We picked GH stars because it's a transparent public number. Also because it's a relatively lightweight ask that still means a little more than a retweet or FB like. This campaign is about the existing Meteor community reaching out and encouraging new people into our community, and raising money for CodeNow is in the same spirit of accessibility and sharing.

Like Bahamut's comment shows, people do hesitate to star something they aren't actually interested in, and that's good; we want people to actually make an effort to tell their friends why they should check out Meteor. And then, if they succeed, it only takes 1-2 clicks for the friend to register their interest and get counted as part of the campaign.