I put a price under 9 dated GitHub requests. Seven had never received a single comment from anyone.

Description and use

The author found that six of nine priced GitHub issue requests were in low‑activity repositories, indicating they were unlikely to represent genuine demand; only three were in active repositories.

Problem

Determining whether open, dated GitHub issue requests truly represent demand, given that many repositories have low comment activity and may mislead pricing decisions.

Outcome

Six of nine priced requests were in repositories with low comment activity, indicating they were unlikely to represent genuine demand; only three were in active repositories.

Workflow

• 1. Post priced offers on nine dated open GitHub issues.
• 2. After posting, read all nine threads via the GitHub API.
• 3. Measure comment activity in each repository by checking the last 30 issues and calculating the proportion with at least one comment.
• 4. Compare each issue’s age and repository comment rate to determine if the issue is in an active discussion space.
• 5. Classify issues as readable (active) or unreadable (inactive) based on age and comment rate thresholds.
• 6. Report findings and adjust future pricing strategy accordingly.

Evidence

Seven of the nine threads contained exactly one comment, and it was mine

Source

The rates came out between 0.10 and 0.73, and they split my nine into two different things.

Source