Fair point: my suggestion was unclear. I agree that explicitly stating a takeover request is important. I meant to suggest widening the search as an intermediate step between direct contact with the maintainer and the takeover announcement, itself. It could be step 1.B.?

For the record, I think that Emily, Tom, and others acted reasonably and in good faith in this thread, although my own tone was regrettably snappy.

I do think the existing policy works, but I stand by my (clarified) suggestion. Even if the actual maintainer is unruffled by the sudden appearance of a takeover announcement, as in this case, the wider public --- most of whom probably aren't even aware of the policy --- should also be considered. I think it's easier to avoid [confusion] than resist it. If people keep getting confused by the same thing, maybe it's the thing itself that needs clarification.

On Fri, 12 Mar 2021, 23.27 Gershom B, <gershomb@gmail.com> wrote:

On Mar 12, 2021, 12:27 PM -0500, Bryan Richter <b@chreekat.net>, wrote:

Can I suggest to the Hackage Whoever a slight change in policy?

I think the shock of seeing a package takeover request for your own package is understandably, uh, shocking, and makes the ensuing discussion tense. I also feel like most takeover requests follow this pattern; rarely does a package end up changing hands.

Perhaps it's a problem of tone.

Rather than suggesting "State your intention to take over the package in a public forum ", step 2 should lighten up and state, "After trying to reach the maintainer for a reasonable amount of time, reach out to the public to expand your search."

https://wiki.haskell.org/Taking_over_a_package

The proposed change is not just a tone change. The point of step 2 is that an official request be filed in a public forum and sufficient time then pass that we can be confident the maintainer has been publicly informed of the issue. It’s not about having a heavy tone or the like.

This whole fracas is simply the result of confusion and miscommunication — a package appeared unmaintained, but it turned out that there was a maintainer, but it was hard to tell because the maintainer was not listed on the last uploaded package. The correct fix for this is everyone chill out, go for a walk, and then get on with more productive things.

By the way, I should mention that there _is_ a hackage audit log of who has been added to maintainer (and trustee and admin) groups, and by whom, since there seemed to be some confusion about that.

Best,
Gershom

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