I think that marking them drafts could be a good way to reduce the overload for people having to review PRs, drafts can easily be filtered out in github searches.
> 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. Well, I think 30 days would be since the last update to the PR, not 30 days since it was opened. My question probably would be... If a PR was sitting ignored for 30 days without anyone from the community feeling the need to review and merge it and without its primary author feeling the need to push for getting it merged. Isn't that a signal that both parts consider that PR not important? Anyway 30 days was just a random value, it could be 60 or anything else. We had PRs that have been open without any comment or update for 120+ days. I like Will's proposal of sending one ping to the author and reviewers, and if there is no feedback after 30 days from the ping we can just close the PR. I would even make the ping shorter, 10 days without any update to a PR is already a time long enough to signal the person might have forgotten about it and a ping might bring it up on top of his mind again. On Fri, Mar 31, 2023 at 5:23 PM Aldrin <akmon...@ucsc.edu.invalid> wrote: > I have some PRs that have been open for awhile and I changed them to be > draft PRs (I think that makes them clutter fewer views while I leave them > open). > > I'm just curious if draft PRs are as low cost (low cognitive load) as I > think they > are and if instead of closing them the bot can make a PR a draft PR? In > general > I agree with the general direction of the discussion otherwise. > > Aldrin Montana > Computer Science PhD Student > UC Santa Cruz > > > On Fri, Mar 31, 2023 at 7:49 AM Will Jones <will.jones...@gmail.com> > wrote: > > > > 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". > > > > Thanks for bringing this up, Joris. That does make closing via bot much > > less appealing to me. > > > > I like your idea of (1) having the bot provide a friendly message asking > > the contributor whether they plan to continue their work (and maybe > provide > > suggestions on how to get reviewer attention if needed) and (2) if there > is > > no response to that message after 30 days, we can then close the PR. > > > > > > > > On Fri, Mar 31, 2023 at 3:57 AM Joris Van den Bossche < > > jorisvandenboss...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > > > 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. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > >
