I would prefer to solve these problems by fostering a culture of mentorship, and being responsive to questions. This is what I do on GitHub, too.
I actually just realized that if SourceHut has a site (like git-send-email.io) that explains git that uses the terms ‘ref’ and etc... (so that a git newcomer can build a proper fit mental model), this problem goes away. Not sure if explaining it easily would be possible though.
As someone who was quite familiar with git before using GitHub, GH's use of that term was the only confusing thing. (It is only not a request for others to `pull` your branch to inspect the changes, it's also a request to merge it into some other branch.)
A term like "ref" is at least part of the standard git terminology, and used in important commands that everyone should know like "reflog".
IMHO progressive disclosure is important, because if you want something to be widespread, beginners should be able to use SourceHut with little guidance.
> I don't believe that users are not capable of learning new things.
Well, for the users to learn git terminology, one has to start using git — and one of the biggest reasons is to start using git is to clone popular projects or cooperating between different people. If SourceHut is hostile (I’m not saying that it’s currently hostile, but I think it may improve) for people who don’t what a ‘ref’ is, people have to start using GitHub — and the newcomers of SourceHut becomes the very small portion of people who are already an ‘git expert’ and is interested in emailing patches.
If SourceHut wants to make the email patches/other workflows that SourceHut encourages mainstream, I think it’s crucial for git newcomers to be able to use it. It’s a losing game otherwise.