> I've used github for a long time, would not have expected these results, and was unnerved by them.
So you've used it heavily, but haven't read the docs or thought about how forks work, and are now surprised. This seems like a learning opportunity, read the docs for stuff you use heavily, read the man pages and info pages for tools you rely on.
None of this seemed surprising to me, perhaps because I've made PRs, seen that PRs from deleted repositories are still visible, and generally have this mental model of "a repository fork is part of a network of forks, which is a shared collection of git objects".
Congratulations, you developed the right intuition.
However in UX/DX the question isn't whether users can develop the right intuition based on how they interact with software over time and reading through the documentation but how to shorten the time and effort necessary for that, ideally so that a single glance is enough.
Do you think reading all the documentation for every feature of every tool you use in your life is a good use of your time and something that should be expected of everyone? As someone developing software used by other people, I don't.
So you've used it heavily, but haven't read the docs or thought about how forks work, and are now surprised. This seems like a learning opportunity, read the docs for stuff you use heavily, read the man pages and info pages for tools you rely on.
None of this seemed surprising to me, perhaps because I've made PRs, seen that PRs from deleted repositories are still visible, and generally have this mental model of "a repository fork is part of a network of forks, which is a shared collection of git objects".