Quoting Paul Moore <p.f.moore@gmail.com>:

I'm -1 on anything that doesn't involve at least a minimal level of human
involvement (possibly excepting an initial clean up exercise for projects
with no author email)

I support this position. This is actually how PyPI has operated over the last
decade. People have always taken over projects, either the project entirely,
or just the name. It always involved contacting the original owner of the name.

In this thread, Lukas wrote

Fortunately we were able to work it out with Richard
but we had to contact him directly and waste his cycles on this.

I don't consider his cycles wasted at all. It's an important interaction.

I'm fine with formalizing the process, and I'm also fine with adding tool
support. However, I agree that a PEP should be written and agreed about this.

Personally, I'd favor this procedure:
- nothing happens unless some user explicitly requests it
- on request, the owner is contacted, and given some time to respond
- if they do respond, and are unwilling to yield the name, nothing
  happens
- if they have confirmed that they want to keep the name, they won't
  be asked again for at least one year.

Regards,
Martin

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