Don't worry, you also get issue reports were the user didn't read the start guide or document any of the steps to reproduce the issue.
this post was submitted on 14 Nov 2025
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Edit: Thanks for your kind comments on disabling contributions. I'm aware of the possibility, this is just a meme.
Contributions in open source projects are great, needed and make the world a better place after all. Therefore they should be declined politely, optionally by giving a reason.
I hereby inform you that I will no longer accept contributions to this post /s.
When submitting issues, I live in constant fear of creating duplicates.
When submitting issues, I live in constant fear of creating duplicates.
When submitting duplicates, I live in constant fear of creating issues.
When creating duplicates, I live in constant fear of submitting issues.
When living duplicitously, I submit a constant fear of issues.
When submissively fearing, I constantly duplicate living issues.
His name is Robert Paulson.
And this is Jackass.
When submitting issues, I live in constant fear of creating duplicates.
You can turn issues and PRs off on GitHub though.
Unless replying rudely to PRs is exactly what you want to do. Then you do you.
I do feel like putting an intentional, obvious, but non-issue causing bug in a code base now. Make a contrib guide. Mention needing to read the docs first and check previous issues/discussions first, and make a closed ticket explaining that that bug is nothing but an example bug and that will ban anyone that attempts to fix or report it.
Like a green mnm test for a code base
Issues, yes. It's not possible to disable PRs though.
Ooops, I misremembered :(
It's okay. I like your version of reality better.. It's really ridiculous that we can't disable PRs there.
Open source doesn't mean you have to accept contributions or help anyone with anything 😃
Imagine getting PR's against ur projects 😿
I've had someone screenshot my code, circle a buggy line in red, and blog about it instead of submitting a PR.
Was the blog post titled „how to be the worst OSS citizen“? That would at least be consequential
Lucky you get attention from the community
Lucky you don't enjoy the peace
Me after submitting my 50th PR this month: "Look at me. I am the maintainer now."
I never understand people rejecting free improvements on FOSS projects.
EDIT: Y'all, It's not like I cannot comprehend why they do it. Please stop trying to explain it to me. When I said "I don't understand", I meant the psyche of the character that does that. I personally do FOSS to improve the world and collaborate with others that do so as well. I will never get people who do FOSS and then get salty about people liking it too much.
Apart from bad quality code, the PR might not fit the vision the owner has in mind for the project. Improvements are subjective.
Every bit of code a maintainer accepts becomes their responsibility to maintain. Considering that half the time „improvements” don’t even have tests to help maintaining them, feel free to maintain your own fork.
Sure, one can request those PRs to add those tests before merging.
Don't get me wrong, I can understand why someone wants to just share without collaborating, but I don't get why they would publish in a collaborative environment, and then make memes about people trying to collaborate with them.
Personally, as someone writing FOSS for a while now, I'm always happy to get anyone helping out and get demotivated when nobody cares. Being actively hostile to actual code contributors, is just fucking bizarre to me.
While I do agree GitHub is a place where people collaborate, it's also a pretty handy place to store stuff without having to host your own. If the project doesn't invite people to contribute, don't expect a polite response forever. It's like stopping your neighbor on the street corner to tell them they should paint their house white for the thermal benefits, yeah people collaborate on the street, yeah you are right, it's their house though.
Github provides ways to both display code just as is (archive mode) and to also disable issues and auto-close all PRs with a message.
Is archive mode the appropriate tool for this? I would assume that's for when a repo is no longer receiving any updates from anyone, not just when the owner doesn't want others contributing.
I make my code open source and public so people can use it if they find it useful, not because I expect anyone to contribute.
And there’s a big fucking difference between actively hostile and “I’m not interested in accepting this change”.
Please stop trying to explain it to me.
I never understand people rejecting free feedback on social media posts.
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It's meant as a portfolio and I don't want to risk someone mistaking some contribution for my own work.
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I don't actually intend to put any time into maintaining it, but you are free to fork it if you want that responsibility.
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Your linting is lousy. It causes my eyes much pain.
So disable prs then.
I never understand people rejecting free improvements on FOSS projects.
I never understand people who don't install every free FOSS software offered to them on their PC.
Why would someone take every contribution to their FOSS project? It makes no sense to take a contribution doesn't help the project owner's vision of the project.
Fork it, prefix it with open, free, or libre and take the PR from the upstream and ass it to yours after messaging the contributor.
I'd probably reject PRs into my FOSS projects, because the aim is to put the code out there for other people to see and do what they want with it. I'm expressing myself, and sharing what I made; I'm not setting up a tentpole project for others to pitch in and take over on, and start managing their contributions and collaborate with them.
If they want to take the code and do something with it, great. I don't want to be involved in their endeavour.
Oh, I prefer to be strung along and asked to make a bunch of changes before you reject my PR. That makes me feel truly loved. In the ass.
You can disable issues if you want:
I had to do that on a corpo repo to proprietary BS once. It works.
PRs are similar. Just dont allow it and put the rules as such. Or make the repo private. Or even better, self host ;)
Tried to swap to GitLab and it told me I need to verify with a phone number. After I already input everything and verified email.
Fuck github