gist: make it a bit more clear how gist_access_id is used ... and how it is different from gist_id A gist has a gist_access_id which gives access to it. For private Gists, it is a multi-letter secure random string. gist_id is the primary key in the database and thus an automatically incrementing integer. It is also used as the not-so-secret gist_access_id for public gists. This gets rid of one odd safe_unicode applied to an int.