[cweagans]

You don't have to use the UI. If you're really anal about your git history, you can do the merge locally and squash everything into one commit. IMO, it's not worth the effort to do that, though. You probably don't actually care about the Git log - you care about the file history (i.e. git blame), which will usually point you to the right commit anyway, even if you have a bunch of extra merge commits in your log.

FWIW, you're not Linus. You don't get 17 million emails/day (exaggeration, I know). He has a very refined workflow based on many, many years of working with people all over the world on a gigantic project used by hundreds of millions of people.

Re point 6: You don't create another pull request. You just make another commit on that branch.