The stale bot is trying to solve a set of problems with a single solution that fits almost none of them. Old issues never resolved? Not enough information? Too

The stale bot is trying to solve a set of problems with a single solution that fits almost none of them. Old issues never resolved? Not enough information? Too many issues created? Issues that will never be worked on? Just one solution - close them all without comment, while also spamming the inboxes of anyone who might be watching them... which leads to +1 posts and duplicates and "why was this closed?" - again more spam. Most people just want some sort of explanation that makes sense. Even something as simple as, "Don't have time for this right now, try reopening in 6 months" would be better, while accomplishing the same thing - closing issues that won't be worked on. In my experience, the number one problem I see on github / gitlab projects, is the maintainers not being able to or willing to allow others help them. Volunteering to triage issues, review code, etc. is very often meant with silence or reservations, even on projects that are specifically asking for help. Maintainers want help but they are very untrustworthy of those who wish to help them. That's completely understandable. The work is their baby and they want control over it. The internet is full of people who are untrustworthy. But this is a huge problem and there are a ton of open source projects that die as a result. The tools offered do not provide a good solution for this ownership problem, but they are all that is offered, so things like stale bot are used to try to reduce the load on the maintainers, which ends up making the problem worse, not better. There are some projects that don't run into these issues, at least not to the same degree. Those projects almost always have a high degree of collaboration between maintainers and contributors. It usually feels more like a collective than a maintainer/user relationship.