GitHub: Restrict Access to specific branch [duplicate]

Question

Is there a way to restrict access to certain branches within a repository? We have production and master branches which sometimes get messed up with rogue pushes.

Answer 1

Not with GitHub in the same repo.
(as opposed to local repos, which can be protected by an authorization layer like gitolite)

You could have:

• one repo for production and master branch, with only the prod team as collaborators (if there need to be contribution by others, they can fork that repo)
• one repo for other (more "public") branches, for the rest of the team.

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Update: I still prefer having two repos, but you now (Sept. 2015) can protect a branch on GitHub.
See "How to protect “master” in github?".