On Fri, Jan 31, 2025 at 08:09:41AM -0800, Junio C Hamano wrote: > Patrick Steinhardt <ps@xxxxxx> writes: > > >> How about making the rule a lot simpler? > >> > >> The expiration date kicks in _mechanically_, i.e. stale entries > >> are unconditionally dropped at the date, based solely on the > >> comparison between the timestamp and the wall clock. > >> > >> People are free to advocate for its continued existence, and when > >> such an effort achieves a concensus among then-active members of the > >> community by the stated expiration date, a patch to update the > >> entry's expiration date may be accepted, thereby prolonging its > >> shelf life. Unless such a thing happens before the expiration date > >> comes, we will mechanically drop the entry. > >> > >> Of course people _can_ resurrect an expired entry later as a new > >> one when it seems appropriate. > >> > >> That makes the decision to expire things from the list easy to make. > > > > Works for me. Ideally, as any other topic, the retirement should be sent > > to the mailing list as a normal patch series so that people may chime in > > on the retirement and state reasons why they don't think that is a good > > idea. > > That is the complete opposite of the ideal from my point of view. > The whole point of making the list items expire by default is that > the onus is on those who want to have them on list to justify why > these items must remain on the list. A patch to remove an item that > hasn't had anybody advocating for its retention shouldn't have to be > chimed in to be supported. There shouldn't even have to be a patch; > that is what I mean by "stale entries expire mechanically by default". I completely agree, we were simply talking past one another :) Retiring an item from the list doesn't need any additional reason other than the expiry date. But people can try to advocate for _keeping_ the item and extend the expiry date in case they have a good reason. Patrick
