"Organization owners now have the ability to block abusive users from public repositories. This feature allows project owners to block users, and prevents blocked users from opening or commenting on issues or pull requests, forking repositories, and adding or editing wiki pages."<p>I get blocking users from opening/commenting/sending PRs/editing the wiki, but why block them from forking a public project?
Would be great to have some transparency, perhaps a "# of users banned in this repo". That'd be one way to see where the balance of "abuse" lies, with the repo/org or the contributors. In other words, another indicator for health of the community, just like # of stars, forks, contributors, and watchers.
> This feature allows project owners to block users, and prevents blocked users from(...) forking repositories ...<p>People here don't get that some organisations and individuals will use it to push block lists, unrelated to any Github activity, and depending on your actions on Twitter, Facebook G+ or whatever you'll be blocked in advance from forking, contributing, interacting with a large range or repositories ... same as Twitter Block lists ...
I could see this being both a blessing and a curse.<p>On the one hand, it's easy to see how this is a powerful tool respectful developers can use to moderate their community positively.<p>But from the other, I've heard a few too many stories along the lines of "passionate contributor breaks into argument with passionate repo owner" and chaos ensues. I could see feature a way for people to step on toes and divide rather than encourage positive community.