Sounds like a good idea to me, thanks for taking the initiative on this. To Benson's idea about varying the timeout based on priority, IMO we could just start with the simple approach and see how that goes. Maybe that would be helpful but maybe it's not necessary. If you're truly watching an issue because you intend to do it, you'll notice that you were removed from it and can reassign yourself, which would give you another 90 days.
Neal On Fri, Jul 8, 2022 at 12:00 PM Benson Muite <benson_mu...@emailplus.org> wrote: > On 7/8/22 18:49, Todd Farmer wrote: > > Hello, > > > > The backlog of ARROW issues currently stands at 2585 open issues [1]. The > > size of the backlog presents challenges to users and developers alike, > and > > I believe the project would benefit from establishing guidance around > issue > > handling. I'll be submitting a series of proposals for discussion, > > including this one focusing specifically on assigned issues that have > gone > > dormant. > > > > It's my belief that issue assignment implies the assignee is actively > > working on a task, or intends to start working on it in short order. In > > cases where well-intentioned developers are assigned tasks, but no > progress > > is reported for extended periods of time, I propose that we unassign the > > issue and add a comment explaining why the action was taken. I believe > any > > assigned issue that has been idle for 90 days or more is a good threshold > > to use, and that currently maps to 370 such issues [2], or 14% of the > > current backlog. (Note: 153 of those have not been updated in the past > > year.) > > > > I would also like to expand the existing "Report bugs and propose > features" > > documentation [3] to cover issue handling in general, including the ask > > that assigned issues be actively worked within the 90 day period or be > > unassigned. > > > > In summary, here are the actions I propose: > > > > 1. Establish a threshold at which assigned, idle issues should be > > unassigned and comment added. > > 2. Define that threshold to be 90 days. > > 3. Document the above as a project policy for issue handling (PR against > > docs) > > 4. Automate 1 and 2 above. > > > > Thoughts on this? > > > > [1] > > > https://issues.apache.org/jira/issues/?jql=project%20%3D%20ARROW%20AND%20resolution%20%3D%20Unresolved > > [2] > > > https://issues.apache.org/jira/issues/?jql=project%20%3D%20ARROW%20AND%20resolution%20%3D%20Unresolved%20%20AND%20assignee%20IS%20NOT%20EMPTY%20AND%20updated%20%3C%20-90d > > [3] https://arrow.apache.org/docs/developers/bug_reports.html > > > > Best regards, > > > > Todd Farmer > > > This seems reasonable. One might change the policy according to the > importance of an issue, with low priority issues given more time. >
