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1. HiPhis+pB1[view] [source] 2026-02-08 18:35:40
>>chwtut+(OP)
Not sure about this one. I understand the need and the idea behind it is well-intentioned, but I can easily see denouncelists turn into a weapon against wrongthinkers. Said something double-plus-ungood on Twitter? Denounced. Accepted contribution from someone on a prominent denouncelist? Denouced. Not that it was not possible to create such lists before, but it was all informal.

The real problem are reputation-farmers. They open hundreds of low-effort PRs on GitHub in the hope that some of them get merged. This will increase the reputation of their accounts, which they hope will help them stand out when applying for a job. So the solution would be for GitHub to implement a system to punish bad PRs. Here is my idea:

- The owner of a repo can close a PR either neutrally (e.g. an earnest but misguided effort was made), positively (a valuable contribution was made) or negatively (worthless slop)

- Depending on how the PR was closed the reputation rises or drops

- Reputation can only be raised or lowered when interacting with another repo

The last point should prevent brigading, I have to make contact with someone before he can judge me, and he can only judge me once per interaction. People could still farm reputation by making lots of quality PRs, but that's actually a good thing. The only bad way I can see this being gamed is if a bunch of buddies get together and merge each other's garbage PRs, but people can already do that sort of thing. Maybe the reputation should not be a total sum, but per project? Anyway, the idea is for there to be some negative consequences for people opening junk PRs.

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2. zozbot+aC1[view] [source] 2026-02-08 18:41:26
>>HiPhis+pB1
GitHub needs to implement eBay-like feedback for contributors. With not only reputation scores, but explanatory comments like "AAAAAAAAAAAAAA++++++++++++ VERY GOOD CONTRIBUTIONS AND EASY TO WORK WITH. WOULD DEFINITELY MERGE THEIR WORK AGAIN!"
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3. HiPhis+wF1[view] [source] 2026-02-08 19:04:24
>>zozbot+aC1
I think merged PRs should be automatically upvoted (if it was bad, why did you merge it?) and closed unmerged PRs should not be able to get upvoted (if it was good, why did you not merge it?).
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4. Markus+IK1[view] [source] 2026-02-08 19:36:36
>>HiPhis+wF1
Intrinsically good, but in conflict with some larger, out of band concern that the contributor could have no way to know about? Upvote to take the sting out of rejection, along with a note along the lines of "Well done, and we would merge is it weren't for our commitment to support xxx systems which are not compatible with yyy. Perhaps refactor as a plugin?"

Also, upvotes and merge decisions may well come from different people, who happen to disagree. This is in fact healthy sometimes.

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