Re: Ejecting things more aggressively out of 'seen'?

[Phillip Wood <phillip.wood123@gmail.com>]

On 02/11/2026 16:17, Junio C Hamano wrote:
> Patrick Steinhardt <ps@pks.im> writes:
> 
>> One state that confuses newcomers quite often is "Will merge to 'next'?"
>> with a question mark at the end. If we were to document these we shuld
>> probably also document that state.
> 
> Hmph, really?  Just like the subject of this e-mail message, a
> trailing question mark is my way of saying "I am planning to do
> this, but if you think it is a bad idea, please stop me with an
> explanation why I shouldn't".

The subject of this message feels more like a question, whereas it 
sounds like "Will merge to next?" means "I'm going to do that unless 
someone stops me" rather than "do others think this is ready for next?"

>>>   - A topic goes into the "Waiting for response" state once reviewed,
>>>     where it remains until the author responds.  After staying in
>>>     this state for a month or so, it is demoted to the "Stalled"
>>>     state, and eventually dropped.
>>>
>>> We should probably have a rule that says "a topic that did not get
>>> reviewed for N weeks is ejected from 'seen'".
>>
>> I think that's reasonable. Becoming a bit more aggressive there doesn't
>> make too much of a difference anyway -- if a topic gets evicted from
>> "seen" and then later on regains interest then it can still be included
>> into "seen" again.

Indeed

>> By gut feeling I'd use the same rule as for "Waiting for response".

Perhaps making it clear that when a topic is ejected it can be re-added 
if there is renewed interest in it would lessen any worry about 
demotivating contributors?

Thanks

Phillip

> An obvious alternative is to queue only topics for which I can, by
> judging reviews on the list, at least say "Will merge to 'next'?"
> with enough confidence.  It would reduce the size of 'seen' and the
> friction felt by contributors when their topic is once queued on
> 'seen' and later ejected unceremoniously through no fault of their
> own, other than their topic being forgettable or uninspiring to
> others.
> 
> I do not know which one is better: educating contributors that their
> topics being uninspiring to others is something they should not feel
> bad about and giving our reviewers easier access to these candidate
> topics, or being strict and mechanical and queuing only topics that
> some human reviewers with a certain level of reputation have looked
> at and have not just shown interest in, but have said are ready.
> 
> I can do either.  It is less emotional stress for me to do the
> latter.  Between hitting 'seen' and then later being discarded, and
> not getting any response or reaction at all, I am not sure which one
> our contributors find more acceptable.