Hello Savannah Hackers, I've been wanting to help out with the GNU project for a while now but I've been unsure of where to help. I assume that Savannah still needs help, despite the resurrection back in November. Of course, I understand that this would mostly entail reviewing project submissions, so, as instructed, I've included what my response to a submission (#11765 CDEsql) below.
However, what I would be more interested in doing, if you guys approve, would be to help clean out old, inactive things. In particular, the Help Wanted area has posts going back a decade. I think it's safe to assume that many of those requests may be considered closed and removed at this point. Another, possibly touchier subject, would be to flag old, inactive and incomplete projects for removal. For both cases, I've written a suggested protocol below. This isn't so much about space, which I'm sure isn't a huge problem. It's that, for me, as a visitor to Savannah, when I saw the Help Wanted area full of old posts and many of the projects apparently abandoned, it made the site feel a bit stale or inactive. I think cleaning out some of the cobwebs wouldn't hurt... Well, I hope these suggestions aren't provocative. Either way, I'd like to help out however I can! Cheers, Brandon Invergo --- Reply to task #11765: CDEsql https://savannah.gnu.org/task/?11765 Hello Vineet, My name is Brandon Invergo, and I have reviewed the submission of your project CDEsql to GNU Savannah. Unfortunately, we would not be able to accept your project as submitted. Please be aware that Savannah, as a hosting service, supports free (as in freedom) software, which is ideologically different from open source, so we ask that you describe your project as "free" rather than "open source". Furthermore, we do not wish to promote non-free software, so we would ask that you remove the reference to Visual Studio or at least encourage the use of free software alternatives ahead of it. Finally, while it's clear that the source code you submitted is just a placeholder, any source file hosted on Savannah must contain license information at the top. Please refer to the following pages for more information: https://savannah.gnu.org/register/requirements.php https://savannah.gnu.org/maintenance/HowToGetYourProjectApprovedQuickly Regards, Brandon --- Suggested protocol for cleaning the Help Wanted section: Posts older than one year would be removed. Around a week before removing a post, the original poster would be contacted so they can be made aware of the pending action. If the position is still available, they would be encouraged to repost the ad, which would also renew its visibility (but they should only do this after being given the ok from an admin, of course) --- Suggested protocol for cleaning out old projects: This would require a lot more care and attention. First of all, only projects which have been inactive for at least X years (3? 5?) would be considered. In all cases, the project would not be immediately deleted. Instead, it would be flagged for review by another admin, and then we would attempt to contact the project owner to verify that the project is abandoned. It's important not to be overly zealous with this since even inactive projects can be of value to people starting new projects. Some rules for deciding to flag a project for removal (again, only after it's been inactive for X years): - no source code has been uploaded - it's determined that project activity is occurring on a different hosting service - development status < 2(?)
