Add a Patch Abandonment policy

Change-Id: I6ecdb8e624e2fa241fd422d7b6e66e0146e0f76c

specs/policy/patch-abandonment.rst

@@ -0,0 +1,88 @@
+=================
+Patch Abandonment
+=================
+
+Goal
+====
+
+Provide a basic policy that core reviewers can apply to outstanding reviews. As
+always, it is up to the core reviewers discretion on whether a patch should or
+should not be abandoned. This policy is just a baseline with some basic rules.
+
+Problem Description
+===================
+
+Mistral consists of a number of different git repositories and there are open
+and stale patches that have not been updated in a long time. This can make it
+hard to assess the current state of reviews, since any report is cluttered by
+old and idle reviews.
+
+When to Abandon
+===============
+
+If a proposed patch has sat idle for more than 180 days with a -1 from a
+reviewer or CI. A core reviewer should abandon the change with a reference to
+this policy.
+
+The following message can be used when abandoning patches.
+
+::
+
+    Abandoning this patch per the Mistral Patch Abandonment guidelines
+    (https://specs.openstack.org/openstack/mistral-specs/specs/policy/patch-abandonment.html).
+    If you wish to have this restored and cannot do so yourself, please reach
+    out via #openstack-mistral on freenode or the OpenStack Dev mailing list.
+
+When NOT to Abandon
+===================
+
+If a proposed patch has no feedback but has a +1 from CI, a core reviewer
+should not abandon such changes. This change should be reviewed and moved
+forward towards being updated or merged.
+
+
+Restoration
+===========
+
+Anyone should feel free to restore their own patches. If a change has been
+abandoned, anyone can request the restoration of the patch by asking a core
+reviewer on IRC in #openstack-mistral on freenode or by sending a request to
+the openstack-dev mailing list. Should the patch again become stale it may be
+abandoned again.
+
+Alternative & History
+=====================
+
+This plan is based on similar approaches taken in other OpenStack projects,
+such as TripleO. This plan was discussed on openstack-dev [1]_.
+
+Implementation
+==============
+
+Author(s)
+---------
+
+Primary author:
+  d0ugal
+
+References
+==========
+
+.. [1] http://lists.openstack.org/pipermail/openstack-dev/2018-July/132073.html
+
+Milestones
+----------
+
+Rocky
+
+Work Items
+----------
+
+- Perform the initial cleanup and abandonment.
+- Create a script to automate the process.
+
+.. note::
+
+  This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0
+  Unported License.
+  http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/legalcode