5 ms·

Bots are good in moderation, but in some cases bots can annoy everyone involved... For example; the Angular repository has a "stale bot", which closes and lock

by gitgud 6y ago

Bots are good in moderation, but in some cases bots can annoy everyone involved... For example; the Angular repository has a "stale bot", which closes and locks the issue after a certain amount of time of inactivity. This sounds great on the surface, however it's insane in practice. The users constantly need to recreate duplicate issues, as the original issue is locked. Most of the duplicates are not linked, so maintainers can't determine which issues are duplicates. And it also increases the friction of users notifying that the issue is still occurring. Basically the result of "stale bots" is more duplicate issues and less engagement on old issues (as they're locked) Moral of the story, use bots in moderation

andrew_ 6y ago
I manage a couple of high volume projects on a few open source initiatives. Stalebot is a sanity saver. Users are always welcome to trigger the bot to reopen. I won't presume your experience on open source projects of a big size, but when you're dealing with dozens of new issues daily, and have hundreds of issues that go back five years with no activity, the stalebot saves the day. That speaks to another issue of open source - it's more common than not for a user to report an issue with no intention of following up, nor helping to triage (let alone contributing). Drive-by issues are noise and take precious time away from maintainers. There again, stalebot steps in to help. YMMV but my personal experience is that we don't get too many reopens, and we don't get too many duplicates from closed issues.
- switchbak 6y ago
  Drive by issues are noise? So if I say "library X fails with this input" and don't follow up/triage/commit code, then this is a waste of time? I strongly disagree. Follow-up and collaboration are great, but someone taking the time to write a decent bug report is also valuable.
  - detaro 6y ago
    Presumably if it's a "decent bug report", needing additional feedback etc is less likely, and I assume GP is more talking about bug reports that are not really usable without further information. (Although even if you are careful at providing information, you can easily hit cases where more information is needed)
  - andrew_ 6y ago
    This presumes that all opened issues are decent. It also presumes that the author of the issue responds to feedback. What I would quantify as drive-by issues include poorly written, lacking information, or providing information that results in a follow up reply from other users or maintainers with a fix or ask for more information that goes unanswered. "library X fails with this input" is great, unless the input is wrong, the usage is wrong, or the environment is awry - and those issues are useless if the author doesn't reply to follow up replies.
    - account42 6y ago
      Closing bugs because they don't contain enough info and the reporter is not responsive to providing the required info is commpletely fine. Closing based on inactivity alone is just rude. > "library X fails with this input" is great, unless the input is wrong, the usage is wrong, or the environment is awry - and those issues are useless if the author doesn't reply to follow up replies. They could still be a hint that the documentation or reported error could be clearer.
      - andrew_ 6y ago
        We disagree. My experience with several extremely large projects has yielded the judgement that closing tickets which are years old without activity is prudent, as is setting a reasonable time frame in which an issue is too stale.
- remram 6y ago
  Only the original reporter gets to bump/reopen. Which they are sure to give up doing after a few iterations. In addition, it's just plain rude. If you don't have time to fix it, that's valid, but what makes you presume you community has time to deal with constant bot reminders on order to keep the bug open? You don't have to deal with it, that's fine, leave it there. Or get some more maintainers on board to help with triage.
  - andrew_ 6y ago
    This comment reflects what's wrong with open source. It's bitter, entitled, and devalues the time and effort of project maintainers.
    - kelnos 6y ago
      I don't really like something like stalebot from both the maintainer and user side. As a maintainer, I don't want a legitimate issue to get closed just because it's not (yet?) a high priority for me, and I let it go for a while. And as a user, if I've provided sufficient information to reproduce the issue, and the issue is valid, it's really demotivating to have that issue closed by a bot.
      - remram 6y ago
        I think stalebot works so long as maintainers commit to marking issues as "confirmed" after a while, or if enough people +1. However too often that is not the case. Multiple times have I filed an issue, that collects many people's "me too" and workarounds for over a year. And every month, stalebot comes and mentions everybody, so that I have to go and type in that stalebot command. Until one day I give up, because I don't want to get those notifications anymore, or because I move to a more active project. The issue gets closed even though multiple people are affected, and all they can do is open a new one, link to the workarounds somehow, and take over the duty of fighting the bot. Why make everyone do this? You say you don't owe me anything, but that's different from taking active step to hurt your community. (and by you I mean stalebot users like andrew_)
    - 6y ago

