> One way to recover is to automatically close tickets after a certain period of time.
Just be thoughtful about how you do this otherwise it can easily come across like "we don't really care about your issue".
Google has had two rounds of auto-closing old Android bugs and their message is really bad. Something like "Our product team is prioritising other things.".
Similarly Github's stale bot is way over used. One project I submitted a bug to closed it because there was no activity for only a month.
If you must close old bugs automatically, word it nicely, and don't close it instantly and ask people to reopen it. Something like this is best:
> We're trying to clean up our bug tracker. This bug is older than 5 years and has had no activity for 2 years. Is this still an issue?
Compare with Google's message:
> Thank you for your feedback. We have tried our best to address the issue reported [they hadn't], however our product team has shifted work priority which doesn't include this issue [what does that even mean?]. For now, we will be closing the issue as "Won't Fix (Obsolete)" [great, thanks]. If this issue still currently exists, we request that you log a new issue along with the latest bug report here: https://goo.gl/TbMiIO and reference this bug for context.
Agreed. Github's Stale Bot is the most infuriating, aggravating and insulting bot in widespread use. Every time I encounter it, I reevaluate whether or not I even want to contribute to the project.
Just be thoughtful about how you do this otherwise it can easily come across like "we don't really care about your issue".
Google has had two rounds of auto-closing old Android bugs and their message is really bad. Something like "Our product team is prioritising other things.".
Similarly Github's stale bot is way over used. One project I submitted a bug to closed it because there was no activity for only a month.
If you must close old bugs automatically, word it nicely, and don't close it instantly and ask people to reopen it. Something like this is best:
> We're trying to clean up our bug tracker. This bug is older than 5 years and has had no activity for 2 years. Is this still an issue?
Compare with Google's message:
> Thank you for your feedback. We have tried our best to address the issue reported [they hadn't], however our product team has shifted work priority which doesn't include this issue [what does that even mean?]. For now, we will be closing the issue as "Won't Fix (Obsolete)" [great, thanks]. If this issue still currently exists, we request that you log a new issue along with the latest bug report here: https://goo.gl/TbMiIO and reference this bug for context.