Hi, my name is Vandolf and I have some internal problems. With disasters happening all around the world for the past several years, I really have nothing to complain about. I know that this internal "problem" is laughable and makes me really ashamed that it is even affecting me at all. Yet, for the past six months, this "thing" has been eating me up inside. It has been affecting my social and professional life.
If you'd rather read about real problems happening around the world, please click away. Otherwise, stay and you might get some amusement out of it if nothing else.
The thing is, I know hardships. I was born and raised in the slums of the Philippines. I know what real hunger is like. I know the feeling of helplessness and acceptance of having no future. I was luckily able to immigrate into the US. I am now living in Hawaii with my wife, son, dogs, and cat with a view of mountains and oceans. I take nothing for granted. I am truly grateful for the life that Android made possible.
❓ So, why is GitHub stars bothering me so much? It's just a number, right?
This article is NOT an attempt to get stars.
I really just want to discuss what I have been "suffering" from for the past half year. I will NOT provide links to the projects or mention any names. I want this article to be on topic. I want it to be anonymous, yet personal.
Please don't dig deeper. I will not answer any comments about specifics. Though, feel free to send me a DM. Maybe we can talk privately. You can even tell me how pathetic I am.
GitHub stars. How much does it matter?
There have been many articles and discussions that have been written about this topic. This article is not about the value of stars but rather a personal story about it.
Anyways, here are some of the good stuff that I’ve read…
- Do Github stars matter?
- Should the Quality of GitHub Projects Be Evaluated by Their Star Count?
- "GitHub Stars" is a very useful metric. But for what?
TLDR; The opinion is split. To some, stars are just publicly visible bookmarks. To others, stars are shining beacons that signal to others of the amazing quality of a project. Or a mix of both.
I think of stars as what they are typically associated with. A sign of quality. Something to look up to. Beautiful. Shining bright..
So WTF is my problem?
I'll cut to the chase. I will not beat around the bush. I'll say things how they are, the way I see it.
My problem is that my project that I have spent thousands of hours on for the past three years has less stars than another very new project that contains just a fraction of what I have already built.
I know right? What a BIG "problem"! I mean O.M.G.! I can't believe this is happening! It is atrocious! WILD! Crazy! I mean, forget about a global pandemic, a potential world war, increasing divide between rich and poor, and other social and economic problems. This is something we have to discuss right now 🔥 🔥 🔥
I know how insane it is for me to even be writing this article. It is difficult for me to write because the community can literally crucify me for writing about such a trivial matter. I can imagine you reading this and laughing and maybe even annoyed. I am writing this and laughing too. I have some mental issues. I know. I 100% agree with you. I am a pretty down-to-earth guy, except when it comes to this project.
Why is this a problem?
I keep asking myself that question. I cannot seem to come to a conclusion that would allow me to move on with my life. Hence, why I'm writing this article.
For the sake of this article, I will refer to the other project's author as "Red". I want to keep Red's identity anonymous so please do not dig deeper. The thing is, I like Red. Under different circumstances, I would have loved to be friends with Red. If Red ever reads this article, please know that I have nothing personal against you. I hope that we can be friends in the future once all of this is behind us (or behind me because this is probably just all in my head). I feel very petty about the way that I feel about this situation.
My project and Red's project are both trying to solve the same problem. The problem is so specific and niche that our solutions will most likely end up being the same, to some extent. I hope that our APIs stay as different as possible so that we can give the community different options.
Anyways, here is a table that compares my project to Red's project.
| My project | Red's project | |
|---|---|---|
| Stars | ~290 | ~350 |
| Forks | ~20 | ~15 |
| Watchers | ~7 | ~2 |
| Contributors | ~4 | ~4 |
| Issues | ~50 (only 1 bug) | <5 |
| Downloads | ~10k/month in JitPack | ??? |
| Age | ~3 years | ~0.5 years |
| Features | ~80% | ~10% |
| Language support | Kotlin & Java | Kotlin |
| Documentation | High | Low (relative) |
| Tests | None yet (in roadmap) | Fair |
What can explain the gap in stars?
Looking at the table, it might seem like my project not having tests (yet) could be the sole reason why I'm losing in star count. After all, why would anyone want to use something that has no tests. Someone in Reddit pointed out the lack of tests. I gave an explanation about the value of tests in relation to the type of system under test. The cost of a single person writing tests for an unstable, humongous API in its early stages. Anyways, this article is not about explaining the varying importance of tests vs documentation. We can discuss this in the comments if you are interested. Tests are coming soon.
