36> I see it exactly as the opposite. Github is a boring and effective tool for professionals, and the author has twisted it around to be a bad thing since it's not "fun".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I had no idea that GitHub was supposed to (or trying to be) fun.

If you're going to non-curated "trending" feeds looking for things that are already popular to pay attention to, you're not only wasting your finite free time but you're training yourself to be a follower.

Stop this nonsense immediately. Use your talents and build something great. If you never check the "trending" page on GitHub again, you will have a better life.

<comment><USER38> The point of the "trending" page wasn't that it always showed you React. It showed you tiny repositories that had exploded in popularity that day.

<comment><USER37> So what? Why would you drop what you're doing to check out something you don't need to know exists?

I'm not trying to be an asshole: focus is both incredibly hard and the only way to build great things.

There are a countless number of things you're better off doing than checking out new random shit. Those people have already had their success. What are you bringing?

<comment><USER39> I haven't participated in this trend-hunting behavior the author describes, but it sounds like it has the main appeal of HN—see new ideas that other people with a similar mindset are talking about. There's educational and entertainment value to that, and while you're right time is better spent grinding on projects it certainly sounds appealing to have a window into stuff other people are working on that is also mildly curated.

<comment><USER37> Fair enough. I'll accept this. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Good, let the people using github for fun leave.

Github is not meant to be fun, it's meant to be like a pen.

A good pen can be enjoyable. Beautiful. You can feel attachement to it.

But it is not built to be played with. By that I mean it's not its primary function, even if a creative or bored mind can use it for that.

A good pen fullfills its intended purpose when it disapears from your mind while you use it, yielding to the writting that should be the center of your attention.

I don't think about github when I code. I just use it.

<comment><USER41> A lot of people (who may not even be professional programmers) are using GitHub for their hobby, i.e. "for fun". I don't think this is an invalid use case.

<comment><USER40> If you write for your hobby, the writing is your hobby, not the pen.

Nobody said, "I can't wait to click on githubs buttons!"

But they might have said, "I can't wait to make this code available".

<comment><USER42> Sure, but Github is not only the pen, but also the publisher. People create things for others to use, not to be ignored

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Huh, TIL that GitHub has a trending page. I have a few projects with a few thousand stars, but have literally never seen this thing.

The choices on the trending page do seem weird, and kind of useless.

<comment><USER44> I remember seeing all the spammy garbage during Hacktoberfest, but apart from that it's a pretty random selection of repositories

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> Not touching that "Zero star hotness" problem, but

> ... lot project discovery has moved to other platforms, and more > specifically, to Twitter. This isn't good for the community.

Let me bring out my 2 points here:

#1: Hey, please ask your inner self why would you ever want to put out your own free labor out on the Internet in the first place? For common good? World peace?

I bet most people will answer: Be cool, be known, receive attention etc. Those GitHub stars&fork you've received will help you in your next job hunt, it will help you when you trying to introduce yourself to the other devs, it will help you to expand your people network. In short, those free labor generates something _good_ for you.

But GitHub has it's own limits. On GitHub, your projects are discovered/used by other devs, a bubbles of it's own kind. Further, those devs might not even want to give you stars because they're above your level and/or found your project uninteresting to them.

Social medias generate those "good"s better than GitHub simply because it got wider range of people, and greater chance to found somebody who is interested to try out your project.

#2 and more important: The GitHub Trending page itself is really poor when it comes to discover new things.

Just think: What's on that page? "Most stared today" list. Well yeah, then where are those stars came from? Right?

It's a "Trending" page, that's it. Not a "Hey, checkout these exciting repositories recommended just for you" page and certainly not "Hey, come here and checkout my new repo which currently got zero star but it's really cool" page.

I personally found ProductHunt, Hacker News and Reddit is a better source if I do want to "Discover" something new. Which I guess is why people are posting their projects there (as well as on Twitter and Facebook and other platforms).

</comment><comment><USER46> >> No offense to Stripe, but the notion that stripe-samples/subscriptions, which has 13 total stars with exactly zero new stars today is the new JavaScript "hotness" is a joke. This is totally useless to everyone.

THIS.

The new algorithm is not only horrendous but SUPER FLAWED!

Here is what happened.

After receiving 900+ stars within a week of launch - we never make it to 'Trending' weekly or monthly!! We were their trending for 3 days. Then all of a sudden we are gone. The rest of the repos which were trending with us with as little as 50 stars are in weekly/monthly trending!!!

Can you please help explain this @Github ?

When contacted Github support about this flaw - the reply was short (they dont wanna reveal their buggy algorithm! I was asking to look at the problem not to defend their solution)

Stars not only tell how cool a open source project is but also makes the new open source developers produce valuable work without next to nothing in return.

Just taking out this small dopamine rush translates to this - a good company (Github) was acquired by an old-enterprise.

<comment><USER47> > Stars not only tell how cool a open source project is but also makes the new > open source developers produce valuable work without next to nothing in > return.

Stars aren't payment. If that is the primary currency for your development I am curious what happens when there are no new stars? Do you kill the repo?

<comment><USER46> Stars are a way to bookmark and discover repos in the open source world. No stars doesn't mean no development - I am not denying that and appreciate your concern on how much vanity is in it. (I guess it is better than vanity of likes for a photo on instagram).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> For me stars on GitHub were me sort of bookmarking things I didn't use and.... probably wouldn't look at ever again?

Thus I always felt a little weird about the hype around the number of stars.

<comment><USER49> For me, stars are a rough measure of traction. If I can get a project above 1000 or so, my project begins to take on a life of its own, and I can concentrate less on marketing and awareness.

<comment><USER50> I would say that stars are mostly a measure of interest/coolness. The difference to actual people using it can be absurd. The biggest project I maintained had 5k+ stars (which it got by landing on the HN frontpage a few times), but the actual amount of people that tried to use it is in the 10-20 range. On the flipside one of my other projects has a lot more users than it has stars.

