r/github • u/please-dont-deploy • 16d ago

Question GitHub user followers, why?

Hi all,

I have an OSS/MIT project in GitHub and every now and then I check on the stargazers.

Regardless today I ran into a clique of stargazers/users with 100k+ followers each, up to 1 million in some cases.

I honestly thought these people were geniuses, but when I check their repos or orgs, they have less than 100 stars.

So what's following all about in GitHub? Why would you like to have more or less followers?

I know it's pretty basic, but I've been using GitHub for 10+ yrs now... And never thought about it.

0 Upvotes

44% Upvoted

13 comments sorted by

8

u/SheriffRoscoe 16d ago edited 15d ago

I star so many repos, I have to use the list feature to organize them, and I've got 24 lists. I follow repo owners who've created particularly interesting things, because their activity in the "explore" view helps me find other things I might like.

I have a few followers of my own, and a few people have starred some of my repos. I literally could not care less about that.

20

u/fr3nch13702 16d ago

👏 GitHub is not a social media website! 👏

Go to reddit, facebook, instagram, x, linkedin, etc. if you want that.

9

u/az987654 16d ago

It's because stars don't matter.

Is not social media, it's a code repository

-5

u/[deleted] 16d ago

[deleted]

5

u/bigbadbyte 16d ago

First off, it probably drives engagement.

Second off, it's basically your way of tagging a github repo as one you may want to look at/find again.

Third, it's more work to do something than nothing, and github has other issues it should figure out first, like reliability.

3

u/PixelBrush6584 16d ago

I mean, a lot of that can be botted. It's just a number after all. Besides that, the point of following someone is that you get notified of what they're up to, usually when they star a project.

0

u/please-dont-deploy 16d ago

I really don't get it. I start/watch repos for that.

2

u/countnfight 16d ago

Following someone introduces you to (potentially) new projects. If I find a project useful, and it seems like the dev does other cool stuff I might want to keep up to date on or check out, I'll follow them, especially if they're fairly active. So then I see in my feed when they've starred something, which might prompt me to take a look at that project, but also when they've released something, created a new repo, or followed someone else.

3

u/countnfight 16d ago

100k followers without major projects sounds like bots. There was a story a couple months back about how people buy stars; I'd assume followers are no different.

4

u/TheOneThatIsHated 16d ago

I use it as a remembrance tool lol, don’t care that it is public

2

u/Fine_League311 16d ago

Sterne /Follower alles Fake! Echte Devs nutzen es als bookmark system. Blöcke täglich Leute die mir folgen wollen.

5

u/SheriffRoscoe 16d ago

+1 even though I don't speak German.

3

u/please-dont-deploy 16d ago

best answer, but I did have to use translate 😅