Removing active maintainers

Ben Klein shacklein at gmail.com
Thu Jun 25 22:39:23 CDT 2009


2009/6/26 Vitaliy Margolen <wine-devel at kievinfo.com>:
> Ken Sharp wrote:
>> Because the AppDB isn't supposed to be a forum.
> Who said that? It was _the_ only "official forum" long before
> forum.winehq.org came to be.

But now there *is* forum.winehq.org. AppDB isn't a forum (at least,
not any more).

>> I can see no useful reason for keeping old comments
> I can name several reasons:
> 1. Apps that don't change much and old problems still exit (years later)
> 2. Historical records of what got eventually fixed or worked around. Useful
> if anyone wants to test old Wine version. Or do the same bad things.
> 3. Problems that still apply to lots of other applications. Or all games run
> under Steam.
> 4. Lots of new problems are well forgotten old problems.
> 5. Knowledge never gets old.

Points 1, 3 and 5 can be addressed by creating suitable notes,
warnings and HOWTOs on the app pages. Points 2 and 4 can be addressed
by correct use of bugzilla.

> What are the reasons to remove old comments, other then being too slow to
> refresh page?

Bandwidth consumption is a real issue with running any website.

2009/6/26 John Klehm <xixsimplicityxix at gmail.com>:
> No doubt it's a good thing to keep the appdb information up to date
> and clean out inactive accounts.
>
> However it seems that if someone wants to do the work why should we
> have a policy to prevent them from participating according to the time
> their life allots?  Last I checked we werent over staffed quite yet.
>
> Especially when there isn't a maintainer at all now for this app?
>
> http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&iId=1554

AppDB maintenance is a responsibility for volunteers. When the
automated system is working, volunteers are given a week to respond to
test data for the apps they maintain. From what Ken has said, Vitaliy
(and everyone else on the Steam app) would have been removed
automatically, and he was just filling in the role of the automated
script.

As for deleting 300 comments on one app, sifting through 300 comments
for useful/relevant information to what you're currently having
trouble with is very time consuming. It is better for the average user
to have a handful of useful comments to read instead. I argue that
those comments could be quite old but still relevant, but in that case
Ken has a point that they should be moved to notes.

2009/6/26 Vitaliy Margolen <wine-devel at kievinfo.com>:
> I'm still asking to remove Ken Sharp from AppDB admins. This behavior is
> totally unacceptable. Removing user comments just because Ken doesn't like
> them is not a valid reason.

To be completely fair, keeping 300 old and potentially obsolete
comments just because you like them is not a valid reason either.

2009/6/26 Vitaliy Margolen <wine-devel at kievinfo.com>:
> For the last time I'm asking to provide reasons for removing comments. If
> you can't come up with that list and you can not be bothered to write them
> down, then you do not have any rights to enforce something that's known to
> everyone involved.

I believe he's ignoring this because he's already explained why. 300+
comments on one app can't possibly be useful to the average user who
wants a quick solution to their problem.

> And who are you to rate all comments as being useful/useless? AppDB is not
> in China or Iran. It doesn't need censoring. Being admin or maintainer
> doesn't mean you can censor people.

This is not about "all comments being useful/useless", nor is it about
censoring. From Ken's perspective, it's about making relevant
information quick and easy to get to. Without the app maintainers
doing something about it, the job falls to the admins.

2009/6/26 Tom Wickline <twickline at gmail.com>:
> On Thu, Jun 25, 2009 at 9:13 PM, Ken Sharp <kennybobs at o2.co.uk> wrote:
>>
>> Of course this guy agrees, he's been removed for being idle!
>
> And when I did have the free time to submit, I had removed...
>
> Thanks to your rm -rf if they dont agree with me script :)

Thanks for your "I know what I'm doing, who cares about the rules and
guidelines for maintainers" attitude.

2009/6/26 Remco <remco47 at gmail.com>:
> I maintain two apps. I haven't updated their status in months. Yet,
> I'm not removed. Apparently, this is because no other people added
> something to these pages either.

I've got a few apps that need updated test data (some of which I've
been the only reporter on), but I've also been auto-removed from apps
where I just plain missed the email about other users sending test
data. In some cases, I even reapplied for supermaintainership. It's
not THAT hard, is it?

> Maybe that [AppDB] could be governed more like a wiki

There has been talk about AppDB being more wiki-like, but it's not
really suitable when the primary information is test data which is so
specific it does not change (e.g. "Gold in 1.1.22 but Garbage in
1.1.23").



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