Hacker News Reader

Comment by chockchocschoir | Hacker News Reader

> as users worried the recommendations were turning GitHub into something distressingly like a social media platform.

Really users? This is news? I'll echo what I've said in another comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30769570) regarding GitHub being a social platform:

> GitHub has always branded itself as a "social collaboration platform" rather than anything else (well, first "git hosting" but secondly the social stuff).

> Here is a early version of their landing page from 2008 (the year they launched): https://web.archive.org/web/20081111061111/http://github.com...

> Notice the logo says "Social code hosting" and the messaging of the page is mostly around popular repositories, collaborative features and other social elements.

Anyone surprised by a "social code hosting" platform implementing new social features are in for a bleak feature, as the platform still aims (and always have aimed) to be the social place for coders.

View on HN

I think it's fair to be surprised by curated anything on Github as that's not been their M.O. since I can remember, and I was a first-year adopter.

How much longer until they release GitHub Stories?

/s but not really

Again, you shouldn't be surprised if a company who always branded itself as "social" adds any new social features.

"Social" is not a synonym for "facebook". Github is a collaborative social platform. This still seems pointless and offbrand. There is no contradiction here.

>Github is a collaborative social platform

It shouldn't be. Social has its place, but I don't want to see memes and emojis and dramaposting with upvotes and downvotes and karma whoring on a project page. The purpose of Github should be to distribute and collaboratively develop software and nothing more. None of the social features make developing software easier, they distract from what should be the platform's purpose. Soon, you won't even need to deal with Git or push a repo at all, they'll just remove all of that "coding" shit and become another Twitter clone. That's the inevitable endstate of adding social features, they consume everything.

Feh. Feh, I say!

I kind of feel like this is just another Sherlock move by GitHb TBH, nothing more. It seems like they see popular apps that tap into GH (I use one that is basically just a feed of GH activity which I actually like) and things like Actions in their "marketplace" as opportunities to gobble up new product functionality into their own platform.

What's collaborative about github's platform? Were these features developed because the users asked for them?

Its source tracker + issue tracker. Literally software designed to solve the problem of how multiple people collaborate writing code.

I think this thread is losing track of what the word "collaborate" means. Its not about emoijis and cat memes

I think part of the fear is that they will expand it into a larger social network, that was my knee jerk reaction.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com