manuel project name?

[jimfulton]

Details

• Project URL: https://github.com/benji-york/manuel
• Build URL (if applicable):
• Read the Docs username (if applicable): j1m

Expected Result

I want to create a RTD project for manuel, accessible at manuel.readthedocs.io.

Actual Result

The manuel project name is taken, even though http://manuel.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ 404s.

Can you free up that project name please? :)

[jimfulton]

I should have noted that I'm helping Benji get his docs set up on RTD. If he is already an owner, then he can add me. (I just asked him if he was.)

[benji-york]

I'm not an owner of that project. This will be my first project on RTD.

[agjohnson]

Project page is at: http://readthedocs.org/projects/manuel/

You should get in touch with the owner, we don't have a policy to release projects namespaces.

[jimfulton]

I tried to contact the project owner. meuan1990 isn't a lot to go on, however, the project uses a private repository owned by a bitbucket organization, ogconsultoria, that has no public repositories, but has 3 members, one of which, Euan Batun Manuel, is likely the owner of the RTD project. There is no contact information. I messaged someone with a similar name on Facebook, but got no reply. OGConsultoria has a Facebook Page. I tried messaging them and got no reply. They seem to have a webpage, http://www.consultoriaog.com/, that is mostly lorem ipsum.

I thought the mission of RTD was to support open source. This project references a private repository.

There have been 2 build attempts in total, both of which have failed. These were on the same day 6 months ago. This was almost certainly an abandoned experiment.

Please consider freeing up this project. If there's no policy to release projects namespaces, there should be.

[humitos]

Please consider freeing up this project. If there's no policy to release projects namespaces, there should be.

I think at the moment the policy is not written but I've saw a couple of answer like the anthony's one: "Contact the owner" or when people want to delete a project "Prove that you owns it in some way" and similar ones.

How this policy should be for you? Would you like to make a draft/proposal?

Besides, in this particular case, I would like to add another issue: "I also want that namespace". What would you do? Who will you give the project name? Why? Would you just release the name and the first one to create the project will take it? Will you give more priorities to you because you requested it first?

[jimfulton]

What is the point of RTD? (And why do I support it and help fund it through voluntary contributions?)

For the most part, first come-first serve works just fine. When it doesn't, humans can intervene. This works for other similar projects, such as PyPI and even github and bitbucket.

As I originally said, there's a Python project, https://github.com/benji-york/manuel, that I'd like to use this RTD project for. Ironically, the manuel project has the same mission as RTD, to provide high-quality documentation for software projects. In Manuel's case it does this by providing a tool for testing examples in documentation.

My proposal is to use human judgement when considering requests for names. It should be a no-brainer to free up a project that has never built, references a private repository, and when attempts have been made to contact the owner.

BTW, if contacting the owner is part of the policy, then RTD should provide a way to do that.

No one expects the Spanish Inquisition.

[humitos]

I agree with you.

I would say that we need to start writing down these ideas to end up with a policy on this, but it should be written down to avoid problems similar like this one and make clear what it's the position of RTD.

As I said, I saw similar answers in other tickets and I think this is because "there is no a clear policy" and from my point of view is not good. Since you are being affected by this problem and you have clear thoughts on how this should/could work, I asked you if you wanted to start drafting a proposal. I think this could be a very good starting point.

[jimfulton]

Alright then, I'll draft a policy and make a PR. Where should it go? In the RTD docs somewhere?

[jimfulton]

Or should I post a draft here?

[humitos]

I prefer a PR, so it's easy to review and suggest changes.

I think it should go in the RTD documentation. There is something similar at http://docs.readthedocs.io/en/latest/dmca/index.html

Maybe it could be a new page at the bottom of the section "About Read the Docs". Not sure anyway. Let's start there and see what the rest of the team says, it will be easy to move it later, what's more important it's the content I'd say.

Thanks!

