Too many forks

[lordofscripts]

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Nobody can eat well when there are too many forks in the plate. Well, for months now I have been exploring several repositories. Some are dependencies of my projects, others just for curiosity in searching for development possibilities.

What did I notice? The Fork feature is being abused all over the place! Many repositories have been forked many (many!) times and when you browse the fork, there is nothing new in them, just a useless fork! The results being:

• Sometimes it is hard to see which is the real root
• Too many forks pollute the GitHub ecosystem
• Forks that do not contribute to the original repository should be removed.
• It makes it difficult to see what you are looking for if you have to browse through results that are fluff

For example, look at this one: Maroto it has 179 null-work forks!

I guess many of those are from people who perhaps want to appear as "developers" and just fork projects to have them listed in their profile, when in reality, they don't do any development.

Or perhaps some are just a result of those courses about learning Git or GitHub, in which case I believe there shouldbe some sort of playground for that purpose.

[queenofcorgis]

It sounds like they should read our two-part series on Friendly Forking: Part One and Part Two on our blog 😄 🍴

[lordofscripts]

Well, those forks I referred to don't fall in any of those two categories 😔 (and there are hundreds if not thousands of them). These are just repositories forked from the upstream and immediately abandoned with no changes of any kind. Sounds like a waste of disk space. Perhaps time for GitHub to start cleaning up and removing repos that are formed but identical (or obsoleted).

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[anonymous-leviathan]

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Nobody can eat well when there are too many forks in the plate. Well, for months now I have been exploring several repositories. Some are dependencies of my projects, others just for curiosity in searching for development possibilities.

What did I notice? The Fork feature is being abused all over the place! Many repositories have been forked many (many!) times and when you browse the fork, there is nothing new in them, just a useless fork! The results being:

• Sometimes it is hard to see which is the real root
• Too many forks pollute the GitHub ecosystem
• Forks that do not contribute to the original repository should be removed.
• It makes it difficult to see what you are looking for if you have to browse through results that are fluff

For example, look at this one: Maroto it has 179 null-work forks!

I guess many of those are from people who perhaps want to appear as "developers" and just fork projects to have them listed in their profile, when in reality, they don't do any development.

Or perhaps some are just a result of those courses about learning Git or GitHub, in which case I believe there shouldbe some sort of playground for that purpose.

You've brought up a really valid concern! The GitHub ecosystem can indeed get cluttered with forks that don’t add any real value to the original repositories. Here are some factors and possible solutions that might address these issues:

Why This Happens

1. Learning and Experimentation: Many new developers fork repositories as part of learning Git and GitHub. This can be helpful for hands-on experience, but these forks often don't lead to any substantial contributions and end up cluttering the platform.
2. Quick Access: Some users fork a project just to have it listed in their profile or to "save" it for quick reference. They may have no intention of developing or contributing back.
3. Course or Tutorial Forks: Some courses on GitHub suggest forking as a first step, which can lead to hundreds of identical forks as students follow along.
4. Self-Promotion: Occasionally, developers may fork popular repositories to make their profile appear more active, though they don’t plan to contribute anything new.

Potential Solutions

GitHub could consider several changes to mitigate the clutter caused by unmodified or unused forks:

1. Archived Forks: Implement an automatic archival system for forks that haven’t been modified or had any commits beyond the initial fork. This would keep them accessible to the user but reduce their visibility in searches.
2. Fork Filters: GitHub could introduce filters to allow users to see only “active” or “contributing” forks—forks that have commits, pull requests, or significant changes compared to the root.
3. Fork Purpose Selection: When users fork a repo, GitHub could prompt them to specify the purpose (e.g., personal experimentation, potential contribution, or education). Based on the selection, GitHub could organize or prioritize forks differently.
4. Playground Repositories for Learning: GitHub could set up designated playground repositories where users new to GitHub can fork, commit, and create pull requests without affecting the visibility of more “serious” repos.
5. Pruning Inactive Forks: After a certain period of inactivity (say, a year or two), GitHub could hide or “soft delete” forks that haven’t been updated.

Steps You Can Take

To help filter forks for yourself, try using these GitHub search parameters:

• Filter by recent activity: You can filter by time with sort:updated-desc to see recent changes, which can help identify more active forks.
• Use GitHub Insights: For repositories you maintain, the Insights tab can show contributors and activity, helping distinguish between active and inactive forks.

While GitHub hasn’t yet implemented some of these ideas, discussing them in GitHub’s Community Forum or via feedback channels might catch the attention of GitHub’s team.

if your issues were fixed please make me this as an answer if it is not we can explore more to resolve this