[snowwrestler]

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.