GitHub – Ask Questions Without Raising an Issue

Hopefully you've found a good workaround by now, but if not, you can use a bookmarklet to exclude a milestone (or change any other search parameter). Unfortunately GitHub doesn't allow you to change the default search query.

Add this bit of code as a bookmark in your browser, and when you go to the Issues page for any repository, just click the bookmark and it will exclude whichever milestone(s) you want.

javascript:
(function(){
    document.getElementById('js-issues-search').value = 'is:issue is:open -milestone:foo';
})();

Just change foo to whichever milestone you wish to exclude.

They're useful in allowing you to cross-reference from one repository to another, so that comments or issues raised elsewhere can link back and have a point of context in a way.

They're also good for those who want to use GitHub as an issue tracker for the public, who you don't want to see your source code.

For example, you have a public repo that only allows users to open Issues. And linked with that you have a private repo where the code actually sits among your team. If you push a fix, you can close the public Issue tracker and that reference will show the context/reason.

This is also part of a social coding aspect, where you can have other forks and repos reference each other to create some kind of group focus.

You cannot currently stop this cross-linking behaviour.