With all that, stars have basically lost all meaning to me if I'm looking at it as a project outsider, and only have limited meaning as a maintainer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> LinkedIn features on Github? Sounds awful. Imagine having to dodge Microsoft's typical dodgy dark patterns to access repositories. LinkedIn is one of the worst social networks, and employs dark patterns that not even Facebook has adopted.

<comment><USER52> I think it's a matter of time as both are owned by MS. Long term the middle management and profits simply prevail in large corporate decision chains.

It just make sense for them to integrate GitHub with LinkedIn somehow.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> GitHub has slowly phased away from being a website about the code, to being a website about people. Yes, people are an aspect of the code, however the site is no longer focusing solely on collaboration tools for working with code.

Author is correct, the "trending" now rendered on GitHub is a joke.

But what is worse is the "Explore" screen they put in. All I get given is a bunch of useless crap in a column that is 580 pixels wide. Half of the projects that appear in here are in chinese so I can't understand anything about them except the project title. The entire UX of this screen feels like a social network.

Bonus points: Another, stupid, pointless feature they added a while back: "[emoji] Set status".

</comment><comment><USER54> > (re: project discovery) We went from a flawed meritocracy to a social > network that promotes chaos, tribalism, and idea bubbles.

This works well in two senses:

1\. We went from a flawed meritocracy (GitHub) to a social network that promotes chaos, tribalism, and idea bubbles (Twitter).

2\. GitHub went from a flawed meritocracy to a social network that promotes chaos, tribalism, and idea bubbles (CoCs, them-vs-us narratives, a priori victimization, non-universal notions of "inclusiveness", "master branches").

<comment><USER55> How can something a meritocracy if it's flawed? Either you can actually assess something on its merits or you can't, and if you can't, then you can't really call it a meritocracy, can you?

<comment><USER56> Correlation is not zero or one, it is continuous. Correlation between metric and merit measures how flawed the meritocracy is.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> Communication of the open source community feels like it's down. Social media eventually killed forums and chat rooms. Social media if anything, made learning and discovering a more isolated experience. RSS isn't what it used to be either, that compounded with blog posts being down, and the sheer volume of bad tutorials, bad code, and bad ideas, it's hard to sift through it all and discover things of value.

Early Twitter were the golden years in my eyes. You could ask a question or post an idea and get responses from random developers. Now it's just echoes into the ether.

</comment><comment><USER58> This complaint makes no sense. (It may still be _true_ \- fun is subjective - but the article offers an objective argument for it that doesn't hold up.)

> _The Trending page used to be a straight-up list of the projects with the > most new stars in the last 24 hours across the whole site (and by > language)._

...

> _In this era of Developer Relations, VC-backed open source, and the endless > developer-content-bullshit machine, the old Trending page was one of the few > places left on the web where it seemed like the best ideas still won._

I've been seeing corporate projects beg for stars (from either employees or users) for almost a decade now. Meanwhile, I have never asked for stars on my personal repos and I think most people don't. If you don't like companies putting their finger on the scale, stars are the absolute last thing to measure!

> _The worst side effect of the new Trending page is that a lot project > discovery has moved to other platforms, and more specifically, to Twitter. > This isn't good for the community. We went from a flawed meritocracy ... > good ideas and good projects are getting lost, especially from newcomers._

How, exactly, are newcomers supposed to get stars on their projects without a following?

</comment><comment><USER59> Probably it's because of not actually caring that much for things that are fun anyway, but why would I want my version control system to be fun?

Does this guy complain that his hammer fails to entertain him when pounding nails?

<comment><USER60> > my version control system

You're very clearly confusing the version control system git with the platform for code collaboration github.

The first doesn't have to be fun (and I'd argue shouldn't be fun). The latter, however, can be (maybe even should be). OP can see fun in exploring new technologies, new solutions to problems, new libraries to use - and who are we to judge that? The trending page _was_ an interesting way to see what was cropping up around the platform. I didn't check it often, but I did check it from time to time.

<comment><USER59> >You're very clearly confusing the version control system git with the platform for code collaboration github.

sorry for expressing myself badly, but I do realize they are different things as I use bitbucket and gitlab as well.

that said I use them all as dumb, quick views for the current state of the project, with a couple of on/off switches to automate common tasks in a git project. I would like to keep my informational panels as low distraction as possible, and fun, at least as it is stereotyped in popular culture through the ages, tends to be distracting.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> Microsoft says they love open source right? They could just provide an easy API for the data that underlies the trending page, and there could be multiple spin-off projects that rank projects differently.

Same for many of the other suggested features. News feed for example.

In computers, we can make everything interact with everything, if we wanted to.

I also don't _want_ to be at the mercy of MS implementing or removing something. It would be much better if they had many open APIs to integrate with.

</comment><comment><USER62> I see a lot of disagreement with this post but I think it makes good points.

It's hard for small developers who make useful things to get noticed on GitHub. The only hope is to get retweeted by some established user. This seems silly, we need better ways of making sure people can find/discover good software.

<comment><USER63> The problem is that open source software is inherently trust-driven. I wouldn't blindly execute any random code on my machine, but I execute code from people or companies I trust all the time. Of course I could review the whole repo, but that always takes time (and even then you're not guaranteed to not be hit by an intentional/unintentional vulnerability), and it comes down to "well, would me spending time vetting this be more valuable than just finding a more popular, more trusted alternative?"

So it's hard to spotlight anonymous devs on their own, because you can't establish trust with someone who isn't known for anything yet.

<comment><USER64> Seems like the openness of software is orthogonal to trust. Would you no longer trust an app only because its license became Open?

Closed source seems to require more trust to me.

