[IPython-dev] Policy for closing pull requests

Fernando Perez fperez.net at gmail.com
Mon Aug 13 00:33:35 EDT 2012


On Sat, Aug 11, 2012 at 7:17 PM, Aaron Meurer <asmeurer at gmail.com> wrote:
> One other important rule that we have in SymPy is that if we close a
> pull request that still needs work (as opposed to an outright
> rejection), we make sure that it is mentioned in an open issue.
> Otherwise, it will be forgotten forever.

With Aaron's additional point, I'm +1 on the idea, whereas the
original proposal seemed too aggressive to me.  I understand the need
to optimize our limited resources so we can focus on code that has a
hope of getting merged, but as originally presented I think that it
pushed too hard in that direction and had the danger of alienating
contributors (we don't want to 'solve' our current problem of having
too many open PRs simply by losing contributors, that would be
throwing out the baby with the bathwater).

So I'm +1 on the original proposal, but once amended with:

- Every time we close a PR because it has become 'dormant' (but one we
assume would get merged with some extra work), we do two things:

1. In the closing comment, explain clearly to the author this, so they
realize the closing isn't a rejection, and that the simple act of
pushing a few commits would be sufficient to get it reopened (and
possibly merged if that completes what was missing).

2. We create a regular issue linking to this PR, with a label
'dormant-PR'.  This would let us quickly use the issue sorter to have
a look at dormant PRs, which are also candidates for sprints, when a
core developer wants to do some quick housecleaning, etc.


How does that sound?

f



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