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
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.
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.
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.