Drop Social column from obofoundry.org home page tabular display

[ddooley]

This information remains on an ontology's detail page.
It was noted that the "Stars" (the number of people who have pressed star on an ontology's github page) aren't helpful in terms of deciding if an ontology is pertinent for some reuse. Also most new ontologies don't start out with many stars.

If anyone has a counterargument for keeping them, provide it here!

[matentzn]

My guess is there will be a bimodal distribution for addressing this issue:

Ontologies with many users on GitHub and many stars will like this feature, and ontologies with not many GitHub users will not like this feature. I am afraid it will have to be turned into a vote.

Here is my opinion:

The column is called "social", and the metric is intended to measure transparent open social engagement, not re-use or quality (if the column was called "re-use" I would back an effort to rename it). Rather than dropping the column, I would prefer if we find other meaningful transparent metrics that measure transparent, open, social engagement that we can add there (e.g. number of issues closed, number of likes on some all-pervading social platform - not proposing any just giving examples).

[nataled]

So far as I can recall, these badges were added without vote and thus should never have appeared in the first place. In fact, after searching through the meeting minutes from the past few years, there didn't even seem to be a discussion substantive enough to capture (though I do remember something about allowing these to be optional). Also, despite the column name, I'm willing to bet there aren't many people that equate stars (in the context of rating systems) with anything other than quality.

[matentzn]

I would back a motion to make it optional if it prevents it from being removed. I would also not push back against a public vote for removing it. But I don't feel like removing the whole column without a vote is the right move now that it's been public for so long.. even if we didn't have a formal vote (I think we should have had, agreed Darren) we 100% had a lengthy discussion on the OFOC call, and the related PRs also had to be reviewed, approved and merged.

[nataled]

Agree that we can't just toss it aside at this point. Sorry if it seemed that I was advocating removing them without vote. I was stating why a vote should be taken. Another possibility to explore would be changing the badge from stars to something more representative of what it is, like a thumbs up (most accurate) or silhouette of a person or people.

[matentzn]

This is unfortunately a little widget that is automatically pulled from GitHub, and since the stars are called stars on GitHub, that is what it will show (this is not part of the website where we could somehow modify this, is what I mean).

You would not be happy with a simple opt-out flag? If not, feel free to call a vote!

[nataled]

I view the potential opt-out flag as a separate issue from the vote. So long as the badge is shown, the ability to opt-out should be there. I still think a vote should be taken, because that's the process we normally use for major website changes.

[nlharris]

Should we discuss this at the next OBO Ops meeting?

[matentzn]

Action items:

1. For @nataled request "I view the potential opt-out flag as a separate issue from the vote. So long as the badge is shown, the ability to opt-out should be there. I still think a vote should be taken, because that's the process we normally use for major website changes." create a new issue describing the rationale for the request. I cant see any reason for resistance against this - its a good idea. This is a technical issue that can easily be fixed.
2. If more is wanted ("drop the column") then you have to call a vote in this ticket here.

We have raised the issue a few times during the OFOC call; just the two above need to be done.

[shawntanzk]

OFOC meeting 07/01/25

Opt-out can be implemented and a ticket will be opened

Fully dropping will go to a vote

VOTE! Voting ends in 2weeks (21/01/25)

👍- Drop socials
👎 - Keep socials
👀 - Abstain

[gouttegd]

About the “usefulness” of GitHub stars as a metrics, it might be worth noting that fake stars are a thing.

[nataled]

@gouttegd I certainly didn't have that on my bingo card!

[Clare72]

Also about the usefulness of stars, as the main editor of the Flybase ontologies (FBbt, FBcv, FBdv, dpo) for nearly 7 years I did not have any of them starred until just now (I was 'watching' instead).

If the column is meant to be a measure of social engagement, I think 'Social Engagement' would be a better name. I think I would expect linkouts to social media from a 'Social' column, not the number of people who have starred the repo.

[matentzn]

🍿

[matentzn]

We need some more voting, this is as contentious a vote as I have ever soon :D

[cthoyt]

still super in favor of keeping these! somehow this vote wasn't advertised very much so I didn't see it before

[nataled]

@cthoyt That's because this vote is for Ops members.

[gouttegd]

That's because this vote is for Ops members.

This was not clear to me at all. Removing my vote then.

[nlharris]

Voting is still neck-and-neck!

[matentzn]

If you think this is an ops vote @nataled then we have to talk again - most of the votes are from the community, and that is the whole point of making a public vote. From my point of view this is a community vote as everyone should be able to say what they find useful to display on the site..

[nataled]

@matentzn if the vote was intended to be public this round, the call wouldn't have been sent to Ops, it would have been sent to Discuss.

[matentzn]

If it was not, it should have been send to obo discuss! Sorry about the confusion..

[nataled]

My recollection is that it was to be an Ops vote first, then public, though I don't think we discussed what would trigger a public vote. I imagine that if the Ops vote was one-sided, that would be the end of it, but if it was tied (or close?) we would make a public announcement.

[ddooley]

Discussed on Jan 21 Ops call: Will recraft the vote, and also discuss and add clearer guidelines for the vote in the SOP.