by gitgud 6y ago

andrew_ 6y ago

I manage a couple of high volume projects on a few open source initiatives. Stalebot is a sanity saver. Users are always welcome to trigger the bot to reopen. I won't presume your experience on open source projects of a big size, but when you're dealing with dozens of new issues daily, and have hundreds of issues that go back five years with no activity, the stalebot saves the day. That speaks to another issue of open source - it's more common than not for a user to report an issue with no intention of following up, nor helping to triage (let alone contributing). Drive-by issues are noise and take precious time away from maintainers. There again, stalebot steps in to help. YMMV but my personal experience is that we don't get too many reopens, and we don't get too many duplicates from closed issues.

switchbak 6y ago
Drive by issues are noise? So if I say "library X fails with this input" and don't follow up/triage/commit code, then this is a waste of time? I strongly disagree. Follow-up and collaboration are great, but someone taking the time to write a decent bug report is also valuable.
- detaro 6y ago
  Presumably if it's a "decent bug report", needing additional feedback etc is less likely, and I assume GP is more talking about bug reports that are not really usable without further information. (Although even if you are careful at providing information, you can easily hit cases where more information is needed)
- andrew_ 6y ago
  This presumes that all opened issues are decent. It also presumes that the author of the issue responds to feedback. What I would quantify as drive-by issues include poorly written, lacking information, or providing information that results in a follow up reply from other users or maintainers with a fix or ask for more information that goes unanswered. "library X fails with this input" is great, unless the input is wrong, the usage is wrong, or the environment is awry - and those issues are useless if the author doesn't reply to follow up replies.
  - account42 6y ago
    Closing bugs because they don't contain enough info and the reporter is not responsive to providing the required info is commpletely fine. Closing based on inactivity alone is just rude. > "library X fails with this input" is great, unless the input is wrong, the usage is wrong, or the environment is awry - and those issues are useless if the author doesn't reply to follow up replies. They could still be a hint that the documentation or reported error could be clearer.
    - andrew_ 6y ago
      We disagree. My experience with several extremely large projects has yielded the judgement that closing tickets which are years old without activity is prudent, as is setting a reasonable time frame in which an issue is too stale.
remram 6y ago
Only the original reporter gets to bump/reopen. Which they are sure to give up doing after a few iterations. In addition, it's just plain rude. If you don't have time to fix it, that's valid, but what makes you presume you community has time to deal with constant bot reminders on order to keep the bug open? You don't have to deal with it, that's fine, leave it there. Or get some more maintainers on board to help with triage.
- andrew_ 6y ago
  This comment reflects what's wrong with open source. It's bitter, entitled, and devalues the time and effort of project maintainers.
  - kelnos 6y ago
    I don't really like something like stalebot from both the maintainer and user side. As a maintainer, I don't want a legitimate issue to get closed just because it's not (yet?) a high priority for me, and I let it go for a while. And as a user, if I've provided sufficient information to reproduce the issue, and the issue is valid, it's really demotivating to have that issue closed by a bot.
    - remram 6y ago
      I think stalebot works so long as maintainers commit to marking issues as "confirmed" after a while, or if enough people +1. However too often that is not the case. Multiple times have I filed an issue, that collects many people's "me too" and workarounds for over a year. And every month, stalebot comes and mentions everybody, so that I have to go and type in that stalebot command. Until one day I give up, because I don't want to get those notifications anymore, or because I move to a more active project. The issue gets closed even though multiple people are affected, and all they can do is open a new one, link to the workarounds somehow, and take over the duty of fighting the bot. Why make everyone do this? You say you don't owe me anything, but that's different from taking active step to hurt your community. (and by you I mean stalebot users like andrew_)
  - 6y ago