Between JIRA and GitHub: ASFBot and its Influence on Human Comments in Issue Trackers

Ambarish Moharil; Dmitrii S. Orlov; Samar Jameel; Tristan Trouwen; Nathan W. Cassee; Alexander Serebrenik

doi:10.1145/3524842.3528528

Between JIRA and GitHub: ASFBot and its Influence on Human Comments in Issue Trackers

Ambarish Moharil
, Dmitrii S. Orlov
, Samar Jameel
, Tristan Trouwen
, Nathan W. Cassee
, Alexander Serebrenik

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution › Academic › peer-review

5 Citations (Scopus)

3 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Open-Source Software (OSS) projects have adopted various automations for repetitive tasks in recent years. One common type of automation in OSS is bots. In this exploratory case study, we seek to understand how the adoption of one particular bot (ASFBot) by the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) impacts the discussions in the issue-trackers of these projects. We use the SmartShark dataset to investigate whether the ASFBot affects (i) human comments mentioning pull requests and fixes in issue comments and (ii) the general human comment rate on issues. We apply a regression discontinuity design (RDD) on nine ASF projects that have been active both before and after the ASFBot adoption. Our results indicate (i) an immediate decrease in the number of median comments mentioning pull requests and fixes after the bot adoption, but the trend of a monthly decrease in this comment count is reversed, and (ii) no effect in the number of human comments after the bot adoption. We make an effort to gather first insights in understanding the impact of adopting the ASFBot on the commenting behavior of developers who are working on ASF projects.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	MSR '22
Subtitle of host publication	Proceedings of the 19th International Conference on Mining Software Repositories
Place of Publication	New York
Publisher	Association for Computing Machinery, Inc.
Pages	112-116
Number of pages	5
ISBN (Electronic)	978-1-4503-9303-4
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1145/3524842.3528528
Publication status	Published - 17 Oct 2022
Event	19th International Conference on Mining Software Repositories, MSR 2022 - Pittsburgh, United States Duration: 23 May 2022 → 24 May 2022

Conference

Conference	19th International Conference on Mining Software Repositories, MSR 2022
Abbreviated title	MSR 2022
Country/Territory	United States
City	Pittsburgh
Period	23/05/22 → 24/05/22

Keywords

bots
pull requests
software engineering
software process
GitHub
Apache Software Foundation
Bots
Apache
ASFBot
issue-trackers

Access to Document

10.1145/3524842.3528528

pdfFinal published version, 701 KB

https://www.win.tue.nl/~aserebre/MSR2022.pdf

Cite this

@inproceedings{77c54f9408604163bfc6c038fcb2b559,

title = "Between JIRA and GitHub: ASFBot and its Influence on Human Comments in Issue Trackers",

abstract = "Open-Source Software (OSS) projects have adopted various automations for repetitive tasks in recent years. One common type of automation in OSS is bots. In this exploratory case study, we seek to understand how the adoption of one particular bot (ASFBot) by the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) impacts the discussions in the issue-trackers of these projects. We use the SmartShark dataset to investigate whether the ASFBot affects (i) human comments mentioning pull requests and fixes in issue comments and (ii) the general human comment rate on issues. We apply a regression discontinuity design (RDD) on nine ASF projects that have been active both before and after the ASFBot adoption. Our results indicate (i) an immediate decrease in the number of median comments mentioning pull requests and fixes after the bot adoption, but the trend of a monthly decrease in this comment count is reversed, and (ii) no effect in the number of human comments after the bot adoption. We make an effort to gather first insights in understanding the impact of adopting the ASFBot on the commenting behavior of developers who are working on ASF projects.",

keywords = "bots, pull requests, software engineering, software process, GitHub, Apache Software Foundation, Bots, Apache, ASFBot, issue-trackers",

author = "Ambarish Moharil and Orlov, \{Dmitrii S.\} and Samar Jameel and Tristan Trouwen and Cassee, \{Nathan W.\} and Alexander Serebrenik",

year = "2022",

month = oct,

day = "17",

doi = "10.1145/3524842.3528528",

language = "English",

pages = "112--116",

booktitle = "MSR '22",

publisher = "Association for Computing Machinery, Inc.",

address = "United States",

note = " 19th International Conference on Mining Software Repositories, MSR 2022, MSR 2022 ; Conference date: 23-05-2022 Through 24-05-2022",

