I've seen projects solve this problem by keeping a pull request open that indicates where contributions should go instead.

That still doesn't prevent people blindly creating a new pull request though.

No, it's just that the Go team have decided to continue with their current contribution process rather than using pull requests. I don't know whether this is a permanent decision or not.

"The Go team will not be accepting pull-requests here. Contributions must still go through the normal code-review process and gerrit. The updated contribution steps are not yet available though."

https://github.com/golang/go/pull/9219

This is something very similar to that is being planned for FreeBSD repositories on GitHub: automated process turning pull requests into FreeBSD's Bugzilla bug reports and a comment closing the pull request, informing user about the Bugzilla bug link and how to proceed.

Actually that's even better than disabling pull requests entirely. I guess the closing comment will also contain a link to contribution guidelines and such.

Edit: @rurounijones points out that if there's a CONTRIBUTING.md in the repo then Github will show it when someone creates a PR. That's a great feature!

Github PRs are noise when the contribution workflow does not use PRs.

Go's contribution workflow does not use PRs.

Yes, when they are on a mirror of a code repo. The upstream repo is at https://go.googlesource.com/go

Go already has an established contributing process, and people who make PRs without bothering to understand that process are likely just making noise.

Is their contributing process described in README or in some other file within the repo?

There is, but since we're only partway through migrating to git/github, the README still shows the old instructions. The new contribution instructions will appear here in the next few days: http://golang.org/doc/contribute.html

Not that it really matters, right now, as we're in a pre-release freeze.

Make sure there is a CONTRIBUTING.md file in the repo and Github will automatically highlight it to be read when someone opens a PR

Great suggestion, thank you!

In that case why are they using GitHub?

GitHub is only a mirror. The real work is happening on go.googlesource.com.

https://groups.google.com/d/topic/golang-dev/sckirqOWepg/dis...

Linux is on Github as well (https://github.com/torvalds/linux) , and probably like Linus, some people don't like the Pull-request method for dealing with contributions.

Linux is on https://git.kernel.org/cgit/ .

And go is technically on https://go.googlesource.com/go

Interesting that the git hipsters are downvoting factually correct information. "Unruly hackers" (pg) seem to be perfect fodder for groupthink and monopolies.

GitHub provides the best web-based git repository browser, as well as various other useful features. The only other reasonable alternative for a large open-source project, aside from self-hosting, is bitbucket.

I disagree. GitHub looks cluttered and the contrast is too low for speed reading. I prefer the hg interface, for example:

https://hg.python.org/cpython/

Another interface I prefer is:

http://cvsweb.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb/

You like cvsweb? It's horrible. I'm here: http://cvsweb.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb/CVSROOT/. Why does not clicking a file open the file?!?!? Every freaking file browser in existence opens the file when I click it. It's been designed in the 90s and it shows :(

ironically there is an ongoing discussion on python-devel to migrate from hg to git+github

IMHO it's an error, but I am not a core python developer

I would like to disagree with the "the best". Mostly because it's obviously your opinion and not something you can say definitely.

Sometimes you have to learn to trust your opinion too -- and to learn to access others opinions when there are no definite answers.

Can you give any alternatives?

Well the already mentioned bitbucket, stash, cgit, gitweb, ... My point is that if you like something it isn't automatically "the best".

Lot of replies here disagreeing that GitHub is "the best", and offering alternatives.

Allow me to suggest that GitHub is at minimum the most-visited web-based git repo, which means that if you want a lot of people to view and use your code, it's a good place to mirror.

> GitHub provides the best web-based git repository browser

I like Bitbucket's side-by-side diff view so much, that I think I prefer Bitbucker for browsing.

But this is only because Bitbucket has the side-by-side diff view, anf GitHub does not.

GitHub introduced side-by-side diffs recently.

Oh, right, thanks. They just call it "split" and not side-by-side.

Could you describe what makes it the best repository browser?

I like e.g. https://trac.openstreetmap.org/browser/chef

So that they have the wiki+issues stuff.