[Numpy-discussion] Could we simplify backporting?

[Marten van Kerkwijk]

Hi All,

In gh-8594, a question came up how to mark things that should be
backported and Chuck commented [1]:

> Our backport policy is still somewhat ad hoc, especially as I the only one who has been doing release. What I currently do is set the milestone to the earlier version, so I will find the PR when looking for backports, then do a backport, label it as such, set the milestone on the backported version, and remove the milestone from the original. I'm not completely happy with the process, so if you have better ideas I'd like to hear them. One option I've considered is a `backported` label in addition to the `backport` label, then use the latter for things to be backported.

It seems that continuing to set the milestone to a bug-release version
if required was a good idea; it is little effort to anyone and keeps
things clear. For the rest, might it be possible to make things more
automated? E.g., might it be possible to have some travis magic that
does a trial merge & test? Could one somehow merge to multiple
branches at the same time?

I have no idea myself really how these things work, but maybe some of you do!

All the best,

Marten