I get that issue trackers are hard, but I feel like stale bots that *close issues* come off as so hostile. I shouldn't have to come back to the issue tracker every month to confirm, “Yes, this is still an issue!” to prevent the issue from getting closed.
Tag an issue as “stale” for easier triage—that’s fine! But “oops you aren’t engaged enough, sorry, your issue doesn’t exist anymore” feels like a bit of a slap in the face. Especially if it gets closed as “not planned.”
@cassidy The thing is: If an issue doesn't get properly tagged, or none of the maintainer assigns this to their own or someone else, then it in fact IS not planned, and closing it is the next best thing.
@dirk @cassidy I disagree. Just because noone got to the issue doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Closing it makes it harder for others who run into the same issue to find it, and will only result in duplicates being filed, because it is too easy to assume the issue just came back.
If it is genuinely not considered an issue, yeah, close it. But just because noone got there to triage it, that's not the same thing.
@dirk @algernon @cassidy This is really just a rebranded form of the 'meritocracy' rhetoric and it's wrong for all the same reasons.
There is a wide variety of possible reasons why an issue might not get attention, and many of them are temporary and variable in nature. This is exactly *why* it is important to actually triage issues and, if there is a reason not to address it, be explicit about the reason for that.
Most crucially, *there is not actually a reason* to close issues. An issue being open does not actually affect operations in any meaningful way, unless you are using the "open issues" view as your sole view of the state of a large project, in which case *that* is the problem. Tags and filters do exist for a reason.
@joepie91 @algernon @cassidy We should differentiate between ignored issues and open issues. An open issue is absolutely fine if it is/was not ignored.
If the issue was tagged, or was assigned to a team/person then it's absolutely fine to keep it eternally open, because it was addressed at least once from a mod/dev/triager/etc. and in theory someone could start working on it.
I am not going to blame anyone, but I came across issue trackers where the oldest issues are over a decade old with ZERO interaction. No tags, no comments, no assignments, no nothing. Just a perfectly fine bug report with steps to reproduce, logs, and screenshots.
@dirk @joepie91 @cassidy I had a bugreport of mine open for 12 years, with no interaction from anyone. Someone took over maintainership, went through all the issues, reproduced mine, and fixed it. Were it closed due to inactivity, it would still be an issue today.
I fixed bugs that were reported over a decade ago, too. We had bugsquashing parties were the goal was to fix the oldest bugs possible, in whatever project we found it in. These were mighty enjoyable activities, and very, very rewarding. Fixing a decade old issue is mighty satisfying. Yet, impossible with close bots. Heck, we ignored such projects in the first place.
Close ignored bugs, and you prevent all these. Close ignored bugs, and you screw future maintainers. Close ignored bugs, and you disrespect their reporters. Close ignored issues, and you drive future contributors away.
So how does any of this improve anything? It does not bring clarity. An unfixed issue remains so, but it is now swept under the rug. Just because it is ignored, does not mean we have to live with it forever, that it is not worth being addressed at a later point in time. Yet, that is exactly what auto-closing says, and that does not improve a project's health.
When you say that a good report takes time and effort to write, why do you slap the reporter accross the face by auto-closing it? Why do you rob them of the satisfaction of seeing their report addressed, a decade or more later? Let me tell you: that is also a great feeling.
If you want clearer issue lists, make issue trackers better. Make it possible to filter on number of (maintainer) replies: you can then trivially see or hide ignored bugs, without sweeping problems under the rug just because they are a problem for a long time.
@joepie91 @dirk @algernon @cassidy yeah, an issue being open or closed is really important info, particularly with bugs, if you start closing issues then people can just never know if a closed issue is actually no longer an issue, or just something swept under the rug