{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2025,12,24]],"date-time":"2025-12-24T12:28:34Z","timestamp":1766579314978,"version":"3.41.0"},"reference-count":77,"publisher":"Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)","issue":"2","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2023,12,23]],"date-time":"2023-12-23T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1703289600000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/www.acm.org\/publications\/policies\/copyright_policy#Background"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["dl.acm.org"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["ACM Trans. Softw. Eng. Methodol."],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2024,2,29]]},"abstract":"<jats:p>Pull Requests (PRs) that are neither progressed nor resolved clutter the list of PRs, making it difficult for the maintainers to manage and prioritize unresolved PRs. To automatically track, follow up, and close such inactive PRs, Stale bot was introduced by GitHub. Despite its increasing adoption, there are ongoing debates on whether using Stale bot alleviates or exacerbates the problem of inactive PRs. To better understand if and how Stale bot helps projects in their pull-based development workflow, we perform an empirical study of 20 large and popular open source projects. We find that Stale bot can help deal with a backlog of unresolved PRs, as the projects closed more PRs within the first few months of adoption. Moreover, Stale bot can help improve the efficiency of the PR review process as the projects reviewed PRs that ended up merged and resolved PRs that ended up closed faster after the adoption. However, Stale bot can also negatively affect the contributors, as the projects experienced a considerable decrease in their number of active contributors after the adoption. Therefore, relying solely on Stale bot to deal with inactive PRs may lead to decreased community engagement and an increased probability of contributor abandonment.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1145\/3624739","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2023,9,19]],"date-time":"2023-09-19T11:36:50Z","timestamp":1695123410000},"page":"1-43","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1145\/crossmark-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":4,"title":["Understanding the Helpfulness of Stale Bot for Pull-Based Development: An Empirical Study of 20 Large Open-Source Projects"],"prefix":"10.1145","volume":"33","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-0615-9242","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Sayedhassan","family":"Khatoonabadi","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Concordia University, Canada"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-7084-2594","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Diego Elias","family":"Costa","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Concordia University, Canada"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-2738-1387","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Suhaib","family":"Mujahid","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Mozilla Corporation, Canada"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-1285-9878","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Emad","family":"Shihab","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Concordia University, Canada"}]}],"member":"320","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2023,12,23]]},"reference":[{"key":"e_1_3_6_2_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.21105\/joss.02815"},{"key":"e_1_3_6_3_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1109\/SANER48275.2020.9054818"},{"key":"e_1_3_6_4_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1001\/jama.2016.1952"},{"key":"e_1_3_6_5_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1037\/0033-2909.114.3.494"},{"key":"e_1_3_6_6_2","volume-title":"Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Approaches (5th ed.)","author":"Creswell John W.","year":"2017","unstructured":"John W. Creswell and J. David Creswell. 2017. Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Approaches (5th ed.). SAGE Publications. https:\/\/us.sagepub.com\/en-us\/nam\/research-design\/book255675"},{"key":"e_1_3_6_7_2","unstructured":"Drew DeVault. 2021. GitHub Stale Bot Considered Harmful. Retrieved September 26 2023 from https:\/\/drewdevault.com\/2021\/10\/26\/stalebot.html"},{"key":"e_1_3_6_8_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/3528228.3528409"},{"key":"e_1_3_6_9_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/3454122.3454124"},{"key":"e_1_3_6_10_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1109\/MS.2020.3044020"},{"key":"e_1_3_6_11_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1007\/978-1-4614-3900-4"},{"key":"e_1_3_6_12_2","unstructured":"GitHub. 