Ask HN: Is this tiny sideproject (www.thankadeveloper.org) a good idea?
Roughly a year ago I was listening to burnout of an Open Source maintainer on The Changelog. It got me thinking about more ways to say "thanks", to promote that sort of culture I guess.
My idea is simple. It allows a person to put in a github repo, and a message of thanks. It then grabs the latest commits, pulls out a random email address, and sends an email of thanks to that user.
Now, I can guess what you're thinking at this point, ICK, unsolicited emails (and that is partly what is putting me off doing anything, and just quietly letting the site die). However,
1. All messages would be moderated. No spam or anything nasty would be sent. 2. Every email starts out apologising for the intrusion, and allows the person to permanently add their email address to a blacklist (so if you never want to be emailed again, you won't be)
I'd love to see people add this to their github repos, much like any other badge. But maybe I'm dreaming. I'd really like some feedback before doing a Show HN or anything else. I was thinking maybe it'd just be "A Christmas Thing" ..
Now, I know there are things like git-tip etc., and I know people use twitter etc. so I'm honestly not sure my idea is worth doing at all.
Anyway, if you have the time to give feedback, I'd sure appreciate it. I don't want to annoy / antagonise the developer community!
The un-launched site is at http://www.thankadeveloper.org.
Thanks!