On Mon, Jan 12, 2026 at 12:40:41PM +0100, Arnt Gulbrandsen wrote: > "Kevin J. McCarthy" <[email protected]> writes: > > Yes, sorry the GitLab ticket system is a mess. I've done the bare > > minimum to address only severe issues the past four years. And many > > issues, I've left open when I should have just put my foot down and > > closed them. Please feel free, Arnt. Also, feel free to ping this > > mailing list for cases where you want a second opinion. > > It didn't take long before someone appeared offered a second opinion: > > https://gitlab.com/muttmua/mutt/-/issues/493#note_2998550556 > > Perhaps what I ought to do there is tag feature requests as enhancements and > close them. Then > https://gitlab.com/muttmua/mutt/-/issues?state=closed&label_name%5B%5D=enhancement > shows requests that noone has volunteered to act on, while > https://gitlab.com/muttmua/mutt/-/issues?state=opened&label_name%5B%5D=enhancement > shows requests that are being discussed, someone's volunteered to act on, > haven't been looked at, etc. > > I'm unhappy about leaving feature requests open when they have no real hope > of getting attention. Telling people "patches welcome" isn't nice, but > ignoring them for a year is IMO worse rather than better. That's my two > cents, though, what do you others think? > > Comments? > > Arnt
The issue tracker should only have open items that are confirmed bugs or bug reports being triaged and feature requests where someone agreed to work on. Closing these issues will notify the issuer. This allows complaining about it. If no one complains, it's not that important. Also with a lack of manpower saying 'patches welcome' is a valid option. As long as these issues are clearly labeled as 'feature request', once some devs are running out of work, they can search closed issues for unresolved FRs. We should make it clear to users that the correct way to request a feature is not to open an issue, but to contact the developers through the mailing list and discuss it beforehand. Only after it is discussed and agreed on that it's worth having it as a feature request someone should open an issue.
