> The problem is that the box looks exactly the same for repos with no commits and stars and for repos with a decade-long history and 55k stargazers and watchers. And it says “Warning: this is a potentially destructive action.”

It seems a bit much to expect the website to show you a warning of different levels of severity depending on the stars a repos has, particularly when the standard message is pretty severe and explicit. It even makes you type the name of the repo you want to make private before proceeding - I don't see how that wouldn't make anyone snap out of autopilot. I sympathise with the author's misfortune but it is pretty hard to look at that warning dialog and conclude that he was not sufficiently warned of the consequences or given a chance to reflect.

I find it disappointing that all of the lessons supposedly learned from this ordeal are lessons for other people, not the author. Surely lesson #1 should have been "check what repo you're in before taking destructive actions".