}

Moharil, A, Orlov, DS, Jameel, S, Trouwen, T, Cassee, NW & Serebrenik, A 2022, Between JIRA and GitHub: ASFBot and its Influence on Human Comments in Issue Trackers. in MSR '22: Proceedings of the 19th International Conference on Mining Software Repositories. Association for Computing Machinery, Inc., New York, pp. 112-116, 19th International Conference on Mining Software Repositories, MSR 2022, Pittsburgh, United States, 23/05/22. https://doi.org/10.1145/3524842.3528528

Between JIRA and GitHub: ASFBot and its Influence on Human Comments in Issue Trackers. / Moharil, Ambarish; Orlov, Dmitrii S.; Jameel, Samar et al.
MSR '22: Proceedings of the 19th International Conference on Mining Software Repositories. New York: Association for Computing Machinery, Inc., 2022. p. 112-116.

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution › Academic › peer-review

TY - GEN

T1 - Between JIRA and GitHub

T2 - 19th International Conference on Mining Software Repositories, MSR 2022

AU - Moharil, Ambarish

AU - Orlov, Dmitrii S.

AU - Jameel, Samar

AU - Trouwen, Tristan

AU - Cassee, Nathan W.

AU - Serebrenik, Alexander

PY - 2022/10/17

Y1 - 2022/10/17

N2 - Open-Source Software (OSS) projects have adopted various automations for repetitive tasks in recent years. One common type of automation in OSS is bots. In this exploratory case study, we seek to understand how the adoption of one particular bot (ASFBot) by the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) impacts the discussions in the issue-trackers of these projects. We use the SmartShark dataset to investigate whether the ASFBot affects (i) human comments mentioning pull requests and fixes in issue comments and (ii) the general human comment rate on issues. We apply a regression discontinuity design (RDD) on nine ASF projects that have been active both before and after the ASFBot adoption. Our results indicate (i) an immediate decrease in the number of median comments mentioning pull requests and fixes after the bot adoption, but the trend of a monthly decrease in this comment count is reversed, and (ii) no effect in the number of human comments after the bot adoption. We make an effort to gather first insights in understanding the impact of adopting the ASFBot on the commenting behavior of developers who are working on ASF projects.

AB - Open-Source Software (OSS) projects have adopted various automations for repetitive tasks in recent years. One common type of automation in OSS is bots. In this exploratory case study, we seek to understand how the adoption of one particular bot (ASFBot) by the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) impacts the discussions in the issue-trackers of these projects. We use the SmartShark dataset to investigate whether the ASFBot affects (i) human comments mentioning pull requests and fixes in issue comments and (ii) the general human comment rate on issues. We apply a regression discontinuity design (RDD) on nine ASF projects that have been active both before and after the ASFBot adoption. Our results indicate (i) an immediate decrease in the number of median comments mentioning pull requests and fixes after the bot adoption, but the trend of a monthly decrease in this comment count is reversed, and (ii) no effect in the number of human comments after the bot adoption. We make an effort to gather first insights in understanding the impact of adopting the ASFBot on the commenting behavior of developers who are working on ASF projects.

KW - bots

KW - pull requests

KW - software engineering

KW - software process

KW - GitHub

KW - Apache Software Foundation

KW - Bots

KW - Apache

KW - ASFBot

KW - issue-trackers

UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85134057473

U2 - 10.1145/3524842.3528528

DO - 10.1145/3524842.3528528

M3 - Conference contribution

SP - 112

EP - 116

BT - MSR '22

PB - Association for Computing Machinery, Inc.

CY - New York

Y2 - 23 May 2022 through 24 May 2022

ER -

Between JIRA and GitHub: ASFBot and its Influence on Human Comments in Issue Trackers

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Conference

Keywords

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