github/developer.github.com — pull request #62 by editor (2012-02-28 02:46:22+00:00)
Title: Add reference to required scope for managing private Gists.

I recently hit a brick wall developing with the Gists API due to some 404's being returned for the /gists endpoint, not realizing that Github had the concept of scope and that I was missing it.

Staff behind support@github.com helped me work through my mistake. This was my bad for not seeing that in the OAuth docs but based on my research of the issue I think [I'm not the only one][1] to have made the error.

I think someday returning something like a 401 "Forbidden" might help clue in developers like myself who skipped over the scope section, but in the meantime I'm hoping this commit might be able to pay back the support cost I incurred Github by preventing others from making my same error.

[1] https://github.com/blog/846-new-issues-and-gist-api#comment-13057