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0 pointspocketarc3y ago0 comments

Sorry, tangential rant, but, God I hate stale issue bots. The issue is valid, it's reproduced, it's been discussed, nothing's changed, it hasn't stopped being a valid issue just because it hasn't had activity in 30 days, or 6 months, or a year.

Just means the maintainers haven't gotten around to fixing it/implementing it yet, nothing wrong with that - they don't owe anyone a timeline for fixing issues.

The only way to fight the stale bot is to constantly spam your issue with "bump" comments, which nobody's going to do (and if they do, surely the maintainers will just complain that you're spamming, and rightfully so).

So if the maintainers don't have time to deal with your issue within X months, it just won't get fixed. They won't even be aware that those issues are still there (because who goes through closed issues looking for stuff to do?).

And so I hit google for an issue I'm having with Project X, stumble upon a "closed" issue, scroll to the bottom, and see "closed by stale bot". WHY IS IT CLOSED WHEN IT IS STILL AN ISSUE.

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2 comments · 2 top-level

lucumo3y ago

Oh god. I recently landed on a Docker issue that exactly described my problem. Many reproductions, all questions answered and then maintainers stopped engaging. So the stale issue bot took over. Somebody untagged it, but a while later it redid it. That went on for months, after which somebody closed it manually.

The bot doesn't really change the outcome (if maintainers don't engage, they don't engage), but it a huge bunch of noise.

playingalong3y ago

While I agree with this sentiment and share the frustration. Or some sense of lack of cohesion, but...

Remember the stale bot is an opt-in feature. It is the maintainer (s) who decided to configure it.

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