Elaine Ashton writes:
>
> On May 27, 2009, at 9:22 AM, James Carlson wrote:
> >
> > On that second point, it seems like the community consensus for (a) is
> > that we should just paste a big "this is dead now" sticker on the
> > front and leave everything alone rather than deleting anything, and,
> > assuming that isn't possible, then for (b) there should be some sort
> > of dead project archive where these can be moved rather than deleting
> > them.
>
> Whether it's an active group or an archive, they both require
> management and maintenance, something that has been largely absent
> heretofore.
Actually, I think I'd disagree with that. If you move them to a "dead
project" bin, I'd expect them to be completely frozen, meaning:
- No changes of any kind to the project pages or files, except by
special request. (Allowing for removal of pages with information
that falls afoul of some legal restriction.)
- Mailing lists shut down. No new posts allowed (email just
bounces). Archives are frozen in time.
Such a thing would have little if any management or maintenance cost,
other than the energy required to keep the bits spinning on rust.
> There are lots of ideas, but unless those ideas include a realistic
> goal for both managing and maintaining the archives as well as the
> active content, they aren't going to do much other than move the cruft
> from one corner to another which would seem to miss the point.
I think that misses the point of having a dead project archive.
In fact, it misses the point of community engagement. Instead of just
dismissing the idea outright as being incomplete, I suggest presenting
some boundaries (such as the ones I just outlined above) that would
make it work from your perspective, and then see if those boundary
conditions are acceptable to the people who are asking for the
feature. You never know until you ask.
In short, if you don't want to have people upset and angry at
proposals to "delete" stale projects -- please see the
networking-discuss thread I referenced -- I think you have to discuss
what the alternatives might be, even if having that discussion might
be a little slow and painful.
> There needs to be a firm policy with people willing and able to do the
> job without being hobbled by the fear or encumbrance of having to take
> every action to a committee. Without those, you may as well just have
> another fun thread about mailing list subscriptions, wildard
> whitelists and spam for all the good it will do.
What you dismissively call a "committee," I'd call either "the users"
or, feeling pompous, "the community."
And, yeah, changing something that people in fact are relying on can
be somewhat difficult. Making the policy without getting agreement
from those people sounds like a bad idea to me, no matter how
expedient it might be.
--
James Carlson, Solaris Networking <[email protected]>
Sun Microsystems / 35 Network Drive 71.232W Vox +1 781 442 2084
MS UBUR02-212 / Burlington MA 01803-2757 42.496N Fax +1 781 442 1677
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