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Take stale gems offline then delete them #2992

@mslinn

Description

@mslinn

Problem

rubygems.org has many stale gems that have not been updated in 10 or 20 years, and are not downloaded by humans.

Describe the solution you'd like

  1. Attach a warning to the description. Example:
    **WARNING** This stale gem has been flagged for deletion. It has not been updated since 2001-01-01, when Ruby 1.6 was current. Unless this gem is updated it will be taken offline on YYYY-mm-dd and deleted on YYYY-mm-dd.
  2. Notify authors by email; if email bounces back, add that to the description Example:
    Email sent to author(s) bounced back on YYYY-MM-dd
  3. On YYYY-MM-dd, take the old gem offline. This means the web entry would still be visible for 3 months, but requiring it would fail, and the description would read
    **ERROR** This stale gem has been taken offline. It has not been updated since 2001-01-01, when Ruby 1.6 was current. Unless this gem is updated it will be deleted on YYYY-mm-dd and there will be no trace of it on RubyGems.org after that
  4. On YYYY-mm-dd remove all reference to the stale gem on RubyGems.org.

Describe alternatives you've considered

I am unaware of anyone discussing this publicly.

Additional context

I have not specified the time intervals between dates. One possibility is that 3 months elapse between scheduled events. This should be discussed before implementing.

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