https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="🌶️" title="Chili" aria-label="Emoji: Chili"> GitHub issues are flawed:

It feels like there are only 3 options:

https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="🦸" title="Superhero" aria-label="Emoji: Superhero"> Be super-human
(spend all your waking hours helping people for free)

https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="👿" title="Teufelchen" aria-label="Emoji: Teufelchen"> Be a jerk
(liberally close issues without good explanations)

https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="💩" title="Dreckshaufen" aria-label="Emoji: Dreckshaufen"> Be a slob
(Let the issues grow wild like an uncut front lawn)
This could be fixed with ONE missing feature:

Allow and ENCOURAGE the public to re-open closed issues.

I know, it& #39;s counter-intuitive, but here& #39;s why:
As the maintainer, when I close an issue that hasn& #39;t been fully resolved, I feel a tinge of "user suppression".

Like I& #39;m silencing the voices of the people.

Here& #39;s a quick exercise to understand why I feel this way:
Think of a time you were using a tool and hit an obscure error. It& #39;s slowing your work down. You& #39;re frustrated.

You google the error and hope stack overflow has an answer.

It doesn& #39;t. Instead, you end up in a GitHub issue thread.
You read the opening description. It sounds exactly like the thing you& #39;re experiencing. You are full of both hope and fear as you scroll.

Lots of others are chiming in with "+1"s - This is encouraging

Then at some point a maintainer closes it without comment...
or with some formal/filler comment saying something like "due to inactivity" or "hard to reproduce" or something

It& #39;s disheartening...

(these are comments I write all the time btw)
Then following the "closed" status, there& #39;s more people pleading to the maintainers to re-open.

Now there& #39;s frustration/disappointment because they know their cries won& #39;t be heard.

They& #39;ve been silenced.

The issue has been closed and there& #39;s nothing anyone can do about it...
Ok, did you feel something? Can you empathize with that experience?

Now here& #39;s that story from the maintainers perspective:
Someone creates an issue and pastes in an error message.

IF there are steps to reproduce, they are vague and require you to have the person& #39;s entire set up running locally.

It takes SOOOOO much effort and context switching to evaluate and even just confirm there is an issue...
More people chime in with "+1" which doesn& #39;t make your life any easier, just almost feels like crowd of people yelling at you to do work for them for free.

THIS IS OPEN SOURCE.... DO IT YOURSELF!

...cries a fatigued voice in your head...
Now, months later you are declaring war on the issues tab so that your project doesn& #39;t feel like a sloppy mess.

You get to this issue. No one& #39;s added anything constructive.

You close it, the burden disappears. You feel such relief...
Ok, how about that? Did you feel empathy for the maintainer& #39;s experience?

Both parties are well meaning, but the platform for them to interact isn& #39;t optimized for their needs.

It causes tension and frustration.
The public wants a thing fixed.

The maintainers wants to know:
- is this a real issue?
- how many people experience this? (priority)
Here& #39;s why my proposal fixes this dynamic.

If I can close issues with a kind, stock message like:

"I& #39;m closing this to keep the number of open issues manageable (the honest reason). PLEASE feel free to re-open at any time."

Now, here& #39;s the result of that:
I can close issues liberally and not feel like I& #39;m a jerk or I& #39;m making a permanent decision.

The public can re-open guilt free, so they don& #39;t feel suppressed.
Because of the new dynamic. I can keep the issues tab low and things that are ACTUALLY problems and in demand will pop back up naturally.

It& #39;s like auto-prioritizing.

I can also "lock" an issue if this freedom is abused.
I& #39;m struggling so hard with the options I feel I& #39;m given with the current set up.

This would make everyone& #39;s lives better in my repos.

What do you think @github?

My repos:
https://github.com/livewire/livewire">https://github.com/livewire/... https://github.com/alpinejs/alpine ">https://github.com/alpinejs/...
You can follow @calebporzio.
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