I think trust is very difficult to manage and do some checking of owners of PPAs before using them -- containerisation can help, but doesn't prevent information gathering and other trust-breaking activities (backdoors, etc.).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> I think, given his content, that this comment is overly broad. Instead, it should probably say that the Github trending page isn't fun any more.

And he gives a nice and precise reason for this: the Github trending page used to have all the qualities of a game. There were ranked participants and there was a clear, known score. If you wanted to do well in the game, then you knew exactly what you had to do. As a bonus, the rules happened to be such that the ranked results were actually interesting.

Now the trending page has an opaque score. Opaque scores and rules almost never make for a fun game.

Perhaps the results are interesting. If so, how do we know that? It's hard to judge whether or not they are because we don't know the scoring mechanism. So the page loses not only its fun but its meaning as well.

</comment><comment><USER66> I am happy with GitHub just being a repository for code. For cool project discovery I generally use HN or reddit. My stars mostly acts as bookmarks for projects I found interesting at some time in the past.

I want a reliable, boring GitHub. I will look somewhere else for fun.

<comment><USER67> /r/coolgithubprojects has some interesting links

</comment></comment><comment><USER68> Ending a blog post with "What do you think?" but not having any comment option. While the post wants more social features on another website.

</comment><comment><USER69> Github's a work tool, not somewhere you go to have fun.

This is a weird article because its main point is about the 'Trending page', which is something I've never heard of in the last 10 years of using github heavily.

I'm _vaguely_ aware there are some social features of github (you can apparently star repos, for instance) but I'd assume hardly anyone uses that stuff...

<comment><USER70> The beauty of Github is that it does a really good job of both.

Yes, we use it for work and it's excellent, but there are loads of fun, throwaway, educational, ridiculous and interesting projects on there.

The trending page was great because it offered a glimpse of what's out there and what people are talking about. If you don't care, that's fine - it won't ever affect you. I find it interesting for the same reasons I find HN interesting.

Github has had social features for a decade or more; I've been able to follow colleagues and friends, react to issues and conversations with emojis and upload photos of my dog. What else do I need? What does Facebook have that Github doesn't in this regard?

</comment></comment><comment><USER71> > The worst side effect of the new Trending page is that a > lot project > discovery has moved to ... Twitter.

Huh? No. I mean, I don't know what JS people do with their lives; I'm a C++ and CUDA guy (even though I dabble in some JS), and none of my acquaintances discovers projects through Twitter.

GitHub has this side-bar with projects I might find interesting and it often recommends ones that I do.

Regardless - I would move away from GitHub to someplace else if the exposure wasn't so critical. I would really like a cross-site federation mechanism which would let us try other places.

</comment><comment><USER72> I stronly agree with the trending part. I used to browse it regularly to find cool projects, that may have been on HN or Product Hunt or something that week, but now, most of it is Chinese projects that are meaningless to me or large businesses latest nothing github project they made.

<comment><USER56> Chinese projects are presumably meaningful to people who can read Chinese, although it is meaningless to you. You are free to learn Chinese. It is a great skill to have.

If more people who can read Chinese are using GitHub, why is it a wrong choice for GitHub to surface Chinese projects in the trending page? I detect the racist attitude here.

Yes, it is a bad recommendation, but the trending page is not personalized. GitHub does provide personalized pages for discovery. Do you get Chinese projects there too? That would be a bug worth fixing. But it is not a bug to have Chinese projects in the trending page. It is expected feature.

<comment><USER73> It would be a nice feature for non Chinese-speaking users to be able to filter by language

And actually it seems that Github just implemented this [https://github.com/trending](https://github.com/trending)

<comment><USER56> Huh, thanks for noticing ("Spoken Language" filter) and letting us know. That's great.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER74> The OP is hitting at a long lived really difficult problem especially for a place like GitHub - how do you display what people care about? - recommendation engine

Most stars in 24 hours? That gets the same group of 0.1% consistently at the top leading to a stale page.

So Github tried to improve its 'signaling' of what's interesting yet new so you can keep coming back to the trending page?

Is it stars the overall account crossed w/ new? Number of issues opened in 24 hours? Forks?

<comment><USER36> You're assuming that Github needs to provide a means for recommendations like a typical social network when I doubt it does.

I return to github repeatedly to interact with repos I've already found based on professional need. I neither want Github to recommend content to me, nor do I need it to; I regularly use services outside of GitHub to find content on it that's relevant to my needs.

Github is a tool, not a social network. I don't want them to maximize for "engagement"; I want them to fill my professional requirements and charge me a fee for their services.

</comment></comment><comment><USER75> I'll be honest I scroll through the trending page once a day. I am not sure about javascript because I couldn't care less about it, but I have to admit for many other languages, I do end up wondering how some projects get to trending...

</comment><comment><USER76> I could not identify with this article less. The whole concept of needing a "scoreboard" for open source software at all makes it seem like things have gone very wrong. I write software because I want to manifest real-world value, or at the very least to do something interesting. All the noise and clout chasing just makes it harder to find the quality tools which will actually help me do that.

</comment><comment><USER77> A major reason open source projects use GitHub is the social network features. It really helps you build traction and get noticed. Regardless of what you may think of it the trending page does indeed drive further traffic which drives adoption.

Otherwise we'd all still be on SourceForge or migrate to something more OSS pure like Gitlab.

<comment><USER78> We don't all migrate to gitlab mainly because Github's UI is better and because of network effects. Nothing to do with social features.

<comment><USER77> The network effects come from the social features. That was the main innovation over source forge (aside from git support itself).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER79> One thing I'd love to see is a flag in GitHub so the news feed won't be filled with repos that I have already starred (so you only get to see new things). This is especially useful as I have starred over 13,000 repos so most repos I will see are starred already.

