I don't agree with this at all. I think the reason Github is so prominent is the social network aspects it has built around Git, which created strong network effects that most developers are unwilling to part with. Maintainers don't want to loose their stars and the users don't want to loose the collective "audit" by the github users.

Things like number of stars on a repository, number of forks, number of issues answered, number of followers for an account. All these things are powerful indicators of quality, and like it or not are now part of modern software engineering. Developers are more likely to use a repo that has more stars than its alternatives.

I know that the code should speak for itself and one should audit their dependencies and not depend on Github stars, but in practice this is not what happens, we rely on the community.

I would say that your comment is an addition to mine, and I think so too. This is another reason for the popularity of github.

As for me, this does not negate the convenient things that I originally wrote about.

> Things like number of stars on a repository, number of forks, number of issues answered, number of followers for an account. All these things are powerful indicators of quality

Hahahahahahahahahahahaha...

You don't need to develop on Github to get this, just mirror your repo.

> Maintainers don't want to loose their stars

??? Seriously?

> All these things are powerful indicators of quality

Not in my experience....