2023. EventsGitHub Docs. Retrieved September 26 2023 from https:\/\/docs.github.com\/en\/rest\/activity\/events"},{"key":"e_1_3_6_13_2","unstructured":"GitHub. 2023. Issues\u2014GitHub Docs. Retrieved September 26 2023 from https:\/\/docs.github.com\/en\/rest\/reference\/issues"},{"key":"e_1_3_6_14_2","unstructured":"GitHub. 2023. Pulls\u2014GitHub Docs. Retrieved September 26 2023 from https:\/\/docs.github.com\/en\/rest\/reference\/pulls"},{"key":"e_1_3_6_15_2","unstructured":"GitHub. 2023. REST API\u2014GitHub Docs. Retrieved September 26 2023 from https:\/\/docs.github.com\/en\/rest"},{"key":"e_1_3_6_16_2","unstructured":"GitHub. 2023. Stale\u2014GitHub Marketplace. Retrieved September 26 2023 from https:\/\/github.com\/marketplace\/stale"},{"key":"e_1_3_6_17_2","unstructured":"GitHub. 2023. Timeline\u2014GitHub Docs. Retrieved September 26 2023 from https:\/\/docs.github.com\/en\/rest\/issues\/timeline"},{"key":"e_1_3_6_18_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1080\/03610928008827869"},{"key":"e_1_3_6_19_2","unstructured":"Google. 2023. BigQuery: Cloud Data Warehouse. Retrieved September 26 2023 from https:\/\/cloud.google.com\/bigquery"},{"key":"e_1_3_6_20_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/2568225.2568260"},{"key":"e_1_3_6_21_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/2597073.2597122"},{"key":"e_1_3_6_22_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1109\/ICSE.2015.55"},{"key":"e_1_3_6_23_2","unstructured":"Ilya Grigorik. 2023. GH Archive: A Project to Record the Public GitHub Timeline Archive It and Make It Easily Accessible for Further Analysis. Retrieved September 26 2023 from https:\/\/www.gharchive.org"},{"key":"e_1_3_6_24_2","first-page":"1","volume-title":"Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA \u201904)","author":"Hess Melinda R.","year":"2004","unstructured":"Melinda R. Hess and Jeffrey D. Kromrey. 2004. Robust confidence intervals for effect sizes: A comparative study of Cohen\u2019s d and Cliff\u2019s delta under non-normality and heterogeneous variances. In Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA \u201904). 1\u201330. https:\/\/citeseerx.ist.psu.edu\/viewdoc\/summary?doi=10.1.1.487.8299"},{"key":"e_1_3_6_25_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1080\/00031305.1998.10480559"},{"key":"e_1_3_6_26_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1080\/00949659608811740"},{"key":"e_1_3_6_27_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1109\/TSE.2019.2960357"},{"key":"e_1_3_6_28_2","unstructured":"Vincent Jacques. 2023. PyGithub: Typed Interactions with the GitHub API v3. Retrieved September 26 2023 from https:\/\/github.com\/PyGithub\/PyGithub"},{"key":"e_1_3_6_29_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1007\/s10664-015-9393-5"},{"key":"e_1_3_6_30_2","unstructured":"Brandon Keepers. 2023. Stale - GitHub Repository. Retrieved September 26 2023 from https:\/\/github.com\/probot\/stale"},{"key":"e_1_3_6_31_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/3530785"},{"key":"e_1_3_6_32_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.48550\/arXiv.2109.10430"},{"key":"e_1_3_6_33_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1177\/0013164496056005002"},{"key":"e_1_3_6_34_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1201\/b19467"},{"key":"e_1_3_6_35_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/3183519.3183542"},{"key":"e_1_3_6_36_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.18637\/jss.v082.i13"},{"key":"e_1_3_6_37_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/j.jss.2020.110806"},{"key":"e_1_3_6_38_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1109\/TSE.2021.3053403"},{"key":"e_1_3_6_39_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/3334480.3382998"},{"key":"e_1_3_6_40_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.21105\/joss.03139"},{"key":"e_1_3_6_41_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1214\/aoms\/1177730491"},{"key":"e_1_3_6_42_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1109\/MS.2020.3036758"},{"key":"e_1_3_6_43_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1109\/TSE.2021.3073773"},{"key":"e_1_3_6_44_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1098\/rsif.2017.0213"},{"key":"e_1_3_6_45_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.21105\/joss.03167"},{"key":"e_1_3_6_46_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/3195836.3195858"},{"key":"e_1_3_6_47_2","unstructured":"R Core Team. 2023. R: A Language and Environment for Statistical