[https://github.com/nikitavoloboev?tab=stars](https://github.com/nikitavoloboev?tab=stars)

And before anyone asks 'why star so many repos..', I do it for super fast access of repos I am fond of with [https://github.com/lox/alfred-github- jump](https://github.com/lox/alfred-github-jump)

Plus you can sort them nicely into categories later. ([https://github.com/nikitavoloboev/github- stars](https://github.com/nikitavoloboev/github-stars))

</comment><comment><USER44> cripes. It's a code repository, it doesn't have to be fun.

The reasoning in this blog post is why the web is full of anxiety-inducing anxiety

</comment><comment><USER80> Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Until I read your post, I didn't realise Github changed the algorithm behind the page. Until last year, I hit the treading page at least 5 times a day whenever, I got a short break at work. This year, I don't know exactly when, but I lost interest in the page and couldn't go back, no matter how many times I tried. At first I thought it was only me, very much like how you mentioned.

My opinion: Earlier, we had small problems in the page. Like 5 out of 25 in the list looked useless or wrongly listed. However now, more than half of the list looks wrongly listed and not interesting for me.

</comment><comment><USER81> I used to use the elixir trending page to learn about new popular elixir libraries. It had twice as many repos as it has now. Now it's garbage. I complained to GitHub when it happened. It's purely worse.

<comment><USER36> I've always looked to $LANG community specific websites for suggestions on new and exciting libraries for $LANG. Such federated discovery is much better positioned to handle the needs and quirks for each community.

</comment></comment><comment><USER82> Please don't ruin something that works fine by adding unnecessary crap. The only thing Microsoft has to do, is to take a good look at GitLab so they know what they absolutely NOT should do.

<comment><USER83> Hey efiecho, Community Advocate from GitLab here! I'm sorry to hear that you are not a fan of our actions and/or decisions.

Can you please dive into specifics a little bit and explain what parts of GitLab could be improved and what are some high-level things that you don't particularly like?

<comment><USER82> I should probably have been more specific in my critique, as it sounds like I think GitLab has major problems. It's just regarding the web interface.

On every other Git repository manager, we can browse source code, view replies to both issues and merge requests without Javascript enabled. But not on GitLab. I don't expect anything advanced to work without Javascript, but these simple operations definitely should and I think it's very bad design to have this requirement. The result of this Javascript overuse is that GitLab is both slower and a bigger pain to use than the alternatives. Use Javascript in small amounts were it make sense for functionality, not just for showing text, pictures or other simple things.

There, my two cents. So, what I meant was that Microsoft should look at GitLab and NOT copy the web interface. GitHub has a nice web interface, with Javascript in acceptable amounts and where it make sense, even the language details bar works without.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER84> The author wrote a whole blog post based on 1 example of 1 snapshot – the top result for the snapshot is indeed from the `stripe-samples` org, but the other 4 examples visible in the author's screenshot – cocos-creator, puppeteer, Fugiman, uxsolutions – are _not_ orgs run by major tech companies? And I'm an avid Github user but I've never read much about how the Trending page works, so I would've appreciated the author linking to even _any_ page talking about its past algorithm, or its alleged recent change. Instead the entire post is just rambling by what the author seems to think is happening.

And, IMHO, the author seems to be naive that the past system – "most new stars in the last 24 hours across the whole site" – resembled some sort of objective meritocracy, when such a metric could be trivially manipulated, _especially_ by established tech companies.

Looking at the trending page just now [0] for Javascript, I don't see a repo owned by a big company in the top 5. freecodeCamp/freeCodeCamp is #6 and facebook/react is #8.

[0] [http://archive.is/5FbTv](http://archive.is/5FbTv)

</comment><comment><USER85> GitHub seems somewhat intentionally not built for discovery. Which is fine, but I'll give some examples anyway:

Here's the organization I manage: [https://github.com/firebase](https://github.com/firebase)

There is _so little_ customization allowed on that page. It's very hard for me to tell a curious developer what's new or exciting unless I want to constantly adjust pinned repos.

Now visit this page on a laptop monitor: [https://github.com/firebase/firebase-android- sdk](https://github.com/firebase/firebase-android-sdk)

Notice that you're immediately presented with the folder structure and the README is "below the fold". So the developer's own words about the project are hidden unless you scroll for them. A lot of newbies get really thrown by this, they start clicking blindly into the code without knowing there are instructions below.

All that said: I love GitHub. I spent 50%+ of my day on GitHub and manage 100+ repos. But it's not all things.

</comment><comment><USER86> I never used the old trending page, but it sounds like the Changelog Nightly newsletter [1] is basically the same thing. It goes out every day at 9PM Pacific. It has 3 sections:

\- most starred repositories that haven't been in the newsletter before

\- most starred repositories that were created that day

\- most starred repositories

1: [https://changelog.com/nightly](https://changelog.com/nightly)

</comment><comment><USER87> For me, the question is not whether or not GH was fun and if I checked trending before (I did not, I'm the type of person who does not jump into projects in early stages).

If the trending page has been an essential way for projects to gain traction, then we all have been benefiting from it. If this change disrupts that flow, then we should all oppose it, no matter if we used it directly or not.

</comment><comment><USER88> > I wouldn't be opposed to ... DMs.

They actually had these!

I used it occasionally. It was useful. They obviously removed it. Imagine being able to message anyone on the platform about their repo or code. Imagine it being easy to find how to contact someone. Now you have to rely on the user adding public contact information on their profile which is a) not required and b) not validated.

</comment><comment><USER89> I also feel like the project recommendations on Github have become really... stale.

At some point, the sidebar would display a new set of projects almost every time you hit refresh. Now, there hardly seems to be any rotation at all; I've been seeing the same projects for weeks. Somebody should check if the cron job for updating the list has crashed :)

</comment><comment><USER36> Was github ever fun? It's a tool, not a toy. I don't expect my IDE to be fun either, I expect it to accomplish a task for me.

