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> “I don’t know” and “I don’t care” would be honest answers. The former is not a valid justification for closing the issue. The latter would backfire.

Nah, you can totally say that you don't care, you just gotta phrase it right. "Sorry, we have no plans to support that use case." Or -- if you don't mind leaving the issue open -- "I don't think fixing this is a priority right now, but feel free to submit a PR yourself!"

Really, it just sounds to me like the person writing this hadn't yet learned how to say no. Going by the end, they've since gotten better at this, so good for them. But the point is, there absolutely are polite ways to convey that you have no interest in solving a particular problem.



Then you get labeled an "uncooperative maintainer" and people write scathing blog posts about you. There's no way to avoid the PR trap here.


Right, there are many ways to convey that you are not going to offer your help. Most of them do not make you sound like an asshole.




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