"the biggest accidental community loss in open source history"
This was very much drama for very little.
Sure, some might follow the project to know about updates, but if people care that much if they are using the latest version of a CLI tool then they will certainly check it out again later.
Very very few people of those who followed the project cares, and close to nobody cares what percentile the project ranks as by number of stars on github. Heck, even the author cares so little that he let himself mess around mindlessly while ignoring warnings and forgetting what the project was called.
Github warned about the action, and even required written confirmation to make sure it was the correct repo. The author also makes a point about naming being different for orgs and private, but if the github repo had any meaning then the author must have been very aware of what the name of it was.
Sure, github can add even more roadblocks and confirmations for those who are very careless despite all the warnings, but I don't want that personally. It's a tradeoff, and I think github has the right balance.
But sure, the situation is mildly annoying for those few who actually care.
But the dumbest part: The complaint about github not using time to restore backups to correct the mistakes of the author. Sure, they probably could, but how will they decide if a user should get special treatment? If they start bringing out backups for some users then there will be a lot of others expecting and asking for the same thing, and more.
Some might say that it won't be a problem, but considering that the author is already expecting github to restore their backups for him because github restored their own backups only proves the problem.
You missed the nuance in the criticism of GitHub's UI. The issue is not the presence of a roadblock, but that the same roadblock is put up regardless of how "actually" destructive the action to be taken is. The same roadblock should not be used to guard against both benign and severe consequences, else you have no real way of telling what lies on the other side of the roadblock you're plowing through.
I didn't miss it, I just don't agree with it. With the name being different I'd say the roadblock is different, but you might not agree, and that's fine.
I really don't care about the number of stars my project has if I'm going to make something private. It's not like most important projects sticks out by a very significant amount of stars. What percentile would? And what percentile of these occurances are on this scale? (basically none according to the article)
I'd care more about the number of active contributors who will loose access, if I did care for a message like that.
While the article focuses on lost stars, they also lost a lot of repository watchers.
This is pretty significant because lots of downstream users and distribution maintainers use the watching feature to get release and security advisory notifications. If this had happened secretly it's possible that a security release would be delayed because they didn't see the announcement early enough. (In fact, in the article they mention they had a security advisory recently -- so it's possible the above scenario has already happened.)
I watched people use software for years. If you have the exact same Popup every day, you’ll get used to click ok. Has no meaning anymore. It’s in the muscle memory.
What concrete benefits does a project get from having lots of stars? I'm not disagreeing with you, I'm just wondering what the stakes are, since I don't have a lot of open source background myself.
Wow, the tone alone leaves much to be desired. You must have a very unempathetic culture where you live. Best of luck to you dude, all the warmth and kindness and good vibes!
Wow, you must be a miserable, wretched, shell of a person to possibly write something like this. It’s really sad no one ever taught you manners. Hopefully one day you learn to be happy and a better person like me.
I am going to reply to you genuinely... but not like you will read it :/
You have lots of snark in your original reply you may have missed. I'm talking mother in law (MIL) levels of passive aggressiveness. The sort of bullying done by being positive, like hiding a knife in a cake.
You may have not intended for it to come off that way, but that's the wonder of the internet, context is lost and pitchforks are primed.
The OP seems to be just invested in the stance that the system exists and status quo is okay dokay -- Even I disagree with that viewpoint and feel like this can boxed up as ezpz PR by helping the repo recover stars and "thank" them for testing the grey areas in the UX. Or OP just really doesn't disagree with systems where, yes you can shoot yourself in the foot, but hey, just push the responsibility on the user and wash your hands clean (Lady Macbeth should have done this). Arguing this opens a pandora box of other requests might be from his experience, so I can't really pew pew that since it might have increased his workload previously, but certain people get priority/hidden privileges more than others everyone on social meda (e.g. famous people are verified faster) and it's not really out of the ordinary.
He is norwegian anyway, and I am previously familiar with them in their natural habitat[0] and can empathize with them on this viewpoint. Regardless, it's a pretty popular mindsent among the programmer crowd, that systems must be respected and learned and its heresy otherwise, victim blaming is commonplace. RTFM and PEBKAC. But honestly you can't always 'git push --force' your problems away, and at the end of the day here, you will be penalized with downvotes for this sometimes going against the grain -- but whenever there is a zeitgeist of common sense (e.g. Amazon warehouse threads or other PIP dog pilling) people realize this and turn the dial back, but ultimately holding a moral position of kindness/goodwill needs a lot more wordcraft to avoid getting downvoted in the field.
Github did tweet to ask people to support the project, to witch the project starts comparing it to a situation where github restored their own data, as if that was unfair.
The post also seems to wildly overestimate the importance of the project and the effect on github and Microsoft. It also seems to be written just to pressure github into giving the project special treatment.
The post even states:
"After all, GitHub has a history of taking controversial actions that go against the spirit of open source and community and then reverting them only based on public outrage."
So the post seems to be made overly dramatic on purpose.
As for the opinion about the UI, I do prefer it as is, if that wasn't clear. There needs to be a balance between usability and protection, and I think github has done a great job. It would of course be nice if it didn't get deleted and instead just stopped sending events.
I'm not sure why the drive-by, off-topic, gratuitous dig at vegans, as if you've decided they're a fair target, even in a comment instructing about kindness. I downvoted and flagged your comment for that. The HN guidelines apply regardless of your subject.
Sorry, and thanks for correcting my guideline breaking. I am a stranger in strange lands...
I brought it up because its an easy way to bring a moral rightousness example on hckernews. Perhaps more merit to the idea one should think of how ones word are received without context. To me as a casual reader here its like the space and tab holy war, except actually real. I don't dislike vegans per say as eat 80% vegetarian for health reasons.
Is it presumptuous to assume you are vegan and took offense? If so, could you share some viewpoints on your decision if you are?
This was very much drama for very little.
Sure, some might follow the project to know about updates, but if people care that much if they are using the latest version of a CLI tool then they will certainly check it out again later.
Very very few people of those who followed the project cares, and close to nobody cares what percentile the project ranks as by number of stars on github. Heck, even the author cares so little that he let himself mess around mindlessly while ignoring warnings and forgetting what the project was called.
Github warned about the action, and even required written confirmation to make sure it was the correct repo. The author also makes a point about naming being different for orgs and private, but if the github repo had any meaning then the author must have been very aware of what the name of it was.
Sure, github can add even more roadblocks and confirmations for those who are very careless despite all the warnings, but I don't want that personally. It's a tradeoff, and I think github has the right balance.
But sure, the situation is mildly annoying for those few who actually care.
But the dumbest part: The complaint about github not using time to restore backups to correct the mistakes of the author. Sure, they probably could, but how will they decide if a user should get special treatment? If they start bringing out backups for some users then there will be a lot of others expecting and asking for the same thing, and more.
Some might say that it won't be a problem, but considering that the author is already expecting github to restore their backups for him because github restored their own backups only proves the problem.