> 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.

I hate that this is perceived as generally true. Stars can be farmed and gamed; and the value of a star does not decay over time. Issues can be automatically closed, or answered with a non-response and closed. Numbers of followers is a networking/platform thing (flag your significance by following people with significant follower numbers).

> Developers are more likely to use a repo that has more stars than its alternatives.

If anything, star numbers reflect first mover advantage rather than code quality. People choosing which one of a number of competing packages to use in their product should consider a lot more than just the star number. Sadly, time pressures on decision makers (and their assumptions) means that detailed consideration rarely happens and star count remains the major factor in choosing whether to include a repo in a project.