<comment><USER79> Why do something especially do something for majority of your life and not make it fun?

<comment><USER36> I enjoy what I do, I just don't expect my tools to entertain me. One can enjoy carpentry without expecting their hammer to be "fun".

I would strenuously resist any attempt to make any of my tools more fun at the cost of any ounce of productivity. These tools exist to serve the narrow needs of professionals, focusing on anything other than utility for the core group is counter productive.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER90> One of my first go-to web pages, when I open a browser, is the github.com/trending page. I find it fun (in general) to explore and discover the latest in OOS.

On the contrary to the negative sentiment in the blog, I feel GitHub "now" made it much easier to find the relevant contents and repos that I actually care about.

</comment><comment><USER91> GitHub was never fun. They don't care about spamming, maybe they even endorse it.

I'm not active on GitHub. I have an account, sometimes I file a bug or so.

Every now and then I get "invited" to some GitHub project I've never heard of. One contributor, zero stars, pure spam.

I always block those and report them as spammers.

GitHub, without fail, gets back to me saying that "oh, you can block him". That's it.

Maybe you could just stop people from spam-inviting hundreds of others? Maybe you could not allow invitations of people who never interacted with the person or his repo in any way?

But I hope they at least fixed their also very annoying notification bug where they sent me a mail that I was mentioned in a commit:

Someone had committed a binary file (image or whatever), and in there was actually a two byte sequence fitting my GitHub user name (two character name).

That's just idiotic. A few bytes in a binary do not "mention" anyone.

</comment><comment><USER92> I would love to see an argument in what way the "old Trending algorithm" constituted a meritocracy.

</comment><comment><USER93> The changelog-nightly digest will send you a list of trending repos, if you care about that.

I used to keep up with the trends, even on the trending page, but it's often that a big company will release something and it comes on the top. Stars are just a vanity metric, it says little about how popular is the project at the moment, how well it's maintained, etc.

But GitHub as a company is doing so much great things lately. Actions are a nice built-in way to skip setting up a CI. And the little things which improve dealing with PRs, for example, checking the file as reviewed, review suggestions, multi-line review comments, automatically changing the base if the base is merged, and the list goes on.

It might not be fun for the trend/hype seeking, but it's a great experience to work with it as a VCS tool.

</comment><comment><USER94> I'm also in the GitHub as a tool vs. social app camp and have rarely if ever had the inclination to visit the daily trending page (cue Pete Davidson - "my bad"). One feature I do like though is to see what repositories get starred by people I follow.

One thing has left me wondering after reading the article, is what the algorithm has changed to if it used to be just most stars in the given time period? Does anyone have any insight in how the trending repos are ranked?

For example from the article:

> ... the notion that stripe-samples/subscriptions-use-cases, which has 13 > total stars with exactly zero new stars today is the new JavaScript > "hotness" is a joke.

I'm left wondering then how did that get to the top? Views? Clones? API requests? Something else like paid promotion? Or manual curation?

</comment><comment><USER95> I wish I could do all the Github things from the command line somehow - get a lit of all my starred projects, turn watches on and off, etc.

The whole thing would be so much more useful if it weren't wrapped up in a web interface, and if I could script my interaction with my repo's better ..

</comment><comment><USER31> The javascript ecosystem is great (choice is mostly a good thing) but it has a really bad rep because of all of this nonsense focus on early-adoption of "cool new thing". That kind of problem is only exacerbated by `Trending` features like this. Good riddance.

</comment><comment><USER96> I have been on GitHub for years, and had no idea there was a trending page at all ... but then again I don't tend to "discover" new repos as a hobby.

(There is a separate rant about using github stars as a metric of, well, anything, but thats a thing for a different day)

</comment><comment><USER97> Have barely looked at explore that often, generally has little that interests me despite being fairly accurate with topics.

Following a range of people and checking the main feed from github.com now and then has always worked fine. Apart from some coworkers and collaborators the vast majority is people I've never interacted with, some are wellknown, many are simply folks I've come across over the years in certain fields of interest and seem active on GH.

There's a constant stream of interesting repos being worked on or starred with no real social aspect to it. As a discovery mechanism I enjoy the simplicity of it.

</comment><comment><USER98> Github is a bit of a social network for developers, and as such, shows all the similarities to other platforms: there are superstars, competition to be on top of some magic list of '10 most beautiful women profiles or 10 most popular JS projects' and etc. And the more people deviate from development towards social interactions,the more Facebook/Instagram/LinkedIn it becomes. Oh,look, I have 10 stars on my repo!!! Wait a minute,how come he's got 20??Just look at the way he named variables..Come on,who can vote for this????

</comment><comment><USER99> Thanks for the feedback on this. We are rebuilding Explore and improving the feeds on it soon, and would love to chat with you if you're interested. Drop me a line (shankuniyogi at github.com).

</comment><comment><USER100> GitHub isn't fun or not fun for me because of the presence of a Trending page.

I didn't know about the Trending page, so I never considered using it. For my personal developer literacy and understanding of the Open Source Community, it would be great if a global Trending page existed and functioned well.

As an indy developer or a developer who usually works on a very small team, I'd like to see the Trending concept implemented on an Open Source platform basis.

For instance, a Trending in Angular page, a Trending in Bootstrap 4? Hell yes.

</comment><comment><USER78> Does anyone other than the author use these features? I didn't even know they existed.

To me, and I'd guess to most people, Github is just a place to host git repositories, nothing else.

</comment><comment><USER101> I occasionally use the Trending page, but I agree with the OP on projects getting attraction because someone who has 12k followers on twitter shared a static page website.

