
Arctic Code Vault Contributor - dgellow
https://sam.elborai.me/blog/arctic-code-vault-contributor
======
jameshart
\- We cracked the encoding on the artifact

\- What did you find? What was in the vault?

\- We think it's... code. Software code. Early 21st century.

\- Code from the early web? This could be historic! What's in there? The
google algorithm? The code for the iphone?

\- Not that we've found

\- Twitter? Does it have Twitter? Imagine if we found the code that contains
the bug that caused world war three!

\- No

\- Then what is in there?

\- Just... tools, mainly. Manual tools from when people used to write software
by hand.

\- Really? Why do you think they archived those?

\- I don't know. Maybe they thought they were clever?

\- Maybe it's not actually an archive. Maybe it's just a garbage dump.

\- You think everything we dig up is a garbage dump.

\- It usually is!

\- True. But look, we did find one artifact that's interesting. It's called
'react'. It appears to be an object of veneration. A lot of other things
reference it.

\- Are you saying this may have served some sort of ritual purpose?

\- It's possible....

~~~
chrisseaton
> Maybe they thought they were clever? ... Maybe it's just a garbage dump.

This is a really nasty, snarky comment. Deriding people who try to build
things and talking about their work as garbage.

There's lot of software we wish we had access to now from the past, but we
don't because people had the same attitude as you.

~~~
eindiran
It is a joke about the tendency of archaeologists to classify everything they
find as being either part of a garbage dump (aka a midden[0]) or as some
variety of religious artifact [1].

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midden](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midden)

[1] See discussion here:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archaeology_of_religion_and_ri...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archaeology_of_religion_and_ritual#Material_correlates)

------
jka
In some ways this is a nice feature - it's a neat accomplishment for
contributors to be aware of, and something that they can be proud of.

But I don't entirely understand why it has been enabled on public profiles by
default.

As a regular user I hope that GitHub doesn't continue down the path of
becoming a popularity contest at the expense of fostering co-operative work on
equal terms.

~~~
berkes
I had to opt-in. So it is not something that is on-by-default, from what I
know.

~~~
remram
Where did you opt-in? I wasn't asked before it showed up, and then I disabled
it through the "Settings > Profile > Profile Settings" page.

~~~
berkes
I cannot reproduce, unfortunately. But I half-conciously agreed to some
modal/popup telling me I got some award and wether I wanted to show it. At
least, that is what I remember, but it might have been a modal telling me they
were going to show it, rather than asking.

------
ocdtrekkie
I think I'd rather see which of my repos were contributed rather than what the
most popular repos I fixed typos in were.

~~~
brabel
All public repositories[1] were archived.

_On February 2, 2020, we took a snapshot of all active public repositories on
GitHub to archive in the vault._

[1] [https://github.blog/2020-07-16-github-archive-program-the-
jo...](https://github.blog/2020-07-16-github-archive-program-the-journey-of-
the-worlds-open-source-code-to-the-arctic/)

~~~
tomc1985
They only encoded 21TB worth.

Also, you can see which repos of yours were selected with the "Arctic Code
Contributor" badge in the highlights section of your profile.

In my case they only grabbed one library that I was half-finished on... I'm
pretty sure they grabbed everything they thought would be important and filled
remaining space with random selections

~~~
justinclift
> Also, you can see which repos of yours were selected with the "Arctic Code
> Contributor" badge in the highlights section of your profile.

Not really. It only shows the first three or four. As an example from mine, it
says:

    
    
      avelino/awesome-go, awesome-selfhosted/awesome-selfhosted, ansible/ansible, and more!
    

For people who have contributed widely, it's not a useful representation. That
being said, it doesn't appear to be actively hurting anyone. ;)

------
thom
Is anyone here active on GitHub and _not_ a vault contributor?

I was pretty happy to find that my company's free football data made it in,
although I'm not sure how much help that's going to be to rebuild society
after the collapse:

[https://github.com/statsbomb/open-data](https://github.com/statsbomb/open-
data)

~~~
opan
I open a lot of issues but don't really commit code and I didn't get the
badge.

~~~
thom
That feels like an oversight, what a shame not to acknowledge those
contributions.

~~~
jka
Yep, no doubt there's a huge amount of valuable contribution archive material
in pull request and issue comments as well.

Some of these may be available soon via joint partner initiatives[1].

[1] - [https://github.blog/2020-07-16-github-archive-program-the-
jo...](https://github.blog/2020-07-16-github-archive-program-the-journey-of-
the-worlds-open-source-code-to-the-arctic/#an-update-from-our-archive-program-
partners)

------
BillinghamJ
As far as I can tell, just about every active GitHub user has the same thing -
just as long as you've ever committed to a public repo

~~~
ejones
Yeah, the inclusion criteria are pretty broad:

    
    
      The snapshot will include every repo with any commits
      between the announcement at GitHub Universe on November 13th
      and 02/02/2020, every repo with at least 1 star and any
      commits from the year before the snapshot (02/03/2019 -
      02/02/2020), and every repo with at least 250 stars.
    

from [https://archiveprogram.github.com/#arctic-code-
vault](https://archiveprogram.github.com/#arctic-code-vault)

~~~
sdesol
This would make sense, as it looks like money wasn't a huge factor. If money
wasn't an issue, time and effort would be, and you can easily reduce effort by
storing pretty much everything.

------
wikiman
I'm not going to lie, the comment about "if they can use git" is the core of
my problem with the arctic storage. I'm still wondering what the point is
other than to make some meta point about how committed github is to
preservation

~~~
Deimorz
There's no git usage, they're just storing a snapshot of each repo's current
HEAD in a TAR file (and then compressed and QR-encoded).

