You didn't lose anything, you asked for it to be removed by setting your repository private, albeit mistakenly. Something that is public (stars) cannot coexist with something that is private (your repo), otherwise unexpected things start to happen or you need to write a bunch of pointless edge cases. It makes sense. So does this article, but it should be a "lesson learned" and not a "GitHub fucked us" angle cause it pretty clearly tells you what you're about to do.