[aur-general] Removing comments from AUR

[Gergely Imreh]

> Since i started this, even by stupidly replying to another thread, i
> might as well answer
> to that.
> My suggestion is not having comments in the AUR at all, comments arent useful to
> the users. They are only useful to the maintainer.

I would disagree... Sometimes it is good for maintaner-user feedback
as well. E.g. one of my packages takes a long time to compile. It's a
small package but one step looks as if it hung and stays there for
about 10-15mins on my computer. I had one of the users place a comment
that his compilation didn't work, it froze and he had to kill it after
about 5 minutes. Told him to wait a bit longer and it worked.
Sure it could be done in the BBS - but would be completely
inefficient. Not many users for most of the packages so not many
people know what's going on, and I'm not going to search through the
forums every day to see if someone wrote about them... Now: comment
placed, me notified, can act on it....

Or: someone makes a package. A TU or a more knowledgeable user points
out some problems with it in comments so he can fix it. Other users
see the comments and see the advice, one day when they will make
packages they can take that advice that is now public, and not in
someone's mailbox. Yeah, the Wiki is for such things, but how many
little things are there that people don't Wiki up? Or how many time
people still write on the mailing list while this and that does not
work in a package when it should? Sure it "only" concerns the
maintainer at that time but there are a much wider potential audience.

Also, it can serve as a "call" for other users who are interested in
that package (and probably set it to "notify")  to call for someone
else to adopt a package.

And also, your assumption is 100% reliable dedicated knowledgeable
maintainers. Which is obviously not the case...

> If there is no
> maintainer, if a user feels
> the need to comment with an updated/altered script then he should
> adopt it and fix it.
> And even disown it afterwards if he feels like it.

Not everyone is the same. Not everyone wants to take that
responsibility. Is forcing them the right way? I'd see more people
giving up a package before adopting it. If they want to adopt they
would do it under the current arrangement. Though the "email the list
if one package is very outdated and the maintainer don't give a" is
probably not that clear for everyone, might be better to advertise it
a bit more, but that's a different issue.

> How's that for "KISS" ?

I'd ask, if you have a website that supposed to be automated and self
contained, how is it KISS to require people +1 registration to BBS, +1
registration to mailing list, +possibly much longer waiting to contact
someone who can know the solution to the problem?

Just thinking...
   Greg