CONTRIBUTING.rst: Clarify WIP MR closure policy

Adds section to readme detailing the WIP MR closure policy.

1 files changed, 9 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/CONTRIBUTING.rst b/CONTRIBUTING.rst
index c7ab1b8ab..8a1b7996a 100644
--- a/CONTRIBUTING.rst
+++ b/CONTRIBUTING.rst
@@ -105,6 +105,15 @@ Consider marking a merge request as WIP again if you are taking a while to
 address a review point. This signals that the next action is on you, and it
 won't appear in a reviewer's search for non-WIP merge requests to review.
 
+As a general rule of thumb, after a month of no activity from the submitter of 
+a non-WIP MR, we'll put it back into WIP with a polite note. Then after another 
+month with no activity we'll close the MR off entirely with another note. 
+In this way we are trying to ensure all of the MRs in our backlog are relevant
+and up to date. We have some `boilerplate text
+<https://gitlab.com/BuildStream/buildstream/blob/master/.gitlab/merge_request_templates/stale_MR_message.md>`_,
+to help us when writing these notes.
+
+
 
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