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From an employer's perspective, github profile has been one of the highest signal in our hiring decisions. Anecdotally, I have yet to see a gamed profile.

This builds a very tight feedback loop, and ends up with more developers using github. And I don't see anything disrupting this loop for the time being.

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If you're hiring based on GitHub profiles, you're absolutely doing it wrong. I've seen plenty of total idiots with flashy GitHub profiles, and many -- if not all -- of the best coders I know have essentially nothing on GitHub.

A GitHub profile page is a strong signal only that you have a GitHub account. Any other use is strictly off-label.

Punch cards, followers, stars on the repositories of the user, important contributions - all are available at a bird's eye view. You are missing the point if you just check whether the person HAS a github profile.

I find this rather confusing. I have some chops, but I have nothing public in open source. I have always been employed to do what I do. Also, I am really not going to put something on github now... my time is really expensive (I'd have to apply for a budget internally of non-billable hours. It really is pretty expensive).

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