FAQ: Blanket closure of inactive issues
Sarah Mason
Following our announcement of an upcoming closure of inactive issues report from Artefactual staff two or more years ago, we would like to provide some additional information to provide some clarification around our decision and how the community can get involved to have their say.
Why are you closing all of these issues?
As said in the original announcement, we want an Issues repository that is up-to-date, relevant and reflects the work we or the community can do. Currently, the Archivematica Issues repository has become too big for us to manage issue triaging on our own, so we have set a parameter for closing older, inactive issues filed internally two or more years ago. We came this decision for a number of reasons:
Inactive issues might already be fixed in subsequent releases. But it would take a lot of time for us to test each one to confirm.
There are so many inactive issues that there are likely duplicates. It is hard to judge the scale of potential duplication without a lengthy review process that we do not have the time to do.
Some inactive issues were addressed in part. If there are multiple parts to an issue that can be addressed at different times, then realistically that issue should be two or more issues.
Due to the size of the repository, inactive issues are unlikely to be addressed. If we have not been made aware of the current state and impact of the issue from the community, it is unlikely we will triage an issue from page 20 of the list.
Searching older issues to find the right one can be a challenge. It depends on the key words used and the detail of the description added to the issue. Sometimes they just cannot be found. New ones are opened and the old one continues to remain inactive.
Essentially we have become swamped with issues. We cannot triage them all on our own. Some of them require more detail, or updates due to version changes. Some might be a niche issue or have wide-ranging impact, but we have not been made aware.
It is important to note that these issues are currently still open! We have asked staff to review the issues and comment with updated information before removing the label if the issue should still be a priority to fix. To reiterate, we are asking you as part of the Archivematica project open source community to review and comment on issues so that we review and remove the closure label as appropriate.
You are closing an issue that matters to me and my organization. How can I stop it from being closed?
Comment, comment, comment!
We have marked these for closure because they have been inactive for two or more years. This means that no one has commented on them in that time. Active commenting in the open source community is the single best way to let us know this is an ongoing pain point. And the more people from different organizations that comment on issues, the better idea we have of the scale of the issue’s impact. This goes for all users, from our current clients to any community user. You do not have to be a software developer or a systems administrator to comment on an issue.
Open source projects succeed when the whole community takes an active part, even if just for a few minutes. Let this be a call to action and a reminder that we welcome you to open issues and comment in this space.
What is commenting going to do?
It sends the Maintainers a notification. We’ll review the comment and discuss it at a weekly meeting. We don’t always comment back on our issues, but you might see a comment, or a label being added. When we select a release for it, we will set a milestone and potentially highlight it in our roadmap.
Most importantly, the issue is brought back to our attention and with issues being added regularly, this is a necessity for the 650+ ones currently open. We will be reviewing any issues with new comments before doing the closure, so we may decide to remove the label then.
I don’t have a GitHub account to comment.
Not a problem! You can sign up following GitHub’s instructions here. Archivematica Issues is a public repository so you can comment without being part of the GitHub organization.
I don’t want to sign up for GitHub, but I want you to keep a certain issue open.
That’s fine too! The best way to let us know is to email us. You can contact us at contri...@artefactual.com or in...@artefactual.com. Provide us a link to the issue or issues you are concerned about. And please provide updated information about the issue, such as the version you are using, the impact on your work and any screenshots or relevant issues details for us to review. We can then add this to the issue on your behalf.
Because you are closing these issues does this mean you will never fix them?
Not necessarily. In their current state there are just too many for use to triage into releases without feedback from the community and our customers.
As the maintainers of the code, ultimately we will have to decide how and if we can fix the issue, but with the current scale of the issue repository we cannot see what issues are still a priority. It would take us months of valuable development time to consider each issue individually and without community feedback, we cannot always easily determine what inactive issues to prioritize in a release. We instead focus on urgent issues that might be regressions, recently reported issues, security issues and dependency upgrades.
Can I reopen an issue after the closure?
Of course you can! Once you have an account in GitHub, you can comment to request we reopen the issue – be sure to add updated information, such as the version number of Archivematica and the impact on your work. You can also reopen the issue yourself, but you first must become a member of the Archivematica Issues organization. You can find out how to become one here.
It’s important to note we are only closing the issues to make triage more manageable. It has shown us that the community cares about some of these issues, but have not known or thought to comment on them to bring them back to our attention. Just remember, we are closing, but not deleting them! They can easily be brought back or a new one opened.
Useful links
Original announcement in the user forum
Contributing guidelines for the Archivematica issues repository
Github Documentation: Getting started
Other questions or concerns? Contact us directly at contri...@artefactual.com or in...@artefactual.com.