Hi, I bought a new computer in Jan 2008 an Acer Aspire T180. So I entered details in the HCL.

Just had an email saying

That's it. The entry was unique, no other HCL entries refer to this product. I don't have a reason for it being deleted other than that it may either be "partially incorrect/incomplete" or "not conform to ... usage guidelines".

I can't now review the entry nor do I have info to fix it if I could. If someone is considering buying this product they now have no info to go on - if it was deficient before they could still at least know a little and know to contact me.

Suggestion:
1) Don't delete the entry just make a deletion warning, then delete in say 1 week if no effort is made to change it.
2) Give proper info about the perceived deficiencies.
3) Consider keeping deficient entries but marking them as "poor" so that users looking up in HCL have at least some info to go on but are aware that LQ thinks the entry is sub-standard.

For me I now know not to enter data at this HCL as they may just be deleted without warning. I guess I'll post to my blog in future but the info is less visible there than here and that's bad for "the community".

Cheers.

This is an automated email that's sent when entries are deleted. I think I deleted your entry, but I don't remember exactly why. The possible reasons are lack of lspci output, no specifications given, or both. If you decide to resubmit it, please include as much info as possible. Also note that the description field is for "factual" information about products, such as specifications. So, any comments detailing your experience should be put in a review. Bruce (the other maintainer) was working on a new set of guidelines for the HCL, but I don't think he's had time to put them up yet (and I also don't know if he's finished writing them).

Is the deleted material archived?

Is it recoverable?

Lesson: Always keep a local copy.

I guess I didn't know that submissions were deleted on the whim of admins; also I tend to Klipper (KDE clipboard) my postings in case of network problems but beyond taht I imagine LQ to look after submissions.

If I'd been asked to submit lspci or other info I would. Like I said, I'll check and see if there's an Ubu' HCL to use? Any suggestions?

We don't delete entries on a "whim", but the HCL maintainers do try to keep submissions of a certain minimum quality. That being said, we do realize that the current HCL submission process is not ideal and we do have plans to completely rewrite it to make it both more useful and easier to use.

--jeremy

let me know if you want feedback / beta testing

There is a box in the submission form for lspci output.

Thing is I don't even know if I added lspci data, I'm guessing I did if there's a box for it. There wasn't a precise reason given for deletion.

I'll have a go with http://www.ubuntuhcl.org as I'm using Ubu' now.

Cheers.

What would be great is if all these HCL places could agree a common interchange format (eg in XML) that would allow db combination, then share the db's. Now that would be the FOSