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Ask HN: What is your personal opinion about GitHub stars?

7 points by sidi ↗ HN
Starring a Github repository has some interesting connotations attached with it. Github uses it for ranking repository popularity while stating it's use a form of bookmarking.

I personally feel that starring is one of the most underutilized features. How do you interact with a project once you star it? Do you revisit them often? Does a project's # stars signal reliability / adoption / hotness?

4 comments

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fridaa
Stars certainly influence how people perceive a repo. If there are no stars, then I'm less likely to look at it. The problem is that it's also a catch-22. If you have a lot of stars, more people look, and more people star. It's self fulfilling, definitely not a perfect system.
_RPM
I think that would be a network effect.
chris_7
"Why would I do that instead of just using a browser bookmark?", I guess? Bookmarks are effectively anonymous, which I like.