Is ohloh anything beyond a slimey link-jacking fest?

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moosemoosemoose

2 months ago

I'm the creator of a couple of open-source software projects. I keep having the displeasure of receiving search alerts from Google, featuring my project names, leading me to this scummy pond that seems to exist only to take credit for "hosting" metadata about projects that it has nothing at all to do with.

Please get bought by some old-guard media company so you can go buy your fucking segways, and they can disassemble the site.


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CyberCrone

2 months ago

The returns you are getting from Google may be based on something like "open source software developer" which would bring up this site as well as your projects. Depends on how you set up your Google Alert. If ohloh.net is "link-jacking", they would have to add your name to metatags or some such thing. Seems hardly worth the trouble unless you are famous. You ought to find out why this is happening before leaving hate messages that might not be deserved. I'm glad you are not in MY life.


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moosemoosemoose

2 months ago

I am in your life; you probably use my software. You didn't read my post--or perhaps didn't understand it--but still replied to it. Perhaps I should be glad that you're not in my life.

My search alerts are on the names of my projects, not on "open source software". Why would I have a search alert on "open source software"? The problem is that if someone searches for one of my projects by name, they might get the ohloh page, and be misled into believing that this nonsense is somehow affiliated with me or with my work.


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Nicolas Buduroi

about 1 month ago

In spite of moosemoosemoose rudeness, I really think he got a point. I'm not affected by that issue, but probably many people are, and that is even without them being aware of it. Ultimately it could lead to reducing overall open source software adoption, so this issue is quite serious. What I propose would be to show a splash screen clearly indicating that this is not the project page and a predominant link to that page to visitors coming from Google.


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Nicolas Buduroi

about 1 month ago

Even better, let the project administrator decide if the ohloh.net project page redirect to the project main website.


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lynxlynxlynx

about 1 month ago

If it bothers you, just remove your project(s) from ohloh.


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Gaz Davidson

14 days ago

Aside from calling bullshit on this troll, I'm just posting to say that nobody should be able to remove anything. If the source is open then Ohloh has the right to do what they want with it, including running a "scummy link farm" if they like, but we all know that's not what they're doing.