Facebook's Release Engineer | Hacker News Reader

Facebook's Release Engineer

businessweek.com

67 pointshornokplease16 comments

There is a much more comprehensive article about Facebooks release engineering at Ars Technica [0].

[0] http://arstechnica.com/business/2012/04/exclusive-a-behind-t...

(from the Arstechnica article, not the OP's)

> The company's internal tools have a Facebook-inspired mechanism that Rossi uses to keep score. Facebook's developers all have a "karma" rating that is tracked through the code review system. Rossi can increase or decrease a developer's karma by clicking on thumbs-up and thumbs-down icons that appear next to the developer's name in a Web-based dashboard.

> The thumbs-up icon in Rossi's tool is the same one used for the "like" function on the social networking site. The thumbs-down image is the same icon, but upside down. When Rossi showed me the icons, he joked that he's the only person in the world who has a Facebook "dislike" button.

To me this was the most interesting part that whole piece. I've long thought Facebook could do with a "dislike" button for everyone. Keep it private, but let it affect what you see from whom, and how.

Facebook already has this for newsfeed -- either by blocking apps entirely (Zynga...), or blocking invites from users, or selecting to see All, Most, Only Important, or None of a user's newsfeed items, or lists like Limited.

> I've long thought Facebook could do with a "dislike" button for everyone. Keep it private...

Well, we all know why this wouldn't ever see the light of day /snark

Facebook would do well to implement something like this, but it would never be private, at least to advertisers. Maybe from other people, but that takes more work then just making it visible.

Chuck Rossi talked about this quite a bit in one of his Tech Talks -- http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10100259101684977

To put it mildly, he would terrify me as a boss -- but I can understand why people think he's great at what he does

He's actually quite a nice guy. (Or is that just what he wants me to write? https://www.facebook.com/careers if you really want to find out!)

Moderators, could you please edit the title to reflect what the article is actually about? The original title is extremely misleading, to put it mildly.

I'm glad I saw the original link, the title piqued my interest and I clicked through, I would glaze right over the current title. It's not the end of the world if people don't confuse HN for a list of term paper topics.

Comments like this just leave me curious as to what the original title said. :)

It was the title of the article, "The Only Earthling With a Facebook 'Dislike' Button"

Sounds like the button isn't part of the core product, just part of the release infrastructure.

New title is much better.

It's an interview with a Facebook software release engineer.

I somehow enjoyed this a lot more than a lot of the tech press interviews with VCs, unknown analysts, etc.

Deleted comment

That's not scary at all. Almost all humans have access to deadly weapons. Please stop it.

I vaguely remember a reading a similar article that was a lot longer.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com