You know, when I started reading this I thought that I would disagree with you and write a grumpy comment to that effect. ("Considered Harmful" usually makes me grumpy.) However, you convinced me otherwise. Congratulations on a good "Considered Harmful" piece!
Here's another example: I recently made a PR to a project to fix a broken URL. I changed a wrong file and forgot about the PR. The maintainer had to close the PR, make the change himself, and explain why/what he did. This whole process would've been a lot simpler if Github allowed people to merge to another branch.
> This whole process would've been a lot simpler if Github allowed people to merge to another branch.
Is this a problem that comes from forking? I raise PRs on my projects onto various different branches all the time. Or maybe I've misunderstood the issue.
Here's another example: I recently made a PR to a project to fix a broken URL. I changed a wrong file and forgot about the PR. The maintainer had to close the PR, make the change himself, and explain why/what he did. This whole process would've been a lot simpler if Github allowed people to merge to another branch.