HN Explorer

Ask HN: Social Network for Engineers?

13 points by devchris10 ↗ HN
IMO, stack overflow is becoming a Google for devs.

Is there a facebook/linkedin for devs or technical people?

What would it take for you to join one?

23 comments

[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 72.4 ms ] thread
dpeck
That is what github is heading towards.
gnulinux
I couldn't figure out how to use github anonymously, so it CANNOT be a social media for me.

I want most of my online interactions to be anonymous. That's why I like reddit and HN. That's why I never write anything on facebook.

But it's tricky on github. You can only have 1 account. I want some of my side-projects to be linked to my professional persona. I wrote a really good program, I want my interviewer to about this. The other 99% of the code I write outside of work is just fucking around. I don't want to be associated with it. I don't want my employer to know my comments on random PRs on github, because it's none of their business. It's my social life.

But github only allows you to have 1 account. My solution to this was to... have an anonymous github account for socializing and a gitlab account under my name. I still haven't done this since I have some code on github under my name, so not quite sure how should I proceed. Export repos, close github, delete account and open a new acct with anon username?

I wish github gave more opportunity to anonymize interactions on github. Or at least they allowed 2 account per real-life person.

jjk166
Just make a github account with a second email address
gnulinux
I know I know. I'm just talking about their official policy. Github, gitlab and bitbucket all allow 1 account per person.

https://help.github.com/en/github/site-policy/github-terms-o...

> One person or legal entity may maintain no more than one free Account (if you choose to control a machine account as well, that's fine, but it can only be used for running a machine)

agensaequivocum
Seems like a ridiculous requirement unless you also require you use your legal name as Facebook does. Also, in my experience, it doesn't seem to be enforced.
gnulinux
I don't think it's enforced, but it's easily enforcable. If github sees the same IP address consistently uses 2 accounts they might ban you. Well, maybe they won't, but they can.

Do people have multiple github accounts?

agensaequivocum
There may be more than one person using GitHub from the same residence.

I dont't, but I know people who make a new one for each company they work for.

JCharante
Alternatively you could have a paid professional account and a free account for your personal stuff.
devchris10
I always thought anonymity and accountability were interesting tensions in a social network. Maybe we allow named accounts with the ability to post anonymous comments or content to other users. But I'd imagine the site admins would need to know this mapping to moderate obscene content.
comment12
http://teamblind.com/ is a strong anonymous network but enter at your own risk
npwr
What risk would that be ?
535188B17C93743
It's a toxic community that equates TC to self-worth.
webmaven
TC == Technical Competence?
satvikpendem
Total compensation, includes salary, bonuses, stock, etc. Check www.levels.fyi for more details.
ironmagma
I think that’s mostly a joke - people will ask for your TC on the most unrelated threads, and there will be no follow up. Just a self fulfilling prophecy that the anonymous tech community should be usable for getting a rough idea of possible comp levels.
dgb23
I tried to get a quick overview of the discussed topics. It seems that it is mostly non-technical.
sevengraff
I think fosstodon.org is trying to be a social network for tech people, but it federates a lot of non tech stuff, so it's a mixed bag in that regard. I recently joined it so still figuring it out, social media isn't my strong suit.
sagunsh
I enjoy devrant.com
duxup
That's an interesting app, thank you.
karmakaze
What would one do there that isn't already covered by HN or a subreddit?
devchris10
HN and subreddit is great for uploading posts and having a discussion. It's not as great for finding like-minded devs with similar tech stacks for example.
muzani
I try to use social media to improve myself. Which means improving others and writing something up to be criticized.

But social media is used mostly for "personal branding" these days, which is someone writing material consistently, several times a week, to make themselves look good. There is no genuine discussion - it's either praise or putting people down. You end up with arguments on why concatenation is stupid and how template literals are the only way to do things.

DEV.to is a nice implementation of a social network though. Github was good until it became a resume item, after which a lot of fake/flexing behavior started to appear. Codepen is also nice if you're into CSS and programmer art.

blizkreeg
I’m very interested in building an anonymous social n/w or community where you share what you’re currently working on/solving —- while being careful not to disclose confidential stuff. There’s so much interesting discussion that can happen around it.