[awinder]

Now I'm kinda curious how many other sites pull this type of stunt. I'm definitely torn on how I feel about this, I find it even more weird that there's people listed as following me on a site that I just have a shadow account on. Most of all I just want to know how many other weird sites I have shadow accounts on and what kind of interaction people have with shadow-me.

As far as the product decision on this one, man, I can't imagine which alternative universe this would ever play well in. Is it like a Silicon-Valley-esque VC numbers pumping game or what?

[hnysacct]

A bunch of freelancer and recruiting type sites do that as well. However they make it easy for you to have your information removed.

> Is it like a Silicon-Valley-esque VC numbers pumping game or what?

That is my initial thought too. If you create a website and create shadow accounts or "LinkedData" then you're creating the illusion that you have a larger following than you really do.

Whether that was gitpay's intention, probably not.