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

[Patrick Steinhardt <ps@pks.im>]

On Mon, Nov 02, 2026 at 08:17:31AM -0800, 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 question that newcomers often have here is whether they need to do
anything about this. They basically wonder whether that question is
directed at them specifically. Maybe rewording it to "Will merge to next
[on <day>] unless told otherwise" may help clarify?

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

Wouldn't we lose the ability to integrate topics with one another early
on to see how they interact? And it makes me wonder whether this will
overall slow down progress of a patch series if it gets merged to "seen"
at a later point.

> 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.

Overall I would say "strict and mechanical" is a good property to have,
because it's also easier to explain. But I don't think we should put the
bar too high for integrating into "seen" so that we still retain the
ability to test the topic together with all the other in-flight topics
well ahead of being merged to "next".

So maybe instead of someone saying that a patch series is ready, the bar
should be that the patch series has gotten at least one human review
that was somewhat favorable on the overall direction?

> 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.

Hard to say. In any case, whatever we choose, it shouldn't only be
acceptable for newcomers but also make _your_ life as easy as reasonably
possible.

Patrick