[savannah-help-public] [sr #106581] doing something about stale jobs?

[Assaf Gordon]

Follow-up Comment #6, sr #106581 (project administration):

Hello Karl,

Item #4 is only an opinion, and I should have voiced it more subtly.
If it sounded harsh I apologize.

I do think, however, that the list as it currently stands is not inviting:
it does not give the impression of a vibrant community and active projects.

To me, to be effective, the list has to be up-to-date, and the posting should
be specific about an a current issue; and purged when they are old, even it
not fulfilled.
And while these postings on the website are more "stable" (as opposed to
ephemeral),
announcing them could be done on other websites and media, perhaps even GNU's
twitter account.
(This of course mean, complementing items #1 and #2 below, that generic "we
need a developer" posts are not effective to begin with).

As a newcomer to GNU, I don't recall visiting this page before
(In the past I have contributed few minor things to GNU coreutils and GNU awk,
and have been using GNU software for a while).

When I looked through the list, my impression was:
1. Most of the older posting refer to "ghost" projects - projects that either
never released code, barely committed code, announcing they are in
"alpha/planning" stage and need a developer, or projects whose last CVS commit
was 8/11/12 years ago (coincidentally, exactly the time of the "help wanted"
post).

2. Other projects are not relevant any more.
Few examples:
"GNU DotNot" - The post is from 2006.
If one goes to the project's website to see what is going on, the first thing
they see is:
"As of December 2012, the DotGNU project has been decommissioned".

"Free High School Science Texts" - The post is from 2006.
All the links on the Savannah page are broken.
Internet search leads to the official website: http://www.fhsst.org - which
redirects to a different e-learning commercial company.

3. Some postings are for GNU projects and are relevant, but the post does not
add repute to the projects:

"gnumed" - the post is from 2002, asking for help with Python/PostgreSQL.
going to the project's website redirects to a place outside www.gnu.org,
and their code is not even hosted on Savannah anymore (but on gitorious).


"GNU Help Wanted" - has seven postings, more than any other projects.
But few of them link to accounts that were deleted. So messages read like:
"This project would be mentored by the findutils maintainers. Consult the
mailing list -unavailable- for more details."

and

"A program to edit dance notation (such as labanotation) and display dancers
moving on the screen is wanted. Gepetto does some of this work. Contact
-unavailable- if you are interested in helping finish the job."

There's also a post from 2003, asking for:
"A shared memory X11 server to run under MACH is very desirable"


"GNU Hurd" - the post is from 2011, quite literally saying "we always need
more developers", and redirecting to the GNU Hurd website.


4. The single posting from 2014 is closer to what I have in mind. It's details
very specific need for Ruby developers to explore a specific task.
Such a post could be "teased" on other websites as "Looking for a Ruby expert
who loves Gravatars" (or another phrasing of course).
But here again - if the visitor tries to go to the one obvious place - the
project's homepage, he/she will get 404:
   http://www.nongnu.org/gravaty/

=====

Now, I do not claim for one second that any of those developer "must" or "are
obliged" to fix their post or fix their projects or change them in any way or
update their homepage.
I am well aware that all are volunteers, and enjoy hacking on their own free
time, and owe nothing to no one (except being Free Software).

But as a page that should give a positive image of GNU/Savannah related
projects - I think it is doing a disservice by keeping these posts.

In other hosting services 'out there', there's a clear understanding that each
user and each project are "on their own". One project's poor appearance does
not lend to the others'.
But on Savannah there does seem to be an attempt to create symbiosis, and
these kind of appearances reflect on the entire site.

=====

In my mind, an effective method would be:
1. A project drafts a new post for a needed task, preferably specific (to the
next release, to a new feature, etc.).
2. There is some minimal requirement of a post - like a proper project
website, contact information, etc.
3. The new post is also promoted elsewhere (twitter, libreplanet, others).
4. The people who follow the announcement reach this list, and they are also
exposed to other posts, which must be relevant.
5. out-dated posts are purged, regardless of result.

Would this cause more work for posters? yes.
But it seems few active projects actually use it, so we might as well make it
effective for those who do.

Regards,
 - Assaf 

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