> The snapshot will consist of the HEAD of the default branch of each
> repository, minus any binaries larger than 100KB in size—depending on
> available space, repos with more stars may retain binaries. Each repository
> will be packaged as a single TAR file.

The guide included on each reel about how to access the data is public, git
isn't involved in the process: [https://github.com/github/archive-
program/blob/master/GUIDE....](https://github.com/github/archive-
program/blob/master/GUIDE.md)

~~~
Zamicol
No, it is not QR-encoded.

This is the method:

[https://earth.esa.int/documents/1656065/3222865/170922-Piql-...](https://earth.esa.int/documents/1656065/3222865/170922-Piql-
ESA_Slides-Final)

~~~
Jatidude
In the link you post it states "piqlWriter: data writtenas high-densityQR
codesEncode binary data to 2D barcode (apply Forward Error Correction)Modulate
light using a Digital Micromirror Device (DMD) to project the barcode on the
film."

~~~
Zamicol
It's a lie. It's not a QR code. I don't know why they say it is. Look at the
code. It's nothing like a QR.

They should have said "2D Barcode" but they might be assuming an ignorant
audience.

------
woile
when I started coding my mentor told me: "it doesn't matter if it's 2 lines of
code, you are still contributing". I'll always remember that, a contribution
is a contribution :)

~~~
msla
The right line in the right place can save the whole system.

Especially if the line is a consistency check.

------
oefrha
The three projects shown in the badge seem to be the top three by star count.
Of course star count often poorly reflects actual importance of project: in my
case, python/cpython only squeezed in at the third, another cornerstone
project where I’m a member and contribute to long term got relegated to “and
more”, while two popular yet much less important developer tools where I
submitted some drive-by patches took the top spots.

It would be nice if star count is weighted by amount of contributions, and
cornerstone projects like python/cpython get a boost in ranking.

~~~
michaelmior
I assume by "importance of project" you mean your importance _to_ the project?
I agree that there's probably a balance to be struck there. But also, I think
that choosing what repos to show in the badge isn't really that important so
any simple heuristic is fine.

~~~
oefrha
No, I meant importance of project. For instance, sindresorhus/awesome has 137k
stars, python/cpython only has 32.4k, but the latter is clearly orders of
magnitude more important than the former. Which is why I called the latter a
cornerstone project.

~~~
michaelmior
Good point. Although when it comes to deciding which repositories to show on
the badge, I think I'd like a balance between the amount of my contribution
and the importance of the repository.

~~~
oefrha
Yeah, I did say star count should be weighted by amount of contributions.

------
Brajeshwar
Ah! Checked mine, I got one too. Not sure what to make of it!

------
awu4thakwuhr
In the incredibly competitive and arbitrary world of tech hiring and
networking, any little thing that makes you stand out is worth while. I have
friend whose résumé says "600 lines of my Python are running on the
International Space Station". I got my current job because an undergrad
internship from 10 years ago caught the hiring manager's attention. Any little
thing helps.

------
saagarjha
Perhaps it would be better if it showed a list of contributions to projects in
the Code Vault, ordered by contribution size…

------
jasonlotito
While it seems silly, I think it can also help highlight how even the smallest
changes can be impactful. Collaboration like this requires lots of unsung
heroes. A fix or small change goes a long way in helping people. I think of it
as a reminder that even the smallest things can have real impact.

------
the_other
I got the badge. I didn’t understand why and couldn’t find which repos I’d
contributed to had become part of this vault I’d not heard of before. I
decided it was meaningless because I couldn’t immediately see any substance
behind the award. I turned it off. Have I missed out on some greatness?

~~~
nathankunicki
If you hover over the badge on your profile, it shows you which repos you
contributed to that made it into the vault.

~~~
saagarjha
Well, three of them.

------
ChrisMarshallNY
I got that for a bunch of repos I've archived. Not many stars, but they are
ones that are part of a team effort. It may have to do with the number of
contributors.

I'm not entirely convinced that it's a "special honor."

If so, GoMeGoMe. If not, _meh_.

------
Tom0603
Just wondering, I didn't got the badge since I work on private repos mostly
but I do have write access to a few public repos that got stored on the
vaultg, if I commit to them now will I get the badge?

~~~
michaelmior
I assume not since your code will not be in the vault.

------
dang
Related thread from yesterday:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23860659](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23860659)

------
therealmarv
Really don't like they don't show contributions in an (open source)
organisation. My private contributions are not that many in comparison to org
contributions.

------
stordoff
Apparently my single rule addition to HTTPS Everywhere got me the badge. Not
entirely sure what I'm supposed to do with that.

------
agentultra
I wonder if the small contributions I made to the WebGL implementation in
Mozilla will go in there...

------
varbhat
What was the aim of Artic Code Vault ? Was that necessary?

------
WrtCdEvrydy
Yeah, I just noticed mine... 3 went in.

------
HALtheWise
Does anyone know how this interacts with GDPR? In particular, if someone has
personal information stored in a GitHub repo and asks for it to be permanently
deleted, do they need to dig it out of a bunker in the Arctic?

------
babuloseo
Woot I made it!

------
threepio
Thanks to Microsoft, the crapware arrives at GitHub. I'm looking forward to a
long future of disabling ads* that have been automatically added to my profile
page.

* Yes, this is an ad for a GitHub project that I didn't ask to be a part of and give zero farts about. Depicting me as some kind of deliberate contributor is false.