[jimfulton]

#3314

[agjohnson]

To clarify: we have a policy, which is to generally not release namespaces. We don't determine who should be granted a particular namespace, and we serve multiple communities, so namespace collision is to be expected. This should almost always be a community interaction, but we can help facilitate contact if you can't reach the owner. If we can't make contact on your behalf, then we will release the namespace. Otherwise, it's not fair for us to remove a user's project, regardless of build state or repository type.

@jimfulton I think your PR makes sense, but I'll have some additions

As for your original issue, if you are having trouble reaching the user, then we can try facilitating contact. I'll reopen here.

[jimfulton]

On Sat, Nov 25, 2017 at 11:49 PM, Anthony ***@***.***> wrote: To clarify: we have a policy, which is to generally not release namespaces. We don't determine who should be granted a particular namespace, and we serve multiple communities, so namespace collision is to be expected.

Perhaps, as with github, there should be a 2-level namespace. You have this now somewhat with subprojects. Perhaps this is enough, except perhaps for an important case... Recently (a few months ago iirc) the people who manage pypi infrastructure decided to deprecate packages.python.org/pythonhosted.org, in favor of RTD. I supported this, however, it created a bit of a problem. PyPI packages automatically maintained their pypi name in pythonhosted.org, but many project will lose their names in the migration to RTD. The current manuel docs are at https://pythonhosted.org/manuel/ and can't be updated. :( It would be nice, IMO, if there was some way to create a namespace for documentation for pypi packages so that pypi and documentation project names were the same. This mostly works now unless there's a conflict.

[jimfulton]

On Sat, Nov 25, 2017 at 11:49 PM, Anthony <notifications@github.com> wrote: ...

As for your original issue, if you are having trouble reaching the user,

As stated, I am. Further, contacting project owners requires too much detective work, IMO, given that there's no contact mechanism in RTD. Had the RTD project been configured to use a public repository, I could have at least created an issue there. It seems to me that creating a RTD project from a private repo should be disallowed, as builds are guaranteed to fail. And, open source. Instead I had to look at the bitbucket organization and its members. Of course, there was no contact information there either, so I ended up having to google and do social-network searches.

then we can try facilitating contact.

Please.

I'll reopen here.

Thanks.

[ericholscher]

@jimfulton I'd like to ask you to please try being nicer in our GitHub comments. This is a community project, and the way you're speaking is not being friendly to our contributors.

I understand that you may be frustrated, but perhaps you can just use the python-manuel namespace for your Python project? As we've mentioned, RTD is not a Python specific area, so perhaps it would make more sense to include the namespace in your RTD package name.

You're also welcome to map your RTD namespace to a custom domain, so that you can fully control the namespace that you want to use for your project. I might also suggest this if you have strong feelings about the specific branding that your project will be using going forward.

[benji-york]

I (the project in question's owner) am fine with using a qualified name (e.g., python-manuel) if I must, but I would like to point out that this (small) problem is an opportunity to refine the RTD policies in an important way; in particular by reviewing #3314.

[agjohnson]

Thanks again for formalizing our policy around this 👍

I have initiated the process for this namespace, I'll make any updated here. See you all in 6 weeks otherwise.

[benji-york]

Thanks!

[jimfulton]

Hi, any update on this?

[agjohnson]

@jimfulton I never heard back on the project, so I think it's safe to free up the namespace. I'll go ahead and make the change.

[agjohnson]

@jimfulton go ahead and try now, the project has been renamed

[jimfulton]

Thanks!

…

On Fri, Mar 9, 2018 at 6:25 PM, Anthony ***@***.***> wrote: @jimfulton <https://github.com/jimfulton> go ahead and try now, the project has been renamed — You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#3287 (comment)>, or mute the thread <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAvKd3gxawFapZWM5gVSh5tE0P6jRdi-ks5tcyuYgaJpZM4QkiU4> .

-- Jim Fulton http://jimfulton.info

[benji-york]

🕺