Why are majority of threads with status is:open clearly Answered? Some marked Answered and some still marked Unanswered

[WillTheFarmer]

I am fairly new to GitHub but expert in SQL. My plan was to answer some threads searching criteria - is:open with keyword 'SQL' returns 11 pages of threads some marked 'Answered' and some marked 'Unanswered' but clearly answered from reading thread.

Who has the rights to mark threads Closed and/or Answered? Are these rights delegated to certain members? Are there experts in certain skills assigned these rights for certain threads?

It would be more productive if experts with certain skillsets could quickly determine what threads require their attention.

Thanks - Will

[Tom-Gal]

Unfortunately most people either forget to mark their threads as answered, or just don't bother. As far as I'm aware GitHub doesn't have a native system to assign rights to experts based on specific skills, but maintainers can grant permissions to users they deem reliable.

[WillTheFarmer]

Well I would volunteer to cleanup SQL threads. apache/echarts repository somehow marks threads as stale after inactivity posting a 7 day warning before closing thread. It seems this could somehow be done with GitHub workflow. It would be much easier for topic experts to help.

[chtholine]

• Who can mark threads as "Closed" or "Answered"?: Repository owners, maintainers, and assigned collaborators have the rights to close or mark threads as answered.
• Are rights delegated?: Yes, rights can be delegated to collaborators or team members by the repository owner.
• Experts with specific skills: Not officially assigned, but issues can be tagged (e.g., "SQL") to help experts identify relevant threads quickly. Some repos use teams or automation to manage this.

[WillTheFarmer]

Recent working on apache/echarts repository and pretty sure they use automation on close threads. I am fairly new to GitHub and Open Source but when i found the Community Area I figured this would be the gathering of experts of similar repositories. It seems to be more of a deserted area than a gathering area. No disrespect to whoever is maintaining it. Closing inactive threads would be a good start.

I only looked at threads with 'SQL' keyword. Maybe it is only SQL threads that are ghost towns... It seems odd since In real-world applications SQL is much more important and powerful language than many languages detected by GitHub.

[chtholine]

Yes, big repos like apache/echarts often use bots to close inactive threads, it's quite handy. The Community Area can feel quiet, but that varies. Some areas may appear inactive due to the nature of the discussions or how contributors engage with the project. And I agree, closing inactive threads would be a good start. SQL threads might seem less active because SQL issues are resolved quickly, can be not as frequent in some contexts, or aren’t tagged well.

[chtholine]

@WillTheFarmer, Since this question has a status of unanswered, did we manage to answer your question?
If not, can I somehow answer it? (I would like to get a Galaxy Brain achievement 👉👈)

[WillTheFarmer]

@chtholine , you have answered why things are this way but not how to fix it. I did look at the yml files in the workflows folder. It appears to be some that should do this but do not - close-dormant-discussions.yml, close-incident-discussions.yml, update-incident-discussion-as-resolved.yml. Here is an example using sql as keeyword. This thread should have been closed 3 years ago.

I am not familiar with yml programs but plan on learning them shortly. There only 4 Contributors over last 3 months to this repository. Maybe a procedure for allow experts in certain topics with limited right to ONLY CLOSE THREADS is needed?

I am marking this closed even though I did not think the topic has been properly addessed by someone with administrative rights to make changes.

No one wants to read through 14 pages of threads to find a thread that still needs an answer.

[WillTheFarmer]

Clearly this issue needs to be resolved on all discussion threads. The workflows are either not being run or not written correctly. There are way too much dead threads for anyone to help answer active issues.

[ghostinhershell]

Hey @WillTheFarmer, we really appreciate your feedback and will take this into account when devising strategies for this community. We definitely want to make sure that it's easy for our community members to get and offer help as well.

In the meantime, I recommend using filters when browsing our community:

The Top: Past Day, Top: Past Week and Top: Past Month filters are helpful for me.

Thanks!

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