[grouseway]

People who defended them should take note. Complaints can lead to action. Cheering for software companies is as useful as cheering for sports teams.

If you go into defence mode whenever someone complains about your favorite VCS, OS, language, platform, editor, start menu, or whatever then you're probably doing it a disservice unless you're disputing factually incorrect information. Posting work-arounds and minimizing others people's complaints isn't helpful.

[chrisweekly]

Home teams have an advantage in most sports, and crowd noise is a factor. More relevant to your point though: encouragement and moral support are important to many OSS projects, where burnout is a particular risk. Maybe not applicable to github per se? /random thoughts

[WillAbides]

I get what your saying, but the sports analogy might be a bit off. Most sports fans are most critical of their own teams and expect to lose every game.