Exponential backoff

[FranklinYu]

Sometimes it’s annoying when stable bot repeatedly nag users. For example:

travis-ci/travis-ci#9430 (comment)

I think it would be helpful if users can specify exponential backoff. For example, first mark as stale in 2 months, then 4 months, then 8 months, then 16 months, then give up (or add a “long-running issue” label).

[Be-ing]

In the linked case, you could exempt the "security" label. Problem solved.

[github-actions]

This issue is stale because it has been open 30 days with no activity. Remove stale label or comment or this will be closed in 5 days

[mjambon]

@Be-ing the point is we still want to be reminded of old issues, but the time between two reminders should be proportional to the age of the issue. In other words, we want to be reminded more frequently of recent issues and less frequently of older issues.

This is because the bot doesn't understand the issues and the users don't tell the bot whether a particular issue is expected to get fixed within the week or within the next two years, which varies from one issue to another. So, when a user tells the bot "don't close this yet" it constitutes feedback that means roughly "please double the time until you can bug me again". It doesn't have to double, it could be 1.5 or any constant factor. Assuming a factor 2 for the sake of simplicity, this gives us the following schedule:

• t0 + 1 month
• t0 + 2 months
• t0 + 4 months
• t0 + 8 months
• t0 + 16 months
  where t0 is when the issue was created. With this schedule, we'd get 4 reminders within the first year rather than 12, and I think it would be much nicer.

[FranklinYu]

Even worse, even if I’m annoyed by the behavior, I cannot just “fork my own”, because I still need to persuade all the maintainers to use my fork before I can avoid such naggings.