RFC: Should we remove the 'good first issue' label?

Related to other discussions on low effort PRs #31679 and #32207

Should we remove the 'good first issue' label?

Note that we mention this label in the "[Issues for new contributors](https://github.com/numpy/numpy/pull/21355)" section of the docs. It is also mentioned briefly at the end of the "[A typical workflow for triaging issues](https://scikit-learn.org/dev/developers/bug_triaging.html#a-typical-workflow-for-triaging-issues)" section.

Reasons for:

* currently there are no open issues with this label (https://github.com/scikit-learn/scikit-learn/issues?q=is%3Aissue%20state%3Aopen%20label%3A%22good%20first%20issue%22)
* it is rare for good first issues to occur naturally. Often it requires maintainers specifically trying to think of one and spending time writing thorough details and guidance in an issue, probably what happens when searching for issues for people to work on in sprints, and even then, during the sprint, guidance is often required.
* it often attracts *many* low quality PRs - this is possibly because it's aggregated on sites such as https://goodfirstissue.dev/. It's difficult to find examples as we often remove the label but maybe #31318 and #30352 are examples of how much interest the label often attracts.
* it may be better for a user to start work on something that they use themselves and are familiar with, or something they already have background knowledge of. This would of course vary between people, making it a difficult label to use.
   * related, as described in @betatim's [post](https://discuss.scientific-python.org/t/what-does-it-mean-to-be-a-project-that-is-welcoming-to-newcomers/2127/3) on scientific-python, the type of users attracted to this label may be simply interested in getting a PR merged in a 'big' project. From Ralf: 'Promising new contributors are almost always motivated by a problem/topic, not by “getting on the scoreboard”'  
* for reference NumPy does not have a good first issue label (https://github.com/numpy/numpy/pull/21355) they do have a 'sprintable' label

This is just a request for comment, I understand if we decide to keep this label in the end.

cc @scikit-learn/core-devs

COMMENT:
Here are a few thoughts on this topic.

I think we need a well defined path for people to follow to join and then level up within scikit-learn. At all levels of participation in the project we lose people over time. The way to replenish the ranks is to have a path people can follow. One ingredient in this path is good first issues to move people from "uses the project" to "has made a contribution", which could be the step before "has made several contributions".

Using the well known "good first issue" label seems to attract a lot of people with unclear motivation. So using a slightly different label could be good.

We are not very good at correctly labelling issues as good for beginners. Often they turn out to be more intermediate level than beginner. Maybe we should come up with some rules of thumb and share them? For example, I tell people that fixing a typo is a actually good first issue (99% clear what the correct answer is, small diff, fast to review, lets you practice the mechanics of contributing). Rewriting a paragraph is probably already too complex. Maybe "would be quicker to do myself" is another good rule of thumb. Meta issue that is basically about mechanical search&replace is probably another good candidate.

We can just stop using the label, no need to delete it.

Labels: RFC