</comment><comment><USER102> Here are four ideas for what a next generation Github might look like, ready for the next billion programmers:

1\. Simplify the Git interface to optimize for daily workflows

2\. Assume all code is online, all the time

3\. Invest in Github's people network

4\. Invest in Github's code network

What does the toolchain for the next billion programmers look like? I've written the above as if I were Github, but I think there's a fair chance they'll miss out on a lot of this. And that might just be an opportunity for you.

(from Sam Gerstenzang)

</comment><comment><USER103> I don't understand this post. Why would I care where my project's ranking is? Its already a useful project to me and others.

Is there some prize I'm not aware of?

</comment><comment><USER104> This [1] was posted here some time ago. It's been pretty useful for me for discovering projects, and it seems to be good at bringing actually trending projects to the top. E.g. at the beginning of the covid situation, you could see a bunch of dashboards, news trackers, or scripts to buy face masks etc. at the top.

[1] [https://trends.now.sh/](https://trends.now.sh/)

</comment><comment><USER105> Every day now I see one, a comment, a blog post, something that reminds me of the words of Charles Babbage:

> I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could > provoke such a question.

Babbage was talking specifically about Members of Parliament asking him whether putting wrong figures into his machine would result in the correct answers, but I find the remark generally applicable to so much more.

<comment><USER36> That quote fits perfectly for these situations where I find a suggestion so flappergastingly silly that I wonder if the author and I have experienced the same reality.

</comment></comment><comment><USER106> I'm not sure I can link the title to the body of this post.

What does the trending section have to do with taking the "fun" out of maintaining code?

</comment><comment><USER107> I've been using GH for over a about a decade. I didn't even know that trending feature existed.

Maybe the author is evaluating the tool by a wrong metric?

</comment><comment><USER108> A major regression in Github is in Notifications, which have a new interface.

I follow several hundred repos. Only the 25 most active are listed in the sidebar. There is no way to browse the hundereds not listed there for notification tallies.

THERFORE Github now hides notifications from small and nascent repos from me, and that's definitely not fun.

</comment><comment><USER109> I really don't need another half-baked social platform built into something that already does one thing very well.

</comment><comment><USER110> >>> The Trending page used to be a straight-up list of the projects with the most new stars in the last 24 hours across the whole site (and by language).

honestly, I never ever knew there was a "trending" page on GH...

>>> I always thought of it as the defacto front page of the open source movement.

and I am old enough to remember freshmeat...

</comment><comment><USER111> > The old Trending algorithm was definitely flawed, but it was simple, > objective, and ever so slightly ruthless. It heavily skewed toward > JavaScript and web development, but under-indexed a lot of backend and AI > stuff.

Isn't that super contradictory? How is the old algorithm both objective AND skewed towards Javascript?

<comment><USER112> The author didn't say it was fair, they said it was objective; objectively speaking, JS projects get all the new stars compared to backend and AI stuff, therefore are the most popular.

Of course, a more fair algorithm - if your definition of fair is that multiple disciplines and specializations, and / or language get the same exposure - would be to show the top starred / most active repos in certain categories (back-end, AI, specific languages, etc).

</comment></comment><comment><USER113> I never even realize GitHub had a project listing page. I miss the old FreshMeat (later FreeCode) back when it was the entire FreshMeat+SlashDot+SourceForge network.

FreshMeat was an amazing resource for new and exciting open source tools. Today ... it's pretty much just Hackernews, and we only get a small subset.

</comment><comment><USER114> If you're looking for the latest projects, I find YouTube to be helpful with these types of lists which used to get curated better by GitHub. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gM7XU2acXag](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gM7XU2acXag)

</comment><comment><USER115> I've always just used github as a source control repo. It's also useful that Google links open source projects when I search for things.

If the trending page disappeared today I wouldn't notice. In fact, the only time I ever read about it is when I stumble across blog posts that mention it.

</comment><comment><USER116> I never used the trending page. I'm a find-by-search user. I just want relevant stuff when I need it.

</comment><comment><USER117> Well, Microsoft has never made any acquisition look good. It's not something they're known for.

<comment><AUTHOR> The trending/discover algorithm changed before Microsoft iirc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER118> PSA: This is not about GH in general, is about a particular characteristic of it (The "trending repos" page) that is even possible a lot of people haven't heard about.

Also, there might be other ways to find out what is "trending" (And you should try to find them).

</comment><comment><USER119> Recommending github projects based on the github projects you already are interested in could be a problem that can be solved by a recommender engine like the ones from [https://movielens.org/](https://movielens.org/)

<comment><USER56> It doesn't work well, because people use GitHub's starring feature in many different ways. Star rating of movies is pretty comparable between users once you standardize it. Not for GitHub stars.

</comment></comment><comment><USER108> The trending pages were increasingly listing repositories from Asia, written in its native languages.

On some days, half or more of the top 25 listed repos were Asian language.

Today, anectdotally, there are zero repos in Asian languages in the Trending Today page.

This might be a factor. Politics? Ethnocentricism?

</comment><comment><USER120> Interesting to find someone using github in an entirely different manner.

Not sure I was ever aware of the ranking mechanics that can be so addictive if you take that sort of thing seriously.

I think I've relied on my projects getting stars as KPI for "are people using this?"

</comment><comment><USER121> > At first I thought it was just me getting older

You are still far from it, concluding from your problem.

Up to now, I never heard about this 'trending page'. I'm quite aware, that GitHub is also a social platform business including of course the whole associated industry of for example self-marketing as the compulsory 'side' effect (the term 'side' is debatable).

For me, it is a tool and as such in the meantime not the best anymore. The missing group feature (even true for bitbucket) alone was reason enough for me to transfer the better part of my projects to GitLab and structuring them there in a sufficiently satisfying way. Some of them are still mirrored on GitHub and thats it. Not to talk about CI integration and other features.

