Plan for dealing with projects that may be abandoned

The account has been temporarily blocked from the CWG (Community Working Group). Only users who have the role of user administrator can see blocked accounts and that is why you cannot access https://www.drupal.org/u/hass.

Even if a user would leave drupal.org, we don't reassign each of the projects maintained from that user in a single issue.

No, there aren't preemptive actions that need to be taken, whenever the project owner has been temporarily blocked (as in this case) or permanently blocked.
The only actions we take is when there are users who offer to maintain/co-maintain the projects, but even in this case, we don't handle all the projects owned from a user in a single issue. Each project is handled in a single issue.

There isn't any offer to become maintainer/co-maintainer, in this issue, so there isn't any action we need to take.

Needs maintainers and Needs co-maintainers issues are created from project owners who are looking for new maintainers or co-maintainers for the projects they own.

IMHO, this is not "Fixed".

The way I see it, the intent by the OP was to create a public record in the appropriate issue queue to flag that some very important projects in Drupal ecosystem may become abandoned. By creating this issue, the community was alerted about the problem, and this allows for discussion about what can be done about it. Simply closing it as "Fixed" because a technicality about the OPs use of the "Component" metadata was not considering the OP's intent and is not showing respect.

It is very disruptive to the Drupal community when projects that a lot of community members rely on become unsupported, and by twisting an issue where a legitimate concern about this is posted into "support request" (which it never was) and pretending it is "Fixed", metadata is abused and real harm is inflicted on the community. I know that this is harsh words, but I feel strongly about this.

Given the above, I expect kiamlaluno to open this issue again (my suggestion for Category is "Plan" and Component is "Abandoned/unsupported projects (notice the plural) – but I'm not fuzzy over metadata). If this does not happen, my next step is to proceed according to the Conflict Resolution Policy and Process.

IMO the correct Status for this issue is Fixed according to current policy.

Doubt very much the intentions are as expressed by @Gisle, despite that consider @kiamlaluno to have given the benefit of the doubt. Consider it a sign of respect to point out that the issue initially was reported wrongly and addressing the things done wrong. Consider it absolutely correct to change it to a Support Request, the original post didn't contain a call for action. The wrong assessment of the current situation was corrected and pointed towards the correct procedure to follow.

There is nothing in the issue that is at the right place here in this project. Each project with only one maintainer is a risk to use in your own project. The current policy expects you to report it at that project if you feel strong about that. You do need to provide arguments for your assessment. Without response it can be escalated, adding a specific issue here as proposed above. The difference being it is about a specific project.

When feeling strongly about the current procedure, it should be adjusted in a proper way. Consider just rewriting the procedure incorrect. Obviously, correcting those procedures is allowed. Changing it because you disagree, is not. Expect changes to be approved by governance.

I've already posted this over in the CWG queue, but to provide a little bit of additional context/clarification here, the CWG does not know at this point when or if the user in question will be reinstated. You can read more about our process here.

Given that, we would recommend that interested individuals follow the established procedure for taking over projects with unresponsive maintainers. We understand that some folks are frustrated that there doesn't currently appear to be a way for users of abandoned (or apparently abandoned) projects to draw attention to that fact and/or recruit new maintainers if they are not willing or able to take over the project themselves. While the CWG is happy to help facilitate a conversation about potential changes to existing policy to address this gap, we cannot make those changes ourselves, as our charter expressly forbids the group from making technical policy decisions.

In general, it's our feeling that any project with a large number of users should have multiple maintainers, as there are a variety of reasons that a maintainer might need to step away (burnout, job changes, etc.) that have nothing to do with a CWG action.

I've added the plan in comment #12 to the issue summary:

As for the second item (create issues in the respective project queues to raise awareness), I've already done this. Links to the issues created below. Two of the projects (so far) appear to have other active maintainers that monitor the issue queue and are prepared to fill the gap left by hass.

• Google Analytics #3095027: Is Google Analytics still being maintained?
• Link checker #3095030: Link checker appears to be unsupported
• Matomo Analytics #3095034: Matomo Analytics should be marked as unsupported
• reCAPTCHA #3095035: Is reCAPTCHA still being maintained?
• RobotsTxt #3095037: Is RobotsTxt still being maintained? OK
• Real Name #3095041: Is Real Name still being maintained? OK
• User registration notification #3095044: Mark User registration notification as unsupported
• PHP #3095047: Is PHP still being maintained?

