If no one cares enough to reopen it once every 6 months, then it’s probably fine to ignore it indefinitely.
It’s a matter of psychology. If I file a bug and it is ignored for years, I’m annoyed but eventually I either accept it, find a workaround or move on to something new. I may still file bugs in the future, especially if I’ve got a workaround, since other people probably want to know.
However if my bug is closed and I have to reopen it every six months. Now I’m kinda pissed. I have to be reminded every six months for years that this is just broken. I put in the effort, but now some bot has just come along and closed it. Plus it’s going to be harder to find an existing or similar bug. I’m less likely to look at closed bugs. But also, what if I find four similar closer bugs. Now if someone was tracking that bug they don’t realize this has happened to four different users. If we had just kept it in one big we’d all know. Also someone elses workaround is better than mine, or maybe it’s worse.
I understand if a project wants to declare bug bankruptcy. It shouldn’t happen often but if you do that’s the time to organize things.
That’s why the “easy way to reopen” is so important. Your concern is theoretically valid, but if tickets are usually ignored for years, then it really is a desperate situation for the project whichever way you handle it. You can decide between an endlessly growing list of issues that likely aren’t valid anymore, or pissing some users off.
I don’t really see why it would be harder to find an existing or similar bug. You should be looking (or rather you should be automatically notified) before/during creating a new ticket for existing tickets describing the problem. If a closed ticket describes the exact problem, you should be finding that too, and then should just be able to use the easy way of reopening if necessary. You should also be able to find the workaround in there if someone posted it.
It’s definitely not a beautiful solution, but if you implement something like this, the project is already in a desperate state, there’s not too much good choices there anymore.
It’s a matter of psychology. If I file a bug and it is ignored for years, I’m annoyed but eventually I either accept it, find a workaround or move on to something new. I may still file bugs in the future, especially if I’ve got a workaround, since other people probably want to know.
However if my bug is closed and I have to reopen it every six months. Now I’m kinda pissed. I have to be reminded every six months for years that this is just broken. I put in the effort, but now some bot has just come along and closed it. Plus it’s going to be harder to find an existing or similar bug. I’m less likely to look at closed bugs. But also, what if I find four similar closer bugs. Now if someone was tracking that bug they don’t realize this has happened to four different users. If we had just kept it in one big we’d all know. Also someone elses workaround is better than mine, or maybe it’s worse.
I understand if a project wants to declare bug bankruptcy. It shouldn’t happen often but if you do that’s the time to organize things.
That’s why the “easy way to reopen” is so important. Your concern is theoretically valid, but if tickets are usually ignored for years, then it really is a desperate situation for the project whichever way you handle it. You can decide between an endlessly growing list of issues that likely aren’t valid anymore, or pissing some users off.
I don’t really see why it would be harder to find an existing or similar bug. You should be looking (or rather you should be automatically notified) before/during creating a new ticket for existing tickets describing the problem. If a closed ticket describes the exact problem, you should be finding that too, and then should just be able to use the easy way of reopening if necessary. You should also be able to find the workaround in there if someone posted it.
It’s definitely not a beautiful solution, but if you implement something like this, the project is already in a desperate state, there’s not too much good choices there anymore.