Diagram on "About pull request merges" is misleading and confusing #21507
Description
Code of Conduct
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What article on docs.github.com is affected?
What part(s) of the article would you like to see updated?
The first diagram, showing a non-fast-forward merge, is extremely misleading, because it appears to show commits as "living on" a branch, and somehow "moving between them" when they are merged.
Most glaringly, the last line appears to show commit D no longer having any ancestors, when in reality it will still trace history back to commit C, and this is a very important feature of git.
It is also confusing that the label "Main" appears twice, leaving the reader to guess that one is before and one after the merge.
Current diagram in ASCII art for comparison:
Main: A -> B -> C
Feature: A -> B -> C -> D -> E
Main: A -> B -> C ----> F
/
D -> E
Suggested replacement:
Before: A -> B -> C <-(main)
\
+-> D -> E <-(feature)
After: A -> B -> C -----------> F <-(main)
\ /
+-> D -> E <-(feature)
The second diagram, showing a squash merge, could be updated to match (where ~~~~~ represents the triangle of arrows linking D + E to F on the existing diagram):
Before: A -> B -> C <-(main)
\
+-> D -> E <-(feature)
After: A -> B -> C ----> F <-(main)
\ ~~~~~~
+-> D -> E <-(feature)
Additional information
No response