As for some other comments here - even for me my repositories are mostly my work. Other contributions are rather short-lived PR's etc. So, this is all fine for me.

</comment><comment><USER122> Github is a tool like a hammer. It is essential to get certain jobs done, but hardly going to win a price for the most exciting tool. I never looked out for trending repos, however, that might be a professional basis as a data engineer.

</comment><comment><USER123> I used to follow the latest trends via various blogs and websites. As I've gotten older, though, I've found that I get the most valuable insights into what's new and genuinely interesting from talking to people.

</comment><comment><USER124> I thought the fun part was being able to share code with the world and get contributions or even people interested in teaming up out of that? I have literally never looked at trending, and I'm not sure why I ever would.

</comment><comment><USER125> I was hoping he would discuss Github as a whole, as implied by the headline.

Instead he complains about the Trending feature. I did not even know there was a Trending feature, and I've been using Github since 2012.

</comment><comment><USER126> For a little bit of additional discovery and trending, there is also [https://git.news/](https://git.news/) , though it tends to be a bit same-y.

</comment><comment><USER127> GitHub was never _fun_ for me, it's _useful_.

I'd be happy to see the entirely useless "Trending" page go away, along with a lot of the social features. They take up so much screen space.

</comment><comment><USER128> It's hard for me to see how the "fun" factor of GitHub could be concentrated on the "Trending" page.

For me it's a place to do development. And it's been improving steadily on that.

</comment><comment><USER129> The idea of trending libraries / code seems almost antithetical to good software development practice. Favouring the shiny and new over the reliable and stable seems classic Goodhart's Law.

</comment><comment><USER130> "It heavily skewed toward JavaScript and web development, but under-indexed a lot of backend and AI stuff.

And yet, it was cool as hell that everyone was on the EXACT same playing field and scoreboard."

.....................

</comment><comment><USER131> They should build a product that runs in a terminal instead of a browser.

</comment><comment><USER132> There is a trending page? I use GitHub only to access specific projects.

</comment><comment><USER133> I've discovered some pretty neat projects from the trending page and the "Explore repositories" thing on the main page. So for me that works well unlike most recommendation things.

</comment><comment><USER134> Yeah, you grow, a platform grows, sometimes you grow into different directions. Move on.

And indeed, I don't need a social aspect, I need to make a branch from an issue, like I can with bitbucket.

</comment><comment><USER135> Checking what JavaScript projects on github received the most new stars in the last 24 hours every day doesn't sound like fun to me. In fact I've never thought of GitHub as "fun".

</comment><comment><USER136> One thing I can agree with: I've no idea why github never attempted a DM system.

I realize it could be abused, but being able to talk to people directly on the platform seems so essential...

</comment><comment><USER137> I need GitHub as a tool. If pragmatism and UX is ever affected for the sake of "engaging" me into social aspects, I would move my repos. I hear GitLab is great.

</comment><comment><USER138> I didn't even know there was a trending page on github.

> I always thought of it as the defacto front page of the open source > movement.

It seems more like an auxiliary curiosity at best.

</comment><comment><USER139> I have used github for years and I have never even realized there was a system of trends/top lists. To me, Github is Amazon S3 for source code and issues!

</comment><comment><USER140> So what are the alternatives to GitHub? Of course there is GitLab. How about Google Cloud Repositories? HAs anybody tried it? Any other suggestions?

</comment><comment><USER141> Funnily enough, I recently deleted my account there. Mostly because I don't trust MS and don't want to be in their ecosystems in any way.

</comment><comment><USER142> I guess i never viewed the trending page on github.

</comment><comment><USER143> So what is the scoring based on for trending now?

</comment><comment><USER144> This is shocking to me because I have been using GitHub for 5+ years and have literally never seen the "Trending" page.

</comment><comment><USER145> Oh man, I still remember the day I was #1 on the old GitHub trending page with ffsend. That isn't so fun anymore these days.

</comment><comment><USER146> I learned so many things from the trending page back in early days. A lot of useful stuff was there. Now, it is not.

</comment><comment><USER147> GitHub was never fun: it killed the decentralized aspect of git. It also killed git-based bug trackers and wikis.

</comment><comment><USER148> Quote: "After a lot of reflection, I believe the turning point was when they changed how the ranking system on the Trending page worked."

The turning point was the second it was sold to Microsoft. People fail to realize GitHub is Microsoft now and Microsoft is a corporation. And what corporations do best? Earn money for their shareholders. Everything else is just dust in eyes.

</comment><comment><USER149> I used to spend a lot of time browsing through the Explore and Trending pages on Github.

Now it's just useless.

</comment><comment><USER150> Should the title of this on HN be "The GitHub Trending page isn't fun anymore" ?

</comment><comment><USER151> > I always thought of it as the defacto front page of the open source > movement.

It's a proprietary site!

</comment><comment><USER152> If anybody ever thought of fun while using git, I would probably think that that person is a masochist. It's a tool for work.

It's actually a shame that git won over all the other DVS, because I used to find mercurial much more approachable and a lot easier to use. Mercurial maybe could be called fun, but definitely not git.

<comment><USER153> It's about GitHub, the platform, not git the VCS.

<comment><USER152> I thought you mainly interface with github via git but apparently most people go there to chat.

<comment><USER153> I don't get the sarcasm. GitHub, the website, where you make pull requests, issues, discuss them, explore forks and other projects, see their activity and connect to other developers. All very tangential to git.

If you never used any of that it's fine, though you missed out on a very nice side of OSS.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER154> TIL there is a "trending" page on Github. I think I signed up in 2009.

</comment><comment><USER155> Try changing the "Date range". You have it set to "Today".

