Bad defaults is one of my favorite user incentive tricks. Can't get users to upload their photo? Give them a super ugly picture as the default. They'll change it immediately out of disgust

Another tip - always set default profile gender to "Female". Women are less prone to feeling alienated by gender, but guys typically get uncomfortable with being labeled as a woman and will change it

Unless you're operating a World of Warcraft forum :)

In a way I think this is less intrusive (and clever). These are merely "suggested defaults" that never actually get displayed on the user's profile. Actually using bad defaults may have the undesired effect of people not changing the bad default.

This is akin to ridiculing your customers until they cave in and bow to your bidding. I don't think it's good to treat your users that way.

In Garry's Mod the default name was "Mingebag". That's very much reflective of Garry's sense of humour...

You could use "Loving SOPA" or "Loving GoDaddy" too :) ...Seriously, I don´t like this approach, it´s much better find an objective to this information that seems mere informative in the site. And more, could you get this information directly from github?

This really rubs me the wrong way and I just revoked access to my Github account for Coderwall. You are adding content that appears to be added by me, but that I did not authorize you to add to my profile. Not cool.

They did not add any content whatsoever. facepalm

It's simply a mind trick to get a much higher percent of users to add their skills to their profile.

Do these defaults appear in the list of user's skills or not?

They do not. We've updated the UI to make that much more clear.

Are you guys serious? The article clearly says that these are merely suggested defaults.

Hmm, perhaps the visual treatment could be better as these are only suggestions and do not show up on your profile.

Parent appears to be a good-faith contribution to the discussion. Please do not downvote it just because you disagree.

I downvoted because the parent misread the article and as a consequence is taking a strong stand from a misinformed starting point. The discussion that results will not likely be very interesting.

same here, removed my account as well. Trying to be too cute.

I don't get it ... half their users didn't add any skills so they added "Loving IE6" and created news?

* Half the users didn't configure their skillsets

* Coderwall set "suggested defaults" of "Loving IE6" and "Visual Basic" (which kind-of look like those are the skills set for your account)

* After that, 92% of users have configured their skillset.

It's just a motivator to "correct" their skills and enter real ones. Who wants to say they "love IE6"? Hah, I like it.

I love IE6. It has caused years of pain to web devs, something that I, too, someday wish to do.

(I expect to get downvoted for my brutal honesty, and frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn).

lol dam smart!