What is the benefit of deleting a PR over just closing it? It seems like closing has the benefit of signaling what kinds of PRs aren't acceptable, which deleting would lose.
This. But OP wanted special requirements to open a PR. I.e. if those requirements are not met the PR is never visible to all and so admins can reject spam PRs without giving them a platform.
We occasionally get traditional SPAM PRs pointing to their product. In that case it is very useful to clear out title, PR body and reset the commits as well, so none of that appears on the repo.
This is time consuming.
Unfortunately the PR and the PR author will forever be listed there and linking to their product anyway.
> Unfortunately the PR and the PR author will forever be listed there
If they've been doing that to the other repo (and especially if they're just a spam account), there's a good chance using the "report" button and/or contacting GH support directly can yield positive results, up to the spam account being deleted (and the PR is usually deleted).
Correct. I used to report them, but 3/4 years ago they made it more difficult to report anything because you have to explain what's wrong even when it's very clear.
In the future, when you're looking at past PRs, you'll end up with a list of closed PRs that look legitimate from their titles. You'll waste time opening each one to figure out why it was closed.
This is particularly annoying because PRs also show up in the issue and in the issue list as "this issue has 3 PRs that will close it", when it's all. just. spam.