</comment><comment><USER156> People here forget that Microsoft had its own code repository app which I forgot the name of, which was a flop then Microsoft just closed it. I wouldn't be surprised if GitHub ended up the exact same way. On the internet, there is no such thing as "too big to fail".

</comment><comment><USER157> > I wouldn't be opposed to a GitHub NewsFeed, project chat, or even DMs.

Please god no.

</comment><comment><USER158> "We went from a flawed meritocracy"

What does flawed mean in this context?

</comment><comment><USER159> I didn't even know that GitHub had a trending page.

</comment><comment><USER160> Use Gitlab. Better yet, run your own instance of Gitlab

</comment><comment><USER161> People really want social media in a SCM++ Tool?

</comment><comment><USER162> The old trending algorithm was too easy to game. Just get a bunch of friends to Star your repo and you star theirs and you both show up.

The current method is worse but seems less gameable.

<comment><USER153> "A bunch of friends" being about a thousand. Not that easy.

<comment><USER162> Well back in the day it didn't take nearly that many.

Nowadays you'd have to do a mailing list.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER163> TIL. GitHub has/had a trending page.

</comment><comment><USER164> thought this was gonna be about master/slave controversy

i'm relieved its actually about a real issue

</comment><comment><USER165> Github has a Trending page??

</comment><comment><USER166> Better'n SourceForge.

</comment><comment><USER167> tl;dr: trending page algo changed

<comment><USER168> Github has a trending page ? I never noticed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER169> Microsoft sucks the life out of everything they touch.

</comment><comment><USER170> its alright

</comment><comment><USER171> Social coding is cancer.</comment>


Learning by Association in Plants (2016) - <AUTHOR> http://www.nature.com/articles/srep38427 <comment><AUTHOR> Submitter here: Leaving aside the question of whether or not this constitutes _learning_ , which may be as good a word as any, I posted this in hopes the HN collective mind would offer other explanations for the observed results, perhaps even shedding light (no pun intended) on the mechanism. As stated in TFA, _our findings raise some obvious questions about the underlying physiological /molecular mechanisms by which plants can integrate environmental and internal cues and coordinate complex patterns of information during associative learning, so that a more effective, even adaptive, behavioural response can be expressed_.</comment>


Hedges: Is America Yearning for Fascism? - <AUTHOR> http://www.alternet.org/news/146226/hedges:_is_america_yearning_for_fascism?page=entire <comment><USER2> Short answer: no. But the Nation does seem to long for the days of the Popular Front.</comment>


Against The Use Of Programming Languages in Configuration Files - <AUTHOR> http://taint.org/2011/02/18/001527a.html <comment><USER2> _If a configuration language is Turing-incomplete, configuration files written in it can be validated "offline", ie. without executing the program it configures_

This is exactly what I've been advocating recently. Less power is good, if it means you can validate your config files without first solving the halting problem.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Reddit also has a discussion going: [http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/fnorp/against_t...](http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/fnorp/against_the_use_of_programming_languages_in/)</comment>


Ask HN: PHP Development Environment on Windows? - <AUTHOR> I no longer use MAC or Linux systems.
my mother had got me a Windows laptop Lenovo and want to play around with it for a bit get the hang of windows
I'm also interested in learning PHP Wordpress but mostly on windows
is there a way to set up a Dev playground on PHP?
I hear Wampserver or Xampp ? are those the 2 best options for window PHP developers. <comment><USER2> I would personally recommend Laragon: [https://laragon.org/](https://laragon.org/)

It's more polished than the older programs. It offers neat features like: quick apps, virtual hosts etc...

It isolates your php stuff, you can mess with it without worries

<comment><AUTHOR> okay another interesting answer thanks a lot ! appreciate this . So basically is like WAMP? OR MAMP? When I had a macbook pro I used MAMP and loved it .

but when I downloaded MAMP for windows it said to download a bunch of other Redistributables which took a while and headache lol

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Set up WSL for a proper Linux dev environment within Windows 10 [https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install- win10](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install-win10)

<comment><AUTHOR> wow this is very interesting have you tried it before?

I use to be for big on Ubuntu I used it for a long time is it similar? I'll look into it thanks a lot.

<comment><USER3> Yes it's awesome, you can install Ubuntu and everything just works. You get access to both file systems from each OS.</comment></comment></comment>


Neighboring flapping flags experience less drag - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/science/displayStory.cfm?story_id=12675918&source=hptextfeature

<comment><AUTHOR> Great interferometry image, and the actual paper can be found at:

\- <http://www.physics.nyu.edu/~jz11/publications.html#>

Background on the experiment setup:

\- [http://public.lanl.gov/wdaniel/science/turbulence/Rutgers01a...](http://public.lanl.gov/wdaniel/science/turbulence/Rutgers01a.pdf)

For nearby rigid bodies, the leader experiences more drag than the follower. This work shows that for nearby deformable bodies, the leader experiences _less_ drag than the follower, and both experience less drag than they would have alone.</comment>


Ask HN: Volunteer opportunities over Slack? - <AUTHOR> I'd love to help mentor/coach folks trying to learn programming, and would like to do it over Slack (or something close to it).
I'm thinking for others like me would find this to be an extremely convenient way to volunteer.  I could set aside an hour, or more, while sitting in front of my computer.
Ideally there is already a 'vetted' slack channel where people who needed the help were in need of help ... but not abusing it. I'm thinking of a Slack channel for a non-profit, coding bootcamp. Just to be clear; I'm not looking at making the bootcamp or something like it. I'm looking to just offer my services to the students in a way that works out with my schedule too; it would let me give more time.
Anyone seen something like this already that they could recommend? <comment><USER2> That's a fantastic idea! Go check out Slack List[0] for a curated list of Slack communities. If you look at the technology communities, I'm sure more than one would be happy to have someone to help people learn.

[0] [https://slacklist.info/](https://slacklist.info/)</comment>