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Comment by codebeaker | Hacker News Reader

I'd like to call out for the author of this that you are in breach of the Github name and branding usage guidelines:

> ## Naming projects and products > Please avoid naming your projects anything that implies GitHub’s endorsement. This also applies to domain names.

(Reference: https://github.com/logos)

Edit: Why the downvotes? It's valid, and if someone had used my company name in their unauthorized, misleading and buggy "awards" platform, we'd be asking them to refrain from attaching themselves to our name and brand.

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Hi, Vincent here, author of Github Awards. Thanks for pointing this out.

There is already a small note in footer stating that this site is no way affiliated with the Github company, i'll make that a lot more visible.

The name still breaks the naming section of GitHub's terms. It doesn't matter if you put a disclaimer on it.

Naming projects and products

Please avoid naming your projects anything that implies GitHub’s endorsement. This also applies to domain names.

Edit: Also the background breaks this:

Please don’t do these things

Create a modified version of the Octocat or GitHub logo

>i'll make that a lot more visible. //

Appears below the fold in what looks like 9pt* for me; I take it the visibility hasn't been improved yet.

* checked, it's 10px vs 18px attribution line.

No i havent updated it yet.

FWIW

>I'm vincent author of GitHub Awards,

Which is the start of one of your other comments is also pretty deceptive. You are the "author of github-awards.com a site that is not affialiated with GitHub"; "author of GitHub Awards" gives entirely the opposite suggestion.

Maybe change domain to xxxxxx-awards.com :)

Absolutely right, my upvote FWIW.

I wish GitHub would crack down harder on sites that do this.

This site, and a lot of the other sites that use GitHub APIs and data are clearly trying to blur the boundary between whether they're part of GitHub or not, and it's incredibly annoying.

I don't pay for my GitHub account so that I can have some goofy ranking, or spend 10 minutes wondering, "Is this site really affiliated with GitHub?" If it keeps up, I'll probably migrate to BitBucket at some point.

> I don't pay for my GitHub account so that I can have some goofy ranking, or spend 10 minutes wondering, "Is this site really affiliated with GitHub?" If it keeps up, I'll probably migrate to BitBucket at some point.

What on earth are you talking about?

If you don't care care about your ranking, nobody is forcing you to care. (Yet, you might switch to a rival platform because...?)

It's pretty obvious really. The sites are a distraction I don't want, and they're a distraction I wouldn't have with BitBucket.

Yes, in this case it's just a stupid ranking, but in the past there have been more serious fakes, where GitHub has had to step in and tell people a site isn't related to them.

The site you are under no obligation to use and up until 17 minutes ago weren't aware of is a "distraction"?

Really now? https://github.com. Done.

No kidding.

If you're so concerned, then if it's not on github.com or not advertised via blog.github.com ... ignore it!

I mean, we're not talking about Phishing here. We're talking about a user who is annoyed that he stumbled upon a site and is unsure if he should like it or not. Almost sounds like an odd form of brand loyalty. "I can't decide if i should like this or not"

Really odd form of brand loyalty. "Things are diluting the brand I like, I'm going to switch to a competitor so I don't have to worry about liking things related to the brand I like"

How would you even know about the site, unless you had read about it on HN?

How would moving to BitBucket keep you from reading about it on HN?

If after you read about it on HN, you spent lots of time playing with it or reading and arguing in these comments, and you regret spending that time... how can you blame GitHub for that, and again how will moving to BitBucket help exactly?

Yep, it's pretty obvious, really. That you're very confused.

I'm actually building the equivalent BitBucket version of the site right now. Stay tuned!

Well played sir or madam.

Downvoted because "wah wah wah branding guidelines wah wah wah". I thought this was hacker news, not crybaby news.

Seriously, though--it's awards for rankings, based on github. I think that the "github-awards" domain name is rather descriptive. What, you'd prefer some other nonsense like "rank.ly" or some other damn fool thing?

EDIT:

The fact that the parent post is the top comment on this thread is saddening. Not "Hey, cool app", not "Hey, so how'd you build it?", not even "Hey, does Github know about this?"

Instead, a "calling out" because of some fineprint. Laaaame.

It's a legitimate concern, like having a spammy clickbait article.

The site infringes on Github's trademarks all over the place.

Can the site still get users' time and attention without stealing Github's branding?

When it's a tool that is explicitly built off of the Github platform, it doesn't seem unreasonable that they mention Github.

If Github cares, let them file a C&D or just talk with the author--it isn't our job to play trademark police. It's entirely too negative a behavior on our part.

>If Github cares, let them file a C&D or just talk with the author--it isn't our job to play trademark police. It's entirely too negative a behavior on our part. //

TMs are for consumers. It's entirely a consumers business to ensure that they are not being deceived as to the origin of goods and services they receive solicitations for. Yes GitHub should also be concerned but it's not their concern alone.

TMs benefit us in preventing financial incentive for scammers and frauds.

Expressing trademark concerns can be a positive thing, as here.

My initial view of the page had me assume that it came from the owners of Github™ as it used the name in the domain and used a [partial] GitHub [imitation] logo as a full viewport bg-image and mentions "on GitHub" in the most prominent page copy as if you're on GitHub.

I'd be surprised if there wasn't intent to use these elements to make the site appear to be "official".

If you assumed it came from Github, well, I can't help you.

I mean, there's a useful question there: if we are to support remixing and hacking and whatnot, do we also need to stop assuming that any work referencing a company is automatically endorsed or representing that company?

I'm honestly kind of surprised that anybody thought this came from Github--least of all, because they seem to just post things on their own domain. That being, you know, the point of having a domain.

It doesn't merely reference GitHub.

I followed a link from HN that said "Discover your ranking on GitHub" - on GitHub usually means on GitHub's site. Using GitHub in this way is using a trademark that is supposed to be reserved for indicating origin. On arriving at the site one sees the GitHub logo (or at least a facsimile portion) and references to GitHub usernames and use of the [non-distinctive] GitHub livery [many sites use that same scheme though]. Checking the domain name one sees use of GitHub's trademark again. This is better than most phishing sites I've seen - next step for me is usually to do a whois if I care to find if it's an official site.

Up to this point it's either a phishing site or from GitHub. Without further investigation then IMO it's normal to assume non-infringing trademark use.

Presumably you've never come across a company that uses different domain prefix/suffixes with a trademark like, oh I don't know, http://Googlemail.com ?

github-awards.com with copy saying "we use GitHub's API to gather info and present an unofficial award" then I can see that any infringement might be incidental. With "on GitHub", with the livery, the logo and the domain; it's passing off.

"see your ranking on Github" is similar to "see the number of friends you have on Facebook" or "look at your word usage on Hacker News". It's clearly being used to refer to the platform, not the site.

Besides, it has just a box for entering your username, which then scrapes data and presents it--hardly a phishing site.

Is any issue that you personally don't care about "crybaby news"?

Is the community better served by positive responses to creative works, or to nitpicking over trademark infringement by people who are not responsible for either claiming it or enforcing it?

How about both? A comment describing how the name of the product is a violation of GitHub's name and branding usage guidelines does not somehow cancel out other comments.

If everybody wrote the same comment, there would be no point to commenting.

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