from Hacker News

GitHub contribution graph can be harmful to contributors

by tomhardman0 on 4/1/16, 1:11 PM with 109 comments

  • by Khao on 4/1/16, 1:31 PM

    Is this an April Fools joke? I've never seen anyone who gave a fuck about their contribution graph and record streak, except for devs who developped clever git repos that make your contribution graph show pixel art (which is pretty awesome).

    I want to say if you feel pressure when looking at your contribution graph, it's all in your head and you should take a break because you're clearly not thinking straight.

  • by snowwrestler on 4/1/16, 2:42 PM

    Fake Internet points result in all sorts of counterproductive or at least neutrally productive behavior. It's true here on HN. Some people get mad when a link they submitted gets voted up when someone else submits it later.

    I love this comment from Github:

    > if you look at my contribution chart right now you will notice that it is completely green, why is that (for the people that do not know the trick) I simply commit changing the date manually using this Bash script

    Very capably demonstrates how stupid the point-counting is, while at the same time capably playing the stupid game.

    But there are arguably positive effects to the gamification. Here on HN, the points give people incentive to browse the NEW list to vote and comment. Getting in on the ground floor of a popular post is the key to getting a lot of upvotes. It also gives people incentive to know what the heck they are posting about, or at least do some basic fact-checking and editing before hitting the button.

    On Github the graph incentivizes commitment, which is desirable in open source projects. Taken too far, people will burn out--true. But I bet the opposite is far more common: I bet a lot more promising open source projects die from lack of effort than over-effort.

  • by p4wnc6 on 4/1/16, 3:01 PM

    As I mentioned in another comment, I've had interviewers grill me about gaps in my contribution history before.

    I sometimes will link to a pedagogical Python package that I maintain to show how I work with Python/Cython, and also that I know the ropes with packaging, complex travis-ci scripts, and workflow management on GitHub.

    I expect them to ask about that project, or the handful of other open source contributions I've made, but would never expect them to go hunt down my contribution history and nitpick.

    In one case it was a non-technical HR interviewer who thought it was clever to grill me about why I hadn't made a commit to a certain repo in several months. It was the repo where I store configuration files, like .emacs, and I just didn't have any config updates in that time period. However politely I tried to say that's just not the sort of repo that would reflect regular engineering, she did not seem willing to drop it, and went on about how they want to hire "passionate" developers who code "because it's in their DNA."

    O_o

    I really wish GitHub would allow users to disable the contribution tracking if they wish. I don't like the idea that an interviewer, or a boss, can go digging around and maybe even try to use it against me (e.g. you said you couldn't come in to work this weekend, but I see that you were able to commit something on an open source project...)

    Even if that risk is low, why should we have zero ability to choose not to bear it?

    The saddest part is that when this has happened in interviews, it's been with two major US tech companies that are popular and widely regarded as places that many people want to work. So it's not as easy as dismissing a recruiter who snoops through your GitHub contributions. The company they represent may be widely known to be excellent.

  • by whichdan on 4/1/16, 2:28 PM

    I'm surprised at how dismissive all of the comments have been so far. There are a lot of cultural habits around programming that are exclusionary, and if we're trying to pull more people into the field, discouraging people who can't code every single day could have a negative impact. It's at least worth exploring.

  • by takno on 4/1/16, 1:45 PM

    The reason sites do gamelike features like this is because it makes some people care and therefore participate more. Setting a metric which causes poor quality contributions or is damaging to participants is a bad thing. I'd guess a steak of 4 day weeks would be more productive.

    Personally if I cared about this metric I would just set something up which held onto Friday's commits and pushed them out over the weekend.

  • by phkahler on 4/1/16, 1:43 PM

    >> The contribution graph and the statistics on it, prominent on everyone's profile, basically rewards people for doing work on as many different days as possible, generally making more contributions, and making contributions on multiple days in a row without a break.

    If you're concerned about those things, you need to do some deep introspection and fix whatever issues you have inside yourself.

  • by tombert on 4/1/16, 1:35 PM

    I guess I can see this being an issue, but as someone who generally has a pretty "green" contribution chart, I find people look more at how many stars I have more than anything.

  • by bjourne on 4/1/16, 3:49 PM

    Everybody should know that working on free software in general is not healthy. :) There is no way that the fame, name recognition in the community, gratefulness received, CV padding or whatever makes up for your hours of free work. The time investment wont pay off.

    BUT if it is the act of writing code you like, then that doesn't matter. The "work" itself is the reward.

  • by altotrees on 4/1/16, 1:41 PM

    Have I made pithy comments or tiny modifications occasionally to keep a streak alive? Maybe...

    but that was pretty much limited to my earlier days of using Github. Now, I think one or two days of quality commits a week (on personal projects) is far superior to straining to make tiny changes for the sake of a streak.

