As a result of this merge, I have so far received 3 emails with this
scary message. "This PR is stale because it has been open for 30 days
with no activity. Remove stale label or comment or this will be closed
in 5 days".
https://github.com/python/cpython/pull/23100#issuecomment-745680212
https://github.com/python/cpython/pull/23098#issuecomment-745680248
https://github.com/python/cpython/pull/22954#issuecomment-745680870
Issues with the change:
1. What use is the message and label? In
https://github.com/python/core-workflow/issues/93
Brett said that 'stale' meant that the PR was waiting on the contributor
-- no CLA or no requested revision. The purpose would then be to prompt
contributors and let committers know that they could not proceed (unless
the block was revision and one was willing to do it oneself).
The actual change appears to be strictly time based as none of the PRs
above are waiting on the author. So what *is* the purpose of actual change?
2. What is the appropriate waiting time? As I remember, most people in
the discussion I participated in suggested longer than a month, such as
6 months or a year. We seem to have been ignored. In any case, the
proper answer depends on the purpose.
One good result was triggering miss-islington to merge a stalled
backport PR with an approval and passed CI tests.
https://github.com/python/cpython/pull/22843#issuecomment-745681140
For checking miss-islinton backport PRs, I think flagging anythhing over
7 days would be about right.
3. Should 'stale' PRs be auto-closed? Since closing without merging
amounts to rejection, I am strongly opposed. Someone recently merged a
PR based on 2012 patches on bpo. Faster response to contributors would
be great, but using mindless automated rules will not get us there. In
any case, auto-closing after 35 days strikes me as madness.
As it turns out, Mariatta changed the original 5 days in the PR to -1,
meaning never, but forgot to change the message.
-------- Forwarded Message --------
Subject: [Python-checkins] Adding "stale" GitHub Action (GH-21247)
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 2020 14:59:00 -0500 (EST)
From: Mariatta