In fact, these are the list of the first hits on my search of "stalebot":
- Most stale bots are anti-user and anti-contributor, but they don't have ... - No Stale Bots - GitHub - actions/stale: Marks issues and pull requests that have - GitHub stale bot considered harmful : r/programming - Reddit - Don't use stale bots - Understanding the Helpfulness of Stale Bot for Pull-based Development - Github Stale Bots: A False Economy - blog.benwinding So, it seems that using such a practice may or may not be a positive thing. Jason moorepants.info +01 530-601-9791 On Sun, Feb 1, 2026 at 2:43 PM Jason Moore <[email protected]> wrote: > This reminds me that there is more nuance than I originally wrote. > > Github has 4 PR states and as far as I can gather from the last 15 years > of community practice this is how we've treated them: > > - Open (green): request for review and author desires to have it merged > - Closed (red): ether a core dev closed it to signal it will not be merged > or the submitter self-closes it to signal they will not pursue it further > - Merged (purple): a core dev merged the PR into master > - Draft (grey): pull request shared so others can view the work or > collaborate but not ready for review and/or merging (we used to use "WIP" > in the title, as this a relatively new GH feature) > > I do think these have been distinct meanings and arose through many past > conversations and practices. At one point in the past, we even used labels > to designate "author's turn" or "reviewer's turn" to indicate who's > responsibility it is to take the next steps in moving a PR forward. The > green open PRs stall because we are waiting on one of these turns. This is > not the first time we've discussed the fact that SymPy has a large number > of open PRs and whether we should close them for other reasons than above. > We can introduce closing a PR due to inactivity, but I do not see why doing > this anything other than causing you to have to click an extra tab to see > these PRs. I have always thought the stalebot tool in some repositories to > be obnoxious and annoying. Some times it takes a long time to get a PR > merged. I just searched "stalebot" and this was the first article that > popped up: > https://jacobtomlinson.dev/posts/2024/most-stale-bots-are-anti-user-and-anti-contributor-but-they-dont-have-to-be/. > I agree with it being a turn-off to new contributors (and also just > annoying to standing contributors). The second part of the article gives > some tips not unlike our turns method we used in the past. > > I think it is also ok that we don't get to every PR or issue and that > accepting that issues/PRs are an unwinnable Whac-A-Mole game. We've been > staring at a huge list of issues and PRs for decades now. I'm not sure what > closing a bunch for inactivity will change. > > Jason > moorepants.info > +01 530-601-9791 > > > On Sun, Feb 1, 2026 at 1:53 PM Oscar Benjamin <[email protected]> > wrote: > >> On Sun, 1 Feb 2026 at 06:53, Jason Moore <[email protected]> wrote: >> > >> > In the past we've used the "closed" designation on a PR to mean: 1) >> this is merged into master and 2) this will definitely not be merged into >> master. If we close PRs based on inactivity time, then we have PRs labeled >> "closed" which are neither 1 or 2, they still have the state "could be or >> might be merged to master or might be rejected" but now we've labeled them >> with "closed" which would seemingly imply 1 or 2. So it seems to me if you >> close based on inactivity time, then the meaning of "open" or "closed" PR >> no longer has distinct meanings. >> >> I think that currently open vs closed does not have distinct meanings. >> Most PRs in the open state should really be in the closed state. It is >> just that no one has closed them. Even if the PR is closed that is >> usually because the author decided to close the PR which does not >> necessarily reflect a decision from the project that the PR was the >> wrong approach. >> >> If we close based on inactivity then an open PR has an objective >> meaning that there is some recent activity. A PR that is closed would >> have a message saying that it was closed because of inactivity and >> then it is clear that that is not necessarily a rejection of what is >> in the PR. >> >> Most of the time the reason a PR has not been merged is not really to >> do with making a decision about what the PR is trying to do but just >> because the author hasn't done it properly and at the time when anyone >> looked at it it was not clear if the author was going to fix the >> problems or not. There may or may not be a comment from a reviewer >> explaining what the problem with the PR is. >> >> -- >> Oscar >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "sympy" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to [email protected]. >> To view this discussion visit >> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/sympy/CAHVvXxSphOcZ%2BDYen_Z27FtUwcSVmO9iR2S55B%3D%2BYL%2BjNmX_Lg%40mail.gmail.com >> . >> > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "sympy" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/sympy/CAP7f1AiX-Am_uWixUtCHDm6ZFq-7zcuwO0E9JwLSyXBSpq1XMg%40mail.gmail.com.
