

The Github Follower Problem - bcardarella
http://bcardarella.com/post/6075296352/the-github-follower-problem

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gst
For me the problem is that a "bookmark" function is missing. I usually follow
interesting projects so that I'm able to find them later on. For most of those
projects I'm not interested in the commits, I'd just like to have a link to
them somewhere in my GitHub account.

~~~
cincinnatus
Exactly this. There needs to be a bookmark function for interesting projects
and the people that produce them. Some tagging on top of that would also be
excellent for people with multiple contexts (work, hobby, side etc.)

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vijaydev
This is why I built "GitHub Feed Filter" - a Google Chrome extension
([https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/jcpkhafkpnaljjbgdg...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/jcpkhafkpnaljjbgdgbehajihicjalkc)).
It adds an interface in the page that enables users to look at feeds filtered
by projects, by commits, by issues and by comments.

~~~
danishkhan
Awesome!! Going to install this right now.

~~~
vijaydev
Thanks. Will appreciate any feedback to improve.

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marcusbooster
The problem with the news feed is it assumes I want the same level of
engagement with every project I follow. On my own repos, then yes, show me
every comment and commit. But usually if I'm following a framework, I just
want to know when something important happens, like a new version tag. And
it's these larger frameworks that are usually busy and crowd out the other
stuff.

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timf
Fully agree, I never look at the event stream at GitHub. It would become
useful if I could select just forks, new repos, comments, and bug-related
events.

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flexd
I mentioned this in the comments section of post about blocking bullies. It
would be great if you could follow a project or a person without having to see
every comment and commit made. I watch around 100 repositories now and some of
them are very active which results in my feed only containing updates from
them.

As someone in the comments of this article (on the site) mentions, it would be
nice if GitHub had something like Facebook's stream approach where you can
hide individual posts or users. Perhaps even hiding a certain category of
updates either globally or specific to each project?

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icco
I totally agree. Although my issue is more that I watch a ton of projects.
It'd be nice to filter our dashboards, maybe group projects or people we
follow.

~~~
icco
Interesting, my post gets down voted and then someone later makes the same
point and doesn't get down voted... hn, you confuse me.

~~~
bcardarella
Where is your post? I'll upvote it. :)

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zbowling
This carries over a little from Twitter. Using follower count as some sort of
authority/popularity index on one hand but using it power a feature (the
stream) on the other hand.

Facebook solves this by filtering the stream based on relationship level you
have with the user (building out relevancy vector). You get to keep the status
of being "a friend"(follower) without it affecting your news stream.

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eLod
I wanted to give this a shot. I first thought making a chrome/safari/etc.
extension/plugin/etc. to filter your feed on the github dashboard (it may be a
viable option), but i settled on making api calls (and using public data
only).

I pushed it to <http://gfnf.heroku.com> (source is at
<https://github.com/eLod/gfnf>). The interface obviously lacks some detail,
but still usable i think. You can create filters and set what to include based
on languages, users and repositories. Without requirements those events are
selected that matches any of the conditions (e.g. OR). With requiring user(s)
for example only those events get selected whose actor is in the filter.

Of course backed with the right data this should be much easier.

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grandalf
In my opinion, the news feed should never contain more than one item for a
particular project, or for a particular user (for user-centric actions).

I realize that rolling up data for this sort of display is hard, but if 4" of
vertical space are used up showing commit info for one project, my feed gets
pretty useless when I follow lots of projects.

I'd mostly like to see what is trending among the users and projects I follow.
As it stands, 99% of the "noise" is caused by 1% of the stuff I follow.

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dimmuborgir
Lot's of good suggestions for GitHub coming up lately through various blogs.

I think it's high time GitHub put a public Brainstorm/Suggestions interface
with possibility of voting the entries.

There's a GitHub profile on GetSatisfaction but there's no activity there.

~~~
technoweenie
No need. We see a ton of stuff on Twitter, HN, Convore, etc. Our own list of
major project priority aligns pretty well with a lot of the feedback we
receive.

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sayemm
I really like what <http://www.githits.me> is doing. I think it's a great way
to improve your programming skills too by looking at great code written by
some of the top github users.

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zalew
BitBucket has the same problem with following projects. When I follow a
project, I get messages about every person who starts/stops following it, so
my main feed is mostly dozens of 'John Doe began following SomePopularProject'

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nasmorn
Very new worldy to find it strange that a search for a city returns the
original one and not the copy. They should have named it New Camebridge.

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bitcoin
I'm currently following 866 coders and watching 356 repositories. My feed
provides me with an immeasurable amount of value.

~~~
pavel_lishin
If it's an immeasurable amount, how do you know whether it's worth it?

