[reaperducer]

no one writes software for metadata

They didn't used to because there was no incentive to do anything but a good job.

Now there is an incentive to accumulate metadata. And just like thumbs on Facebook or points on StackOverflow, it will be gamed. It will be trolled.

All you've done is take the incentive of "earn a good reputation by publishing quality work" and open the platform to people who only care about "Ooh, shiny pieces of flair!"

[swozey]

Who cares if 1% of people "game" it? Do you think people are actually looking up lists of achievements outside of gag websites like this and getting jealous that someone else has XYZ achievement to the point that they'll game the system themselves to get that achievement? And if they do, so what?

So maybe 1% of people do that. We should nuke it for the other 99% who literally just push code into a repo, go to their profile randomly and see that they've earned a new badge?

I have maybe 4-5 badges and I have literally no idea what the next one I'm closest to getting is. I don't even know what badges I'm missing. But it's still cool to me to see a new one show up.

[naikrovek]

I think you are dramatically overestimating the number of people who will do this.

I also think that you are dramatically underestimating the transparency of activity optimized for metrics. Those that do this will reveal this behavior by virtue of the nature of the behavior itself.

Dammit, it's OK for people to like stuff, even if you don't like that stuff. You don't like it! FINE! Others do, so let them live their own life, please.

[lucumo]

> > no one writes software for metadata

> They didn't used to because there was no incentive to do anything but a good job.

Whenever I'm leaving a job, I keep a look-out for opportunities to change lines that rarely change. Things like doctype declarations, blank lines, closing braces, stuff like that. If I can change them, my name is memorialized longer in the `git blame` of projects.

People will find ways to gamify everything. It's quite often a release valve for stress or boredom.

[bawolff]

I mean, no offense but that's the perfect example of why this sort of thing is annoying.

It encourages people to do things that they wouldn't normally do that has negative (albeit minor). Extra unnessary commits complicate the git log. Intentionally getting your name on git blame makes finding the true commit slightly more annoying.

Sure these are incredibly minor things, but its still encouraging behaviour that is not positive.

Metric chasing is destructive.