  • by dubcanada on 4/1/16, 2:12 PM

    Has to be a joke... I mean if you really care you can just checkout the repo and generate your own graphs.

  • by frewsxcv on 4/1/16, 2:21 PM

    To me, coding is fun. Stockholm syndrome? Maybe? Regardless, I don't think people aren't in a position to tell others what is/isn't fun.

    https://xkcd.com/359/

  • by ocdtrekkie on 4/1/16, 3:23 PM

    I use the contribution graph and streak count to encourage me to keep working on a side project of mine. I don't do development for my job, and my side projects I regularly abandon.

    Trying to use the GitHub streaks feature to encourage me to make at least a small commit to my side project every day has actually led to me getting much further on it and working much more on it than I ever expected. It keeps me looking at and going back to my code.

    Yes, it's irrelevant and frivolous. Yes, it's easy to cheat on (if you feel like cheating yourself). But you can use it for good if you want to, and I'm glad it's there.

  • by schoen on 4/1/16, 8:51 PM

    When I saw this title, I thought it was going to be about privacy rather than about incentives and motivation! I was envisioning something about Orthodox Jews who secretly code on shabbat and had other people notice because of their contribution graph, or maybe people whose employers thought an employee's graph reflected too much or too little effort or effort at the wrong time or something. ("Why are you working on the weekends?" or "why are you not working on the weekends?", maybe.)

    On the other hand, the privacy argument might be hard to sustain because an external site or tool can regenerate much of it from the user's individual git commits.

  • by zenogais on 4/1/16, 4:41 PM

    Even though this may just be an April Fool's joke. My 2 cents.

    This is a "give a man a fish" solution that doesn't address the root cause of the issue (and that parable is all about fixing root causes). This likely has more to do with the inability of some individuals to create personal boundaries and regulate their own behaviours than it does with the presence of an infographic. That individual inability will still be around even if the infographic goes away, because as in the parable if you don't fix the root cause the other person is in the same situation again tomorrow.

  • by siegecraft on 4/1/16, 4:21 PM

    Does no one else just run a script to put amusing pixel-based graphics on their contributor chart? Sadly they decay as time passes and/or I make real commits. But such is the temporary nature of art.

  • by jkot on 4/1/16, 1:56 PM

    I think its irrelevant stat. Single commit can take 1 second or several weeks of work.

    And several people have cron jobs for website synchronization etc...

  • by hippich on 4/1/16, 2:36 PM

    Last year I had new year resolution to have each square in my graph to become some shade of green.

    Did I contribute very many very small commits? Yes.

    Did I think about everything I do daily from a global/sharable/modular perspective? Absolutely!

    Did it make a dent in the world? No.

    Yes, it was stressful at times. But I still think I became a bit better at approaching problems from re-usability perspective.

  • by vdnkh on 4/1/16, 1:59 PM

    Occasionally I'm motivated to do some work so I don't "break the chain". I try not to sweat it though.

  • by dsmithatx on 4/1/16, 4:35 PM

    My response on Github:

    I haven't made my first commit to a public Github however, it seems to me you can easily keep your streak with minimal effort. Why not just stash a small commit during the week and have a cronjob commit it for you on Saturday and another Sunday?

  • by leshow on 4/1/16, 6:17 PM

    If you're worried about someone else's commit graph. The solution isn't to end the commit graph, it's for you to stop caring about what other people are doing.

  • by evook on 4/1/16, 5:35 PM

    I create a fresh github throw away accounts every time I contribute to a project. Is something wrong with me?

  • by cirosantilli on 4/1/16, 4:30 PM

  • by dreamdu5t on 4/1/16, 4:04 PM

    Please start naming employers that ask why you have gaps in the graph. I'd like to know who they are.

  • by coleifer on 4/1/16, 5:28 PM

    Who cares, this is some real 4chan bait if you ask me.

  • by ihsw on 4/1/16, 2:52 PM

    The problem is people are using it as a signal for measuring someone's worth.

    There are so many other signals -- learning new programming languages, fixing broken tests, creating awesome new features, cleaning up crufty API libraries, and so forth -- but GitHub isn't showing them on profile pages.

    Clearly there is a desire for such signals as people are either 1) using it to elevate one's perceived stature 2) using it to measure other people's perceived stature.

    Personally I think this is an opportunity for GitHub to obviate such a signal, one that accurately measures someone's quality of work.

  • by mattkrea on 4/1/16, 2:07 PM

    He should be focused on fixing the problems with npm.. not nonsense like this.

  • by pksadiq on 4/1/16, 2:02 PM

    Hm... Absolutely true for me. Mostly because my code is hosted at GitLab, and I don't usually mirror at GitHub. ;-)

  • by rambos on 4/1/16, 1:44 PM

    "Stop rewarding those who worker harder than me"