What I truly believe is the reason for the gap in stars is the ever growing amount self-promotional posts Red has done for the project.
| Me | Red | |
|---|---|---|
| 0 (0 followers) | ~10+ (1300+ followers and growing) | |
| Reddit in total | 1 | ~10 |
| Most popular subreddit | 1 | ~4 |
| Featured in weekly mailing lists | 2 | 2 |
| Paid to be featured in weekly mailing lists | 0 | 1-2 |
| Dev.to | 1 | 1 |
| Medium | 1 | 0 |
| Hacker news | 1 | 1 |
I put a lot of love and effort in every single post that I do. I think the post reactions speaks for itself.
| Me | Red | |
|---|---|---|
| Total upvotes in Reddit | ~320 | ~295 |
| Single Reddit post with most upvotes | ~320 | ~110 |
| Single Reddit post with most awards | ~9 | ~4 |
| Reactions in Dev.to | ~17 | ~5 |
I'm thinking quality vs quantity. I'm with the former. Red seems to be with the latter.
❓ Is Red a spammer or am I just not promoting enough?
I actually think that Red is technically a spammer because Red has exceeded the 50% max self-promotion rule in the subreddit Red posts in. Red has posted 4 self-promotional posts and only 2 non-promotional posts (one of them is questionable and could also count as self-promotion). I could technically get 2-3 of Red's Reddit posts removed due to rule violation if I just report it. Tempting, but I really don't want to be a hater. I want to like Red. I know that I like Red, especially if it were not for this whole ordeal.
What is bothering me the most?
I made a rule/principle for myself. The rule is that I will not promote the project more than once on any website. Ever. This way, other projects from other people can get the chance to surface. I think that if everyone that was/is maintaining an OSS were to do what Red is doing, then developer communities will just be filled with spam and self-promotional BS.
What Red is doing is literally the opposite of what I believe people should do. I don't want to spam the community. I truly believe that "good software will sell itself once enough people have seen it". I believe that once a project has reached a certain amount of stars/visits, then it is time to stop promoting it and let the community do that work organically.
I'm sure there are plenty of folks that would consider me stupid for saying these things. That's why I see articles on "how to get 1k+ stars in GitHub". Every article like that has comments that say "stars are not important". However, they clearly are. It is the easiest metric for everyone to use in order to measure the "quality" and popularity of a project.
Is this all in my head or is it also in Red's head?
I might be crazy and just imagining things but I think Red is in a competition with me.
Red promoted their project for the first time when it was less than a month old. Red quickly gained 100+ stars with the first few promotions.
It took me 5 months to catch up to Red's star count. At that point our projects both had about ⭐️ 250 stars. Those 5 months were the most demoralizing months of my life as a developer.
❓ How could someone promote their one-months' work and get a barrage of instant recognition when I spent years working on mine?
Then, recently, my project got a burst of traffic from LinkedIn. I don't know how. I can't find any posts about my project in LinkedIn. It was organic growth! Possibly someone else recognizing my work. In just two days, my project finally surpassed Red's project in stars by 25. I thought to myself "great job. You were right. Good software will sell itself. You don't have to promote it anymore."
The following day, I saw a lot of commits from Red's project. Red made a bunch of BS changes and packaged it into the holy grail of releases. The "V1.0 Release"!!! The day after that, Red made another post on Reddit, which garnered some attention. Red probably also paid to be on the next popular mailing list issue.
Red's efforts managed to propel their star count by ~50 stars ahead of mine. From my point of view, Red panicked and/or was very offended that my project managed to surpass theirs in star count. That led to Red scrambling, trying to figure out how to immediately "fix the situation".
In my head, there is absolutely no way that this could be coincidence! Just no way. Red even made remarks in the Reddit post and README that clearly references my project.
The thing is, I know Red's project inside and out. After all, we are trying to solve the same problems. The changes that Red made within the span of the project's half-year lifetime was not substantial at all (in comparison to my changes). I'm confident to say that the amount of changes Red made so far only amounts up to 1-2 of my bigger commits in my project. I think that Red is simply using new releases as an excuse to do a promotion. The amount of activity in the repo always spikes up before Red does a promotion. In between, there is almost no activity. I am the only person that can actually call Red out on this IMO unethical behavior. No one really checks these things ya know?
