Comment by dmitshur

I’m wondering if you got a chance to see this part of the post:

  > […] I obviously had no intention to make httpie/httpie private. So, why then?
  >
  > The proximate cause was that I thought I was inside a different repo; […] What I actually intended to do was to hide the HTTPie organization’s profile README, […]
  >
  > What put me on the wrong path was an otherwise completely unrelated action: I had just done the same (i.e., hidden an empty README) on my personal profile by making jakubroztocil/jakubroztocil private.
  >
  > GitHub’s conceptual model treats users and organizations as very similar entities when it comes to profiles and repos. […] since I just wanted to repeat the same benign action on our organization’s profile, […]
  >
  > I didn’t realize at the moment there’s an inconsistency in the naming of this special repo containing profile READMEs and that it differs for users and organizations: name/name vs. name/.github.
  > 
  > That’s why I proceeded to make httpie/httpie private instead of httpie/.github without realizing my mistake.

For me, this part of the post really helps understand the context in which the mistake was made. The post is long so it is possible some people read other parts but missed this one.