A week ago, GitHub added its homepage feed with algorithmic recommendations, angering some users of the Microsoft-owned code-hosting giant.
On Tuesday, GitHub responded to the negative feedback by saying that some of the questionable behavior was actually caused by bugs that have now been fixed, although it doubled down on its decision to combine the previously separate “following” and “for you” feeds. .
The “following” feed includes “activity by people you follow and in repositories you visit”. This was the result of deliberate user selection: developers chose the code and contributors they were interested in.
It is time to disclose all recommendation algorithms as required by law
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The “For You” feed includes “activity and recommendations based on your GitHub network.” It was the result of GitHub’s social algorithm and user behavior data.
As of last week, GitHub combined the two to lighten the load on its servers, or so the company claimed.
“When we launched the latest version of Your Feed on September 6, 2023, we made changes to the core technology of Feed to improve overall platform performance,” Biz explained in a post on Tuesday.
“As a result, we removed the ‘push event for user subscribed repositories’ functionality. We don’t take this change lightly, but as our community grows exponentially, we have to prioritize our availability, user experience, and performance.”
GitHub employees were paying attention back to Twitter last year – the social network On the contrary The decision to make its algorithmic “home” timeline the default at the expense of people who prefer chronologically ordered “latest tweets” – they may have kidded themselves.
No one on GitHub remembers the objections raised last year when the corporation was making changes to the beta feed. Or maybe GitHub just doesn’t care how much some users hate the algorithmic recommendation system and unilateral design changes.
Screenshot of the new GitHub feed… Click to enlarge
Bram Borgrave, founder of Columbia-based dev shop BeSoft Labs, raised a more modest objection to the unsolicited feed change among the nearly two hundred people who commented, not to mention those who participated in the attached discussion threads who asked in return:
An engineer at an IT infrastructure management software developer, who wished to remain anonymous as he was not authorized to speak to the media, said Register In the email, “GitHub has tried this before, and their users said no. They’re removing a useful feature and replacing the social media algorithm with garbage. They’ve forgotten that people use their platform to do real work, and not just hang out.” Scroll issues, pull requests, and new JavaScript frameworks.”
They are taking away a useful feature and replacing it with social media algorithm garbage
GitHub declined to comment L Reg Beyond his posted comments, which acknowledged that perhaps some disagreed with his decision while refusing to reconsider.
“We understand that many of you are upset with the recent changes to your feed,” the company said. “We must do a better job of making recent changes and how those decisions relate to our broader platform goals. Your continued feedback is invaluable as we evolve and strive to provide every developer with a happier and more helpful first-class developer experience.” productive.”
Register GitHub was also asked to provide data to support claims that the old feed format hindered performance. We do not expect an answer.
Currently, devs who prefer the old feed can install a workaround user-script or visit a GitHub page that still provides the old format. Or they can look for other code hosting options. ®