Hacker News Reader

Comment by marcamillion | Hacker News Reader

Love Zed, Hate Zed or neither, it is disappointing if Github really allows this type of abuse to happen with no repercussions.

...and I have been a major Github fanboi from day 1, so it sucks for me to see such pettiness.

Quite frankly, I am not a big fan of Zed Shaw either...his hissy fits tend to get on my nerves....but come on man Github.

You are a damn company!

View on HN

As far as I can tell the only side effect of being added to a project, is that it shows up in your list of your repositories on your [private] dashboard.

Edit: see http://github.com/zedshaw , he's not listed on the dongml project, because that link only shows your forks, not repos you have commit access to

Edit 2: Why the downvotes, am I wrong?

Yes, future employers may be there to check out your code.

You're wrong.

It shows your forks, not projects you have commit access to.

Ah, ok then, my bad.

It can be. What if the project you were added to had illegal materials in it? You could be prosecuted for being a part of that.

Would not stand up well since source code repositories are enjoyed for showing who made commits. Could subpoena Github visit statistics though.

Depends. You might not be convicted, but the judicial system is not known for being very technologicaly adept. You might be arrested while they sort it out, that can damage your reputation.

> judicial system is not known for being very technologicaly adept

Exactly my point. To invoke the extreme example, simply being connected to child porn in the media can destroy your life. The media hasn't been known to be tech savy either.

What if I put a link to my github account on my resume. And a potential employer sees me being a member what someone thought of as a joke? Losing potential jobs is a big deal.

It shows your forks not your repos you have commit access to. So it wouldn't show repos other people added you to

If you don't quit the project all the time folks will assume you're associated/endorsing the repo.

"You've just been given commit rights to kkk/meeting-minutes" wouldn't be a good message to get after you've told a prospective employer to have a look at your Github profile.

it would only show up to your employer if you actually committed to it.

You're missing the point - what if someone created a project called "rawsyntax-is-a-bitch" and continually added you to it?

You wouldn't be listed on the contributors page, I just verified this. So nobody would see it but you.

The major point is WHY should anyone have to see something they don't want to? And minor point is, seriously, this is like an hour fix if they wanted to.

I'd be careful saying "this is like an hour fix" and then attributing it to malice, unless you work there. It's like saying the "unknown or expired link" message you get on HN is "like an hour fix...if pg wanted to" and thus pg hates us.

The point is that it's actually a fairly minor interaction issue that hasn't caused any major problems until now, and while we can't know why they haven't fixed it, it's probably because they just hadn't gotten around to it yet.

Most of the malice comes from a YC startup who is playing in a space where customer trust is essential.

Here's to hoping they beat on their front-end guy and whoever else thinks this shit is funny before their employee makes it trivial for established competitors to destroy their professional credibility.

Actually, we haven't determined that there is any malice whatsoever. In fact, you seem to have created an account just to perpetuate that falsehood.

also github is not a YC startup

It's probably more than an hour fix, depending on how they did it. Remember that it is more usable to just let people add someone else without a confirmation. They'll have to add a confirmation on the other side, or a block mechanism, which is a different workflow.

Zedshaw is visible here https://github.com/nickmartini/dongml/contributors Not sure if that is because he pushed commits or because he is added as a contributor.

It's because he pushed commits. I have commit access on a private repo on github that I have not pushed commits, and I am not listed on the contributors page.

In an age where following Wikileaks can get the FBI secretly after you, there's no way I want a platform to let people just add me unilaterally. Yeah, paranoid, sure, but I really don't like that I'm just associated with any random project some jackass wants to put my name on.

I agree that this needs to be fixed. But I don't think it's a something that needs a rant, and that must be fixed right away or I'll crash the server / migrate my projects.

I think we disagree on the severity of this issue.

I'd be happy if they fixed this within a month

Sorry, but it's not a rant. I think it's fairly well reasoned and slightly funny way to point out that they're doing this and probably allowing it.

Trust me, when I rant you'll know it. :-)

That'd be http://oppugn.us/ , where the rants go.

Has anyone considered the possibility that Zed and this "Nick Martini" person are actually one and the same, and that we are all being trolled by Zed? He's demonstrated in the past that he thrives on attention--more specifically dramatic and controversial attention such as this.

Also, there's always mumbling about immaturity and hipster fanaticism within the "Rubyist" community. But have we seen any example of it outside the titillating tales of Zed Shaw?

What if all of this is just an act?

No, I'm not Nick Martini, I'm funnier and a better programmer. :-)

But... what if Zed and Nick are also actually Github!?

someone call m. night shyamalan!

Take it back to reddit please. We don't need memes to communicate here.

"Ideas don't matter, execution matters." "It's not the product it's the team." "The best companies are the ones that know how to 'hustle.'" "College is an outdated mode of knowledge transfer, start a company instead." "Build a company around a small, easily implemented idea with quick turnaround to iterate towards market success."

HN has its own self-replicating thought structures just like any other community :)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com