My take on old issues is this, assuming it's not my own issue/project (in which case do what you like I guess). Bugs: Is it a real bug? If not, active needs more info, by design, or won't fix. Is it still a bug? Bump it, but do a quick search for duplicate issues If it's been fixed 1. try to find a duplicate issue to mark it against if it's a core bug 2. In contrib, mark to fixed (or sometimes directly to closed if it's very old), or duplicate, case by case. Feature requests: Is it a valid feature request? No module does this? Not just a support request for configuration? If it fails any of these, won't fix. If it is valid, bump the version, and generally worth adding a note to explain why it's still valid. Tasks and support requests are usually a variation of the above. And something has patches attached to it, I usually leave them more open than if not, and generally take a quick look at the patch to see if it's got any chance of applying. Marking things to needs work keeps the dust monsters a lot happier. And if an issue has been RTBC for more than a couple of months it's probably at the wrong status.