Computing. Retrieved September 26 2023 from https:\/\/www.R-project.org"},{"key":"e_1_3_6_48_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1109\/COMPSAC54236.2022.00171"},{"key":"e_1_3_6_49_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/2889160.2891035"},{"key":"e_1_3_6_50_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/3239235.3240504"},{"key":"e_1_3_6_51_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/2695664.2695856"},{"key":"e_1_3_6_52_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1109\/SBES.2014.9"},{"key":"e_1_3_6_53_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/2675133.2675215"},{"key":"e_1_3_6_54_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1109\/CHASE.2013.6614728"},{"key":"e_1_3_6_55_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/2950290.2983989"},{"key":"e_1_3_6_56_2","unstructured":"Poul Kjeldager S\u00f8rensen. 2014. Pull Request #2143\u2014DefinitelyTyped\/DefinitelyTyped. Retrieved September 26 2023 from https:\/\/github.com\/DefinitelyTyped\/DefinitelyTyped\/pull\/2143"},{"key":"e_1_3_6_57_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.7717\/peerj-cs.111"},{"key":"e_1_3_6_58_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/2568225.2568315"},{"key":"e_1_3_6_59_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1046\/j.1365-2710.2002.00430.x"},{"key":"e_1_3_6_60_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/j.infsof.2019.02.007"},{"key":"e_1_3_6_61_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/3510003.3512765"},{"key":"e_1_3_6_62_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/3274451"},{"key":"e_1_3_6_63_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1007\/s10664-022-10130-9"},{"key":"e_1_3_6_64_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/3387940.3391504"},{"key":"e_1_3_6_65_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1109\/BotSE.2019.00018"},{"key":"e_1_3_6_66_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.48550\/arXiv.2206.14118"},{"key":"e_1_3_6_67_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/3476042"},{"key":"e_1_3_6_68_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1201\/b17198"},{"key":"e_1_3_6_69_2","unstructured":"Ben Winding. 2021. GitHub Stale Bots: A False Economy. Retrieved September 26 2023 from https:\/\/blog.benwinding.com\/github-stale-bots\/index.html"},{"key":"e_1_3_6_70_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1007\/s11432-016-5595-8"},{"key":"e_1_3_6_71_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/3379597.3387489"},{"key":"e_1_3_6_72_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1109\/TSE.2022.3165056"},{"key":"e_1_3_6_73_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1007\/s10664-022-10143-4"},{"key":"e_1_3_6_74_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1109\/ASE.2017.8115619"},{"key":"e_1_3_6_75_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1109\/ICSE.2012.6227164"},{"key":"e_1_3_6_76_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/2950290.2950364"},{"key":"e_1_3_6_77_2","unstructured":"Alexander Ziborov. 2020. Commit #439b8735fa93709ec32602bb32944bf9214ce785\u2014DevExpress\/DevExtreme. Retrieved September 26 2023 from https:\/\/github.com\/DevExpress\/DevExtreme\/commit\/439b8735fa93709ec32602bb32944bf9214ce785"},{"key":"e_1_3_6_78_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1007\/s10664-019-09720-x"}],"container-title":["ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/dl.acm.org\/doi\/10.1145\/3624739","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"text-mining"},{"URL":"https:\/\/dl.acm.org\/doi\/pdf\/10.1145\/3624739","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2025,6,17]],"date-time":"2025-06-17T16:35:44Z","timestamp":1750178144000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/dl.acm.org\/doi\/10.1145\/3624739"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2023,12,23]]},"references-count":77,"journal-issue":{"issue":"2","published-print":{"date-parts":[[2024,2,29]]}},"alternative-id":["10.1145\/3624739"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1145\/3624739","relation":{},"ISSN":["1049-331X","1557-7392"],"issn-type":[{"type":"print","value":"1049-331X"},{"type":"electronic","value":"1557-7392"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2023,12,23]]},"assertion":[{"value":"2022-10-17","order":0,"name":"received","label":"Received","group":{"name":"publication_history","label":"Publication History"}},{"value":"2023-08-16","order":1,"name":"accepted","label":"Accepted","group":{"name":"publication_history","label":"Publication History"}},{"value":"2023-12-23","order":2,"name":"published","label":"Published","group":{"name":"publication_history","label":"Publication History"}}]}}