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by Sunset 3307 days ago
How about this,

I don't bother with mailing lists, and when I post an "issue" on the site, the system mails you on your preferred mailing list. Then You reply to the mail with your preffered client and it shows up for me in the issue thread on github?
3 comments
josephg 3307 days ago
No way. The point of an issue tracker is to be a todo list of bugs and features for the project. Its right there in the name - issue tracker. Ideally when a bug is fixed, I can mark the issue as FIXED and move on to the next one.

Questions in an issue tracker are like rocks in my shoes. You have to work around them, and they bug you (the developer), not the person who put the rock there. When can a maintainer close a question-issue? Never - because whether a question has been resolved is up to the person asking, not the person answering. As a maintainer, if half the open issues in an issue tracker are questions, my "open issues list" is suddenly completely useless. And this is really common because lots of people asking questions will disappear and never never close the issue once the question has been answered.

User questions are important, but the github issue tracker isn't the right place for them. If you want to take notes but the only paper you can find is my todo list, its still not ok to take notes in my todo list. Github issues is the same.

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roblabla 3307 days ago
The way i deal with those is by closing the issue immediately after answering. If the user still has a follow up question, he is free to leave a comment, and I'll get notified he does.
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doppel 3307 days ago
So the maintainer, who is already doing stuff to provide you with some code or library, has to go out of his way to accomodate you?

If you can't be bothered to send an e-mail or submit to a mailing list, why should he/she be bothered to deal with your preferences? He/she is delivering the value, not you.

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matt4077 3307 days ago
This may seem hard to understand if you've never been in a maintainer's position, but "issues" carry a completely different meaning than "questions"

An issue feels, on the receiving end, like an accusation. The word says you did something wrong, and you've inconvenienced/harmed/let down someone, who is now waiting for you to make them whole again.

Answering a question gets you a thank you–you've done something altruistically,. You're a good person.

Fixing an issue? "Took long enough. Are you sure you're any good at this?"

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