pr-bot causing a very large number of empty commit emails

[Daniel Gruno <hu...@apache.org>]

Hi, Beam folks.

I have noticed that your commits mailing list is littered with empty emails from the pr-bot program, caused by https://github.com/apache/beam/blob/master/scripts/ci/pr-bot/shared/persistentState.ts#L43 - could you perchance look at optimizing this so it doesn't make all of those? On the face of things, it looks like pure noise (correct me if I'm wrong).

One might suggest adding a 'git status -s' check to see if there is anything at all to commit, before committing an empty bunch of nothing?

With regards,
Daniel (who is not on this list, so please cc me on any replies).

Re: pr-bot causing a very large number of empty commit emails

[Daniel Gruno <hu...@apache.org>]

On 2022/10/26 13:47:33 Danny McCormick via dev wrote:
> I filed https://github.com/apache/beam/issues/23851 to do this. Even if we
> do this, the bot will still generate some noise there; in general, I'd
> recommend filtering that thread out if you're trying to follow all
> meaningful commits in the repo.

I am not subscribed to any beam lists myself, but in my position as a staffer at the Apache Software Foundation I do see that those updates generate a lot of emails and events for seemingly no reason, hence my ask. 

By essentially flooding the list with what looks like non-actionable noise, there is a risk of adding an unnecessarily higher bar to participation and reviewing that perhaps should be avoided if possible.

With regards,
Daniel.

> 
> Thanks,
> Danny
> 
> On Sun, Oct 23, 2022 at 2:51 PM Daniel Gruno <hu...@apache.org> wrote:
> 
> > Hi, Beam folks.
> >
> > I have noticed that your commits mailing list is littered with empty
> > emails from the pr-bot program, caused by
> > https://github.com/apache/beam/blob/master/scripts/ci/pr-bot/shared/persistentState.ts#L43
> > - could you perchance look at optimizing this so it doesn't make all of
> > those? On the face of things, it looks like pure noise (correct me if I'm
> > wrong).
> >
> > One might suggest adding a 'git status -s' check to see if there is
> > anything at all to commit, before committing an empty bunch of nothing?
> >
> > With regards,
> > Daniel (who is not on this list, so please cc me on any replies).
> >
> 

Re: pr-bot causing a very large number of empty commit emails

[Danny McCormick via dev <de...@beam.apache.org>]

I filed https://github.com/apache/beam/issues/23851 to do this. Even if we
do this, the bot will still generate some noise there; in general, I'd
recommend filtering that thread out if you're trying to follow all
meaningful commits in the repo.

Thanks,
Danny

On Sun, Oct 23, 2022 at 2:51 PM Daniel Gruno <hu...@apache.org> wrote:

> Hi, Beam folks.
>
> I have noticed that your commits mailing list is littered with empty
> emails from the pr-bot program, caused by
> https://github.com/apache/beam/blob/master/scripts/ci/pr-bot/shared/persistentState.ts#L43
> - could you perchance look at optimizing this so it doesn't make all of
> those? On the face of things, it looks like pure noise (correct me if I'm
> wrong).
>
> One might suggest adding a 'git status -s' check to see if there is
> anything at all to commit, before committing an empty bunch of nothing?
>
> With regards,
> Daniel (who is not on this list, so please cc me on any replies).
>