Why does this all bother me so much?
I genuinely just want to give back to the community. I don't want the community to be misled and use (IMO) a lesser project just because it is getting much more heavily promoted. Actually, Red's project is inherently incorrect because of one big fatal flaw in its design. So the fact that Red's project has more stars than mine absolutely bothers me.
I am sure that Red's project would be useful to a lot of folks that would benefit from Red's particular public facing API design. However, I don't think that most folks should choose Red's project over mine. If only everyone knew about both.
I also want to believe that good software will promote itself. However, that theory is clearly losing to the theory of advertising. I am seeing that advertising beats quality. I don't want to believe it but it is what I am observing.
If Red had not come along or if Red's project was truly deserving of the recognition, then I wouldn't even care about stars at all. I promise. If my project has 50 stars today (instead of almost 300), I would feel very accomplished. However, the fact that there is another project that is literally years behind mine but has more stars eats me up on the inside. It just makes me feel like all of the work, love, and tears that I spent does not matter.
Red is just getting started
Red is now promoting another new open source project. The thing is that I know an existing project that already does the same exact thing in the same exact way. It is still being maintained regularly. I don't think Red cares. Red has amassed a bunch of followers that is growing every day. Red does not mention similar/identical projects. Red knows that Red can get more stars because of the ability to shamelessly self-promote. In just a few days, Red's new project is close to getting 100 stars.
I'm making a prediction here. This new open source project that Red is building will be integrated into Red's first open source project. Red will then be able to promote the two projects at the same time in a single post. Two birds, one stone. Genius really.
I respect Red for his marketing abilities. I truly do. However, just because you have the ability to do something, does not mean that you should do it. I believe this is true especially for open source where most maintainers get "paid" in "star count". It can demoralize folks like me that do not have social media presence nor the audacity to promote regularly.
What is my nightmare?
The worst thing that I can think of in relation to all of this is for Red's project to exponentially outgrow my project in terms of stars.
I believe that if Red's project has 1,000+ stars whereas mine has less than 300, then most people will not end up using my work at all. All of the hard work and passion that I spent for years, invalidated all because of the number of stars someone else managed to attain from over-promotion.
How is this all affecting me personally and professionally?
I am unable to stop thinking about how many stars my project has vs Red's project. It's become an obsession.
I go to sleep, wake up, do my work, have lunch, spend time with my wife and son, walk my dogs, play with the cat, have an outing in a beautiful beach, eat good food, etc. Not a single time for the past half year had I not thought about GitHub stars in all of those daily activities I mentioned.
I don't want to be like this. I want to be the best person that I can be for my family and even co-workers. People are depending on me. Even though I do perform my role in all fronts, I am simply not mentally, emotionally, and spiritually 100% present. All because of this whole stupid BS that I cannot believe that I have allowed to take over me.
If you read this entire post, you can clearly see that I am obsessed with my project and with Red's project. I take it all too seriously and too personally. I am too competitive when I really don't want to be. It's not who I am. I am not competitive. At least I thought I wasn't...
Before Red came along, I was just enjoying working on my project. Then this war of GitHub stars was ignited. I felt that I had no choice but to participate...
I need your help/advice.
So, time for me to ask questions. I could continue ranting but I'm sure I have already lost most of my readers at this point.
- ❓ When it comes to self-promotions, how much or how often is too much?
- ❓ Is my rule of "post only once per site forever" stupid or admirable or both?
- ❓ Should I accept and play into the GitHub stars game? Should I attempt to build up a large social media presence and followers under the pretense of being helpful in order to advance my own agendas?
- ❓ Should I just not ever look at stars?
- ❓ Should I abandon, archive, or delete my project?
- ❓ Is Red doing anything wrong?
- ❓ From a scale of 1 to 10, how pathetic am I to be writing this article?
- ❓ How would you handle this if you were faced with a similar situation?
- ❓ Any other advice you are willing to give?
Top comments (1)
I would have thought this would elicit a discussion. I guess I'm wrong 🤷♂️. Either this topic gives people a bad taste or I just wrote something most people cannot relate to given the current state of the world. Or it's such a sensitive topic that everyone is afraid of starting a discussion. Or this post is too long an uninteresting and trivial so no one read it.
Anyways, I hope someone will be able to relate to what I wrote in this article and know that they are not alone.
❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️