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Ask HN: Is there any GitHub based/supporting gamification service out there?

21 points by diegoperini ↗ HN
Such service should have daily, weekly, monthly quests. Some kind of achievement tracking would be nice. Github commit streak counter was funny to check every once in a while but now it's lost too.

Disclaimer: I asked it only for personal use. I strongly discourage using such services at the work place.

7 comments

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wjvdhoek
We (me + a couple of buddies) were in the process of building such a service. Unfortunately due to the circumstances, we had to stop working on it but I firmly believe such a service can benefit professional development teams to improve. So I don't fully agree about not using such a service in your work place.

Anyhoo, we did find that such a service exists[1]. I haven't looked at it of about a year, but at the time it seemed interesting though a little lacking in features. They do seem to have improved over the year. You might want to check it out!

[1] https://getbadges.io/

Klathmon
Yeah, I agree with using it at work.

I'd be lying if I said that ensuring the box for a date was "green" on my GitHub contribution graph hasn't motivated me to get some shit done that i've been putting off, or hitting a star milestone on a project hasn't motivated me to pick it back up and check off some of the TODOs i've been ignoring.

It might be stupid, it might be "pointless", but it works for me. And while every single one can be gamed or "hacked", if you are working with someone that can't help but cheat a game like this, how can you trust them to actually do any work?

As for getbadges.io, that's a bit too "gamey" for me. I'm looking for a more "professional" kind of profile or badge or card that displays this information, the cheesy little "defeat the monster by closing issues!" turns me off more than motivates me. But slap a different UI on that and I really feel it would do wonders for me!

scardine
Not GitHub based, but StackOverflow nailed gamification for Q/A - despite the fact that it attracts a lot of hate in HN they managed to build a great resource using a self-moderated community. Far from perfect, but who is doing it better?

There is a chat feature and I've used it to give free 1:1 consulting/support.

There are lots of answers linking github issues and code playgrounds like jsfiddle and codepen.

brudgers
Relative to the alternatives that existed when StackOverflow started, it's been a significant improvement. And relative to its initial gamification efforts the current version is better aligned with its current goals (but questions like "Best Programming Joke" were consistent with the gamification needs around growing the site). But I don't think it has completely got it right because I think right would have a bit more room for treating people kindly and currently StackOverflow gamifies bad behavior toward people asking "homework" questions and this in-clique versus out of clique behavior is one of the things StackOverflow was intended to gamify away.
ethernetsalad
Personally, I use Habitica for task tracking and habits. The nice thing is it's open source with a wide variety of extensions.

I use the Github plugin myself where each time I push to repo or create/close an issue, it triggers a +1 on a habit (which results in Gold and XP) so indirectly, perhaps you might enjoy it?

I always forget about it then an pleasantly surprised to see a heap of gold + level ups later that day

eeZah7Ux
> I strongly discourage using such services at the work place.

Thank you for saying that.

diegoperini
Using it without the knowledge of your boss, or as a boss by not evaluating points earned from such tools as performance metric, it may be safe to practice such tools though. :)