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Comment by rilut | Hacker News Reader

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I don't know man, but look at @pixiuPL's commits https://github.com/ariya/phantomjs/commits?author=pixiuPL

Especially his own commits (non-merge commits)

Exactly. I mean look at his commits. Look at this file: https://github.com/ariya/phantomjs/blob/master/package.json (He created a commit only to add his how name as a contributor to package.json, which is the only name in package.json).

How did his changes even make it to the repo. There are commits adding and deleting whitespace with the disguised commit message of "Refactoring Code". I have no doubt on why ariya couldn't work with him.

Some of his commits surely don't even compile. This one takes the leading # characters off of preprocessor directives: https://github.com/ariya/phantomjs/commit/52e4849a36c68b15c6...

This is why every open source project needs a basic CircleCi.

Changing default indentation from 2 spaces to tabs (without updating existing files?): https://github.com/ariya/phantomjs/commit/6485f5466110fc8d4b...

I couldn't find a single one containing any meaningful code changes. The closest one is a81a38f[1] which seems to introduce bugs - removing open file check, plus a hanging if clause.

Sounds like it's either an elaborate prank, or the guy has no grounding on reality.

[1] https://github.com/ariya/phantomjs/commit/a81a38ffabe2cea715...

What about them?

He committed:

- Removing one whitespace and adding an unnecessary file https://github.com/ariya/phantomjs/commit/98272b9752b2d505f7...

- Conflicted files https://github.com/ariya/phantomjs/commit/63a69d9e2e9c31baab...

- Personal build env https://github.com/ariya/phantomjs/commit/d57ff74f36c5b79d82...

- Deleted the whole project while changing cloud provider https://github.com/ariya/phantomjs/commit/a242fb8d605d9aa4af...

- then re-adding the whole project again https://github.com/ariya/phantomjs/commit/ddaaa09785d453e415...

and other weird/careless commits

Now, he shows up at number 4 in the Github contributor list (https://github.com/ariya/phantomjs/graphs/contributors) with 179,603 lines added, not a single one of which seems to be a meaningful contribution by him.

Are such incidences common in other open source software too, or does this one seem a rare case?

I doubt it, but the line count / commit frequency heuristics really shouldn't be taken too seriously anyways

Make of it what you will but they appear to be a bunch of commits that amount to removing white space or adding/removing comments with messages like "Code refactoring". It looks a lot like someone trying to get their git blame count up by any means other than writing actual code.

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