

Gamifying Github - jamesjyu
http://coderwall.com

======
adamesque
I'm all for merit badges, but I can't shake the feeling that github is
_already_ gamified pretty damn well. As in, the rewards you get for being a
good "player" are super tangible and awesome.

Few things feel as rewarding as getting a pull request accepted. Even filing a
bug with enough detail that the project owner is able to take action feels
great.

But, that's how software developers are wired; I get a rush when I make
something work. I suppose the challenge is drawing more people into that cycle
of participation and reward, but it's an angle of the game I'm not sure this
project addresses.

------
omouse
I'm just going to leave this here: <http://adamloving.com/internet-
programming/gamification>

_There is good gamification and bad gamification. Bad gamification is slapping
extrinsic rewards (or a contrived story) on top of an interaction. Good
gamification amplifies the intrinsic rewards of a particular behavior – to
increase the feeling of fun, flow, or accomplishment of the player. Players
know bad gamification when they see it, because it doesn’t take their
interests into consideration. Good gamification aligns the needs of both
designer and player._

~~~
nonrecursive
I'm not sure if you're trying to imply that this is bad gamification. With bad
gamification, I feel like I'm slaving away in order to achieve something
stupid. Like - Hooray, my orc is level 50! Well, so what?

With coderwall, there's no way I'm going to alter my behavior in order to get
badges on it. But it's fun - very fun - to see what badges appear, and to
compare myself to other people. Coding is something that's already super
personal, it's something people do for fun already, and thus I find it very
unlikely that someone's going to come away from coderwall feeling something
like, "I just slaved away on this code that was exciting to create and all I
got was this stupid badge. Damn you coderwall! Damn you for manipulating me
into doing something I'm proud of!"

My experience with coderwall was that it was very amusing to see the badges
I'd gotten, and the fact that I had more than some people I know provided me
with data for gloating. But will it send me on a downward spiral, making me
grind away at programming so that I can get the "Forked 500" badge while I
increasingly lose contact with reality? Will it make me feel like I've been
gamed when I do someday create a project that's been forked 500 times? I doubt
it.

Then again that is a pretty awesome looking badge.

~~~
leon_
> With coderwall, there's no way I'm going to alter my behavior in order to
> get badges on it.

I was thinking about creating 100 fake github accounts to fork/follow my
projects to get a badge ;) j/k

I too believe this kind of "gamification" is a nice addon. It's optional -
hell it's even outside of the system. If I don't want to use it I don't have
to. The bad kind of gamification is the one that is forced upon you.

~~~
jrockway
_I was thinking about creating 100 fake github accounts to fork/follow my
projects to get a badge ;)_

You don't need to do that: you can force any real account to watch your
project by adding them as a committer.

~~~
redthrowaway
I doubt that would go over well with your unwitting followers.

------
iamdave
_It's kinda like the Nobel Peace Prize for developers, only better_

Somewhere a copywriter felt a disturbance in the force..

------
theDoug
Must have recently become super-popular

> "Thanks for joining. During our beta we can only handle so many new accounts
> (due to API throttle limits and all). The current demand has us a little
> backlogged. Your expected wait time is currently 5 days in this queue."

Folks may also be interested in <http://calendaraboutnothing.com/> which keeps
track of your commit streak in hope of building a chain of committing every
day.

~~~
jackolas
I really love that concept, but hate that theres no good deployed one for your
own use. [i.e. not committing]

------
adulau
Why do they need to log into your GitHub account to generate such page? It
seems that the information gathered can be directly from your public profile
or did I miss something?

~~~
abecedarius
I'm confused too because github asks me to authorize them reading my public
information. If it's public, what's there to authorize?

(Since this github authorization thing was new to me, I didn't grant it.
Paranoid, sure.)

~~~
coderwall
For convenience we didn't want users to be required to create yet another set
of credentials. This allows you to still authenticate and control your
coderwall settings/profile while using your GitHub acct. When we request
public access, github only gives us public access.

~~~
adulau
I'm pretty sure if you make a version without authentication more GitHub user
will use it.

~~~
abecedarius
Yeah, that's about where I stand -- looks fun but I don't want to bother
managing it beyond asking "what does user Foo look like?" where Foo == me.

------
orblivion
I would suggest adding a "how do you find this" for getting your stackoverflow
ID. Is it the number in my profile URL?

------
aaronblohowiak
Warning: "Your expected wait time is currently 5 days in this queue."

They could just use the JSONp version of the API and trust that users aren't
going to submit bad data about _their own account_ (theyd only be cheating
themselves.) This way, they wouldn't be subject to API usage limits.

~~~
leon_
I think this is a way to trick/force people into twittering about it. If you
twitter/follow, your acc will be processed within 2hours they say. I did and
my acc was ready within 5 minutes.

------
wccrawford
Anyone who is already logged into coderwall.com (probably from the story the
other day) will be redirected to their own page... Which is a bit disturbing
at first. I had to double-check the URL to see if someone linked to my page.
;)

------
tete
Oh no, it made me cry when Wikia added achievements. IMO this is so
ridiculous. But it's still funny and if you like this, I'm fine. Especially
when it means more code! I'm sure some of it will be of quality. Maybe it even
causes future talents to stay interested.

------
damncabbage
If your site has a 5-day waiting period that I can skip and reduce to _15
minutes_ by tweeting about you, then with all due respect please do not be
surprised if come to think that you may be lying through your teeth.

~~~
damncabbage
Clarification: "... do not be surprised if I come to think..."*, rather.

(Typo spotted past the edit timeout.)

------
lee337
I've been beaten to it, but here's how coderwall would have looked in the
80's... <http://github-high-scores.heroku.com>

------
mtogo
Agh, please make mailto: links clear that they are mailto: links.

------
geuis
Lets not do this.

------
leon_
yeah! 4 points: <http://coderwall.com/jsz> ;)

btw. is there a list of other github apps? calendaraboutnothing was nice too.
have some free time toady that I'd like to waste :)

~~~
cliftonmckinney
We're doing something with Githib called Work for Pie. It aggregates info from
Githib, Stack Overflow, HN, Bitbucket and gives you a score based on activity
and participation. Then you get a profile where you can highlight code,
languages, etc. Kind of a portfolio for developers. We're still in private
beta, but invites will come pretty pretty quickly after you sign up.
www.workforpie.com

~~~
leon_
nice, just signed up.

