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On GitHub, when an issue in small project calimero mentions an issue in big project godzilla, a backlink message appears on the issue in godzilla. For example, suppose a hard-to-fix bug in godzilla affects many dependent projects, which all implement a workaround while referring to the godzilla issue in their PRs. This may lead to many messages in the godzilla issue. Although this may remind the godzilla maintainers that many packages are affected, they arguably add little more than "me too" comments, which are typically unwanted for good reasons.

Considering that „me too“ messages are considered spammy noise but that cross-project backlink references lead to similar messages on issues or PRs, are there any etiquette on whether such references should be used sparingly? Or are they generally OK? As far as I know, such references do not normally trigger notifications to subscribers, unlike issue comments.

Example of a numpy issue that has quite a lot of backlinks: https://github.com/numpy/numpy/issues/24300

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    I don't understand how cross-project references lead to messages similar to "me too" messages. There's a fundamental difference between a concrete link between two issues that allows people to navigate discussions and someone posting "me too" without any information. Commented Oct 31, 2023 at 14:17
  • @ThomasOwens If 50 projects have PRs with "implement workaround for numpy#12345" then 50 messages will appear under numpy#12345 — spammy? Commented Oct 31, 2023 at 14:31
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    My answer provides a lot more detail, but no. That's not spammy. And if I were a maintainer of numpy, I'd find it valuable to understand what project(s) are affected by this bug, which ones have implemented a workaround, what those workarounds have been, which ones may be waiting for numpy to deliver a fix. Having direct links to issues, discussions, and pull requests for other projects gives me valuable insights and a way to contact people who are affected by the issue to make an informed decision on next steps. Commented Oct 31, 2023 at 14:43
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    Backlinks aren't spammy, and often provide relevant context to maintainers (real-world problems with their software). Absolutely set links for everything, this makes it much easier for other people to follow. They also won't generate notifications. A "me too" comment doesn't add value, but does send a notification to everyone who has subscribed. They are really annoying. At most, such a comment achieves "bumping" the issue in a view that sorts by "most recently active", but more likely it's just getting the issue locked. Commented Oct 31, 2023 at 15:36
  • The notification thing mentioned by @amon is really the issue with spam on platforms like GitHub. In big projects, it’s not unusual for major issues to have hundreds of people subscribed to them, so a comment just to say ‘me too’ is pestering potentially hundreds of people, possibly going as far as push notifications on their phones, all to add nothing to the discussion. Commented Nov 1, 2023 at 1:49

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I don't understand the equivalence between linking issues (even across projects) and "me too" messages. They are not the same at all.

We can continue to assume large project godzilla which is include by or a dependency to many smaller projects. If godzilla has an issue which drives changes in these smaller projects, I would expect linkages between the issues and pull requests to these smaller projects and godzilla. If the project is implementing a workaround, it's good to understand why that workaround is being implemented and, by linking it to the specific cause, when it needs to be revisited. That is, if and when godzilla fixes the issue in their project, the other projects can revisit their workarounds or see if the reported issues still exist and do the necessary work on their projects.

These links also add information to godzilla maintainers. They can see how many projects are affected by this issue, what other projects are doing in terms of workarounds, and even communicate directly with other project maintainers regarding fixing the issue and releasing those fixes.

The information provided by these links add a lot more than "me too" comments. Even if the "me too" included a specific project name, it doesn't have the automatic connections and visibility into the issue status or the ability for maintainers to ping each other about the work.

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