I am personally not a huge fan of auto-closing PRs. Especially not after a short period like 30 days (I think that's too short for an open source project), and we have to be careful with messaging. Very often such a PR is "stale" because it is waiting for reviews. I know we have the labels now that could indicate this, but those are not (yet) bullet proof (for example, if I quickly answer to one comment it will already be marked as "awaiting changes", while in fact it might still be waiting on actual review). I think in general it is difficult to know the exact reason why something is stale, a good reason to be careful with automated actions that can be perceived as unfriendly.
Personally, I think commenting on a PR instead of closing it might be a good alternative, if we craft a good and helpful message. That can act as a useful reminder, both towards the author as maintainer, and can also *ask* to close if they are not planning to further work on it (and for example, we could still auto-close PRs if nothing happened (no push, no comment, ..) on such a PR after an additional period of time). Also good to know: contributors apparently can't re-open PRs if it was closed by someone else, so we have to be careful with messages like "feel free to reopen". On Thu, 30 Mar 2023 at 23:11, Will Jones <will.jones...@gmail.com> wrote: > > I'm +0 on the reviewer bot pings. Closing PRs where the author hasn't > updated in 30 days is something a maintainer would have to do anyways, so > it seems like a useful automation. And there's only one author, so it's > guaranteed to ping the right person. Things are not so clean with reviewers. > > With the labels and codeowners file [1] I think we have supplied sufficient > tools so that each subproject in the monorepo can manage their review > process in their own way. For example, I have a bookmark that takes me to a > filtered view of PRs that only shows me the C++ Parquet ones that are ready > for review [2]. I'd encourage each reviewer to have a similar view of the > project that they regularly check. > > [1] https://github.com/apache/arrow/blob/main/.github/CODEOWNERS > [2] > https://github.com/apache/arrow/pulls?q=is%3Aopen+is%3Apr+label%3A%22Component%3A+C%2B%2B%22+label%3A%22Component%3A+Parquet%22+draft%3Afalse > > On Thu, Mar 30, 2023 at 1:37 PM Anja <anja.kef...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > Using those labels is a clever idea! > > > > Would there be a benefit to pinging reviewers for PRs that have been > > "awaiting X review" for more than 30 days? > > > > On Thu, 30 Mar 2023 at 12:31, Will Jones <will.jones...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > > > Thanks Raul. Perhaps we could limit the stale bot to PRs that have been > > in > > > "awaiting changes" for 30 or more days? > > > > > > On Thu, Mar 30, 2023 at 11:36 AM Raúl Cumplido <raulcumpl...@gmail.com> > > > wrote: > > > > > > > I suppose we could use the new labels for "awaiting review", "awaiting > > > > committer review", "awaiting changes" and "awaiting change review" to > > > know > > > > whether is stale due to the contributor or the reviewer. > > > > > > > > El jue, 30 mar 2023, 20:08, Will Jones <will.jones...@gmail.com> > > > escribió: > > > > > > > > > First, to clarify: we are discussing for the monorepo only, not for > > > Rust > > > > / > > > > > Julia / etc.? This is a big project, so best to be specific which > > > > > subprojects you are addressing. > > > > > > > > > > I am +0.5 on this. 30 days seems like an appropriate window for this > > > > > project. If the PR was stale because the contributor had not updated > > > it, > > > > it > > > > > seems appropriate. But sometimes it's because it hasn't had an update > > > > from > > > > > reviewers for a while, and in that situation it doesn't seem as > > ideal. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > On Thu, Mar 30, 2023 at 11:01 AM Anja <anja.kef...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > Also, perhaps it can be two bots in an escalated process. A > > "reminder > > > > > ping" > > > > > > bot every X days, and then a stalebot every X+Y days. > > > > > > > > > > > > On Thu, 30 Mar 2023 at 10:54, Anja <anja.kef...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > > > When checked this morning, there were 119 PRs that haven't been > > > > updated > > > > > > in > > > > > > > 30 days. The oldest was nearly 3 years old. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > I propose the addition of a bot that will automatically close any > > > PRs > > > > > > that > > > > > > > haven't been updated in 30 days. The closing will act as a > > > > notification > > > > > > to > > > > > > > the reviewers and submitter to evaluate if the work still has > > > value, > > > > > and > > > > > > > just outright close work that is too out-dated for a > > > straightforward > > > > > > merge. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > If the behaviour is done by a bot, it could reduce maintenance > > > > burden, > > > > > > and > > > > > > > simplify the emotional response. A bot can link to a policy, and > > it > > > > > feels > > > > > > > neutral in its consistent tone. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > >
