# Removing old backport labels in the docs repo

**URL:** <https://forum.ansible.com/t/removing-old-backport-labels-in-the-docs-repo/44807>\
**Category:** Project Discussions\
**Tags:** dawgs-meeting\
**Created:** [November 7, 2025, 12:11pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/removing-old-backport-labels-in-the-docs-repo/44807 "2025-11-07T12:11:39Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![oranod](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/ansible/user_avatar/forum.ansible.com/oranod/32/1434_2.png) [@oranod](https://forum.ansible.com/u/oranod)\
**Post date:** [November 7, 2025, 12:11pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/removing-old-backport-labels-in-the-docs-repo/44807/1 "2025-11-07T12:11:39Z")

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Not sure if a forum post on this is overkill or not but I’ve noticed we have a bunch of stale backport [labels in the docs repo](https://github.com/ansible/ansible-documentation/labels).

I’d imagine it’s fine to just delete labels for old versions like, say, stable-2.14. That’ll also remove the label from any associated PRs but new labels can be re-applied before merge anyway. It might also be a good time to see if we can close some older PRs or revive them.

@gotmax23 or @felixfontein Could there be any unintended consequences with patchback? I’d guess not, but would like to ask. Thanks.

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**Author:** ![gotmax23](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/ansible/user_avatar/forum.ansible.com/gotmax23/32/106_2.png) [@gotmax23](https://forum.ansible.com/u/gotmax23)\
**Post date:** [November 10, 2025, 3:12am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/removing-old-backport-labels-in-the-docs-repo/44807/2 "2025-11-10T03:12:24Z")

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I guess it’s nice to clean things up, but I’m also fine with keeping the labels for historical reasons. If we do end up deciding to remove them, I don’t see any technical reasons why we couldn’t — AFAIK Patchback only responds when a pull request is merged or a new label is _added_ to an already merged pull request to create backports.

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**Author:** ![felixfontein](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/ansible/user_avatar/forum.ansible.com/felixfontein/32/7530_2.png) [@felixfontein](https://forum.ansible.com/u/felixfontein)\
**Post date:** [November 10, 2025, 5:22am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/removing-old-backport-labels-in-the-docs-repo/44807/3 "2025-11-10T05:22:46Z")

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In my collection repos I always delete all `backport-x` labels that correspond to branches that are EOL. This makes it easier to use the labels (the list is shorter, and you can’t accidentally add a label for an EOL branch). I haven’t seen any downsides so far.

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**Author:** ![oranod](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/ansible/user_avatar/forum.ansible.com/oranod/32/1434_2.png) [@oranod](https://forum.ansible.com/u/oranod)\
**Post date:** [November 10, 2025, 12:16pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/removing-old-backport-labels-in-the-docs-repo/44807/4 "2025-11-10T12:16:19Z")

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Thanks for the replies. Since there’s no technical reason to keep the labels I’ll remove them for housekeeping purposes. The other day I was looking through the labels and noticed we have a growing list of unused labels. To tie into what @felixfontein said about accidentally applying a stale label for an EOL branch, maybe pruning would be less confusing for infrequent contributors who don’t know which branches are supported. Cheers!