[Distutils] A process for removal of PyPi entries

[Donald Stufft]

On May 31, 2013, at 6:57 AM, Radomir Dopieralski <sheep at sheep.art.pl> wrote:

> Hello,
> 
> is there a defined process for removing useless entries from PyPi?
> 
> I was looking for a name for a new project, and as a part of that, I searched
> on the Python Package Index to see if the names I came up with are not taken
> already. I stumbled upon this:
> 
> https://pypi.python.org/pypi/fun/1.0.0
> 
> Please note that there is absolutely no information about this entry. There
> is no way to contact the author and ask him if he would be willing to give
> up that name, no website, not even a license or description. If you look into
> the uploaded source code, you will see that it's just a "hello world" program.
> 
> That's not a problem for me, I just picked a different name for my package.
> Even if I wanted to use that name, I could add a prefix or suffix to it, to make
> it unique. But then I looked through the list of the entires and checked the
> ones that had no description or their description was suspicious. Just with the
> letter A I got:
> 
> https://pypi.python.org/pypi/42/0
> https://pypi.python.org/pypi/Aaronyoungnester/1.4.0
> https://pypi.python.org/pypi/ABC/0.0.0
> https://pypi.python.org/pypi/abhi/2.0.0
> https://pypi.python.org/pypi/acme.sql/0.0.0
> https://pypi.python.org/pypi/affix/1.0
> https://pypi.python.org/pypi/agg2567/1.1.0
> https://pypi.python.org/pypi/agg2567/1.1.0
> https://pypi.python.org/pypi/airstream/0
> https://pypi.python.org/pypi/ajl_nester/1.1.0
> https://pypi.python.org/pypi/akali/1.3.0
> https://pypi.python.org/pypi/alexis/0.1
> https://pypi.python.org/pypi/amoi/.lol.
> https://pypi.python.org/pypi/aodag3/1.0.0
> https://pypi.python.org/pypi/arch/0.0.1
> https://pypi.python.org/pypi/arounded/0.0
> https://pypi.python.org/pypi/AthleteClass/1.0.0
> https://pypi.python.org/pypi/athletelist/1.1.0
> https://pypi.python.org/pypi/athletelist_jw/1.0.0
> https://pypi.python.org/pypi/athletelistlogan/1.3.0
> https://pypi.python.org/pypi/atool/1.0.0
> https://pypi.python.org/pypi/awesomeness/0.0.1
> https://pypi.python.org/pypi/aws-cli/0.0
> https://pypi.python.org/pypi/ayame/0.0
> 
> All of those entries share some properties:
> 
> * no author and no way to contact the author
> * no website, website offline or obviously not related (like google.com)
> * no description or meaningless description
> * no download url or uploaded code, or the code that is uploaded is just
>   a "hello world" or similar exercise
> * no license
> 
> I think that all those properties, taken together, in practice mean that the
> particular entry is completely useless both to the Python community and to its
> author -- possibly being just an abandoned test. I also think that there should
> be a defined process for requesting of removal of such entries -- so that an
> actually useful project can take their place.
> 
> I understand that some of those entries are placeholders for projects that are
> actively being worked upon, just not much is disclosed yet. In that case, they
> could at least have an author contact information, a link to the repository or
> an "development status: in planning" trove classifier. Those project would be
> left alone.
> 
> An additional check that could be done on the PyPi side is whether the same
> PuPi user has also some other entries that are perhaps more meaningful and
> contain contact information. They could be then contacted and asked about the
> status of their abandoned entries.
> 
> If such a process existed and was publicly announced in the PyPi documentation,
> then there would be less work with this kind of maintenance, and no animosity
> in case of a needed entry being removed -- people would know what to expect.
> 
> Thank you for all the good work on PyPi,
> 
> 
> --
> Radomir Dopieralski, http://sheep.art.pl
> _______________________________________________
> Distutils-SIG maillist  -  Distutils-SIG at python.org
> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/distutils-sig

There is no defined process. Getting one would be good. A PEP is likely warranted in order to define the process.

-----------------
Donald Stufft
PGP: 0x6E3CBCE93372DCFA // 7C6B 7C5D 5E2B 6356 A926 F04F 6E3C BCE9 3372 DCFA

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