Github names & avatars

[bitwise via Digitalmars-d]

On Friday, 13 May 2016 at 21:10:09 UTC, Jonathan M Davis wrote:
> On Friday, May 13, 2016 19:53:18 bitwise via Digitalmars-d 
> wrote:
>> May be worth mentioning archiving sites like gmane that seem 
>> to love making your stupid questions/statements your #1 google 
>> search result. Excellent way to make an impression on future 
>> employers... ;)
>
> Actually, the fact that I had fairly high reputation on 
> stackoverflow helped me get my current job, and I've had other 
> companies looked favoribly on the fact that I have activity on 
> github. I'm even amazingly searchable given how common all of 
> my names are thanks primarily to this newsgroup. You'll 
> probably find me fairly quickly if you search for
>
> Jonathan M Davis programming
>
> and this in spite of the fact that Jonathan and Davis are both 
> _very_ common (and my middle name, Michael, is just as bad). I 
> definitely think that having a visible presence on sites like 
> stackoverflow and github is good, and if they have your real 
> name (or something close to it) with your real photo, it's a 
> lot easier to show that it's really you.
>
> Sure, some folks may want to stay more anonymous, and that's 
> there prerogative, but in my experience, having a visible 
> presence online with regards to programming is definitely an 
> aid in getting employment. Potential employers can actually see 
> that you know something and that other programmers think that 
> you know something, whereas they can't if you do everything 
> online under a pseudonym and/or never contribute to projects 
> online or make any of your own code available online.
>
> As to Walter's original point of recognizing folks, it's 
> definitely nicer when contributors use the same names in the 
> newsgroup and on github (be they their real names or not). 
> Otherwise, it _can_ be a pain to figure out that they're the 
> same person. For frequent contributors, you tend to figure it 
> out and remember it, but even then, it's more work than when 
> the names match - and if the contributor is not a frequent 
> contributor, then it's unlikely that any connection is going to 
> be made, and it's going to seem like they came out of nowhere 
> when they might actually be someone who posts in the newsgroup 
> semi-frequently.
>
> - Jonathan M Davis

I agree there is value to having a strong online presence, but I 
personally don't approach my online interactions as if every bit 
of it was part of a portfolio. That is something I believe you 
have to plan for from the start, but for many, that ship has 
sailed ;)

The biggest problem though, is that you can't control what every 
random internet crawler decides is a popular bit of conversation. 
For example, if you try to answer enough questions on 
stackoverflow, eventually, you're going to get one wrong. 
Sometimes, moronically so. So if some random search engine 
decides that that particular question is a popular one, you could 
easily have that [i]proud[/i] moment coming up as your #1 google 
search result.

I'm certain that even in a year's time, I'll look back at some of 
my questions/statements on dlang.org, and frown. Except the one 
about conditional version statements, of course ;)

    Bit