> The problem is that the box looks exactly the same for repos with no commits and stars and for repos with a decade-long history and 55k stargazers and watchers. And it says “Warning: this is a potentially destructive action.”
It seems a bit much to expect the website to show you a warning of different levels of severity depending on the stars a repos has, particularly when the standard message is pretty severe and explicit. It even makes you type the name of the repo you want to make private before proceeding - I don't see how that wouldn't make anyone snap out of autopilot. I sympathise with the author's misfortune but it is pretty hard to look at that warning dialog and conclude that he was not sufficiently warned of the consequences or given a chance to reflect.
I find it disappointing that all of the lessons supposedly learned from this ordeal are lessons for other people, not the author. Surely lesson #1 should have been "check what repo you're in before taking destructive actions".
> just like adding branded content and sticking it in the skeletal husk of a bad shooter game for 12 year olds wasn't an improvement when Epic did it.
The reductive ‘Fortnite is for kids’ dismissal reminds me of the angry reaction by a particular cohort to the first cel-shaded Zelda game on the Gamecube. They dreamed of ‘realistic’ graphics targeted toward serious gamers and even claimed they were betrayed by WIP footage that teased their dream.
Fortnite is a game with an incredibly high skill ceiling around its building mechanic. I watched Jonathan ‘Fatal1ty’ Wendell (who is currently a 40-year-old and one of the earliest professional gamers) struggle in deep concentration on trying to incrementally improve his building speed and technique. I know many adults who play and enjoy the game, and they seem to enjoy the branded tie-ins. They are mature enough for their ego to be unaffected by the game’s cartoon art style, chosen instead of a gritty Call of Duty realism. It has solid mechanics and the content has been highly polished, even when not tied in to branded content.
Even so, I’m still not clear how that connects to Ready Player One being a dull and cynical exploitation of nostalgia shoutouts/callbacks.
It seems a bit much to expect the website to show you a warning of different levels of severity depending on the stars a repos has, particularly when the standard message is pretty severe and explicit. It even makes you type the name of the repo you want to make private before proceeding - I don't see how that wouldn't make anyone snap out of autopilot. I sympathise with the author's misfortune but it is pretty hard to look at that warning dialog and conclude that he was not sufficiently warned of the consequences or given a chance to reflect.
I find it disappointing that all of the lessons supposedly learned from this ordeal are lessons for other people, not the author. Surely lesson #1 should have been "check what repo you're in before taking destructive actions".