[aur-general] AUR request mentality

[Evgeniy Alekseev]

On Sunday 17 August 2014 08:47:40 carstene1ns wrote:
> (1)inhibition threshold - It is much easier to remove a package now.
>
> (1)This goes for both the requester and the TU that accepts it.
> I have seen requests that consisted only of two words. Back then, when
> we were forced to use email, you could read at least a whole sentence
> and have a rationale.
> Also some TUs do not seem to care about providing a reason, why a
> certain request has been accepted or declined. There was a feedback mail
> back then, so the requester knew there was someone working on it.

Yeah, there are requests that don't provide enough information. But most of 
these requests have been rejected. Some of these requests have been accepted, 
because TU have examined the package and found that the request is correct.
And we don't describe the reason for the closure of requests as before, if we 
think that it is correct (and if there are no additions).

> (2)response time - Requests get accepted before the package maintainer
> or others have time to explain or react.
> 
> (2)Orphan requests have a grace period of 14 days. That is good, but for
> other requests there is none. So packages get deleted before they even
> could get fixed. Some TUs do not even question the reason for the
> request and just delete it without investigating.

Orphan requests have a 14-days rule [1] (and had before). When web interface 
of sending requests was introduced, the preparatory contact with the current 
maintainer isn't needed anymore. Other request haven't this rule (and had not) 
and we accept them according to the request description.

> What can we do to make things better? Should we (re)write the policy for
> TUs about accepting AUR requests? They should at least investigate.
> I think a good start would be to have users provide real reasons for
> deleting a package and trying to fix them otherwise (themselves or with
> help from the maintainer).

In my opinion TUs should *always* check a package under request. If sources 
are no longer available anywhere (such as for some of *berlios.de projects) it 
can be removed. If the package has not maintainer and if it has a few votes it 
can be removed too (since seems it is not interesting to anyone). As for me I 
don't think that we should remove useful packages even its upstream has no 
activity (if it is not broken of course).

So I don't think that we need to change the current policy, but I'm open for 
discussion.

1. https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/AUR#Other_requests
--
С уважением, Е.Алексеев.
Sincerely yours, E.Alekseev.

e-mail: darkarcanis at mail.ru
ICQ: 407-398-235
Jabber: arcanis at jabber.ru
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