@ciss First, I would like to thank you for the information you provided about figuring out who are the maintainers of a project. I used it to find out you are not listed as maintainer of this project.

Second, FWIW my initial doubt about your intentions has been taken away by looking into this issue further. Glad to hear I was wrong about that.

Third, you have been informed about the situation. The fact you still have unanswered questions doesn't justify keeping this issue open. Those questions are not in scope of this issue/project. You need to raise issues at the right places to possibly get answers. I won't change Status, but expect maintainers to do that, because that is the right thing to do!

You need to raise issues at the right places to possibly get answers.

This is the Project Ownership issue queue, and it is he right place to raise issues about project ownership, including issues related to projects that may be unsupported.

Do you know of a more appropriate place to raise such issues?

I won't change Status, but expect maintainers to do that, because that is the right thing to do!

I am a maintainer. Please see comment #9 for my view on that subject.

@Gisle Yes, you are listed as maintainer for this project. I was addressing @ciss, who isn't. Again, his questions are unrelated to this project.
This project is the right project to raise CERTAIN issues about unsupported projects, NOT ALL issues. You have made those things clear in the policy for abandoned projects.

Obviously, questions about blocked owners have to be addressed by CWG.

I am aware of your point of view, but also both @kiamlaluno and I disagree with you on this particular issue. As he is also maintainer here and unless he changes his mind, expect him or anybody else with proper authorization to close this again.

Now that you changed the scope of the issue things may work out differently. IMO the plan issue should have been created by a maintainer the moment they were informed by CWG. With tasks for each of the responsibilities. Consider allowing these issues to be created by anyone a bad idea.
Same thing for changing scope of issues.

Rather than debating where questions that already has been addressed here by the CWG (see comment #11 above) belong, I would like you to read the issue summary, which summarizes what the issue is about. Given the summary, do you still insist this issue is off-topic in the Project Ownership issue queue and should be closed?

As I've written elsewhere: I believe the maintainers here should assume good intent and work with the concerned community members that report a problem in this issue queue to work together to resolve the problem, rather than slapping a bogus "Fixed" status on the issue and pretend that the reported problem does not exist.

@gisle You beat me while I responded to @ciss. He opened the issue due to unanswered questions unrelated to this issue.

Agree with a plan or task issue opened by a maintainer of ownership project. Agree with a support request by anyone to deal with unresponsive owners as long as they are for a specific project. Disagree on anyone creating plans or tasks, that would be the prerogative of maintainers. Consider that in line with current policy, for all projects.

Agree about assuming good intent, pointing out mistakes and correct procedure are part of that. Sorry to hear how you feel about it. Wonder why you consider that acceptable in other situations, but not in this case.

Suggest to have a look at the active issues of D8CPT (https://www.drupal.org/project/issues/contrib_tracker?categories=All). Unresponsive projects!

@ciss Sorry to hear you don't want to play according to the rules. The rules you accepted when entering this community. For the record I did read everything and still stand by my statement your questions are inappropriate here, including your actions in this issue.

With the changed scope of the issue, I'll refrain from further participation here.

@gisle As webmaster, do you have the means to fetch a complete list of projects to which hass was assigned as maintainer?

AFAIK, I only have the same access as everybody else - the archived version of hass' profile page: https://web.archive.org/web/20170426235942/https://www.drupal.org/user/8...

By going through the list of projects listed there, it should be possible to identify those where hass is the main or the only maintainer and add those to the issue summary.

The project owner and only maintainer for Google Analytics is budda; for Real Name, the project owner is NancyDru; for PHP, the project owner is RobLoach.

@kiamlaluno
I guess hass has been removed from Google Analytics as a maintainer. He used to be a maintainer on that project. I think on the other two projects you mention, hass has been the most active one in the past few years. But thanks for looking it up. It sounds like these three projects are in no direct danger then.

The Google Analytics team has responded that the project is still maintained.

Link Checker and Matomo Analytics has got a new owner and are now maintained again.

RobLoach (owner of reCAPTCHA and PHP) has not responded to the issues requesting support status for these projects, but he just pushed a new release of reCAPTCHA. I..e he is still on Drupal.org and maintaining his projects. This means that we don't need to find replacement for hass for these two

The last one was User registration notification. It has now been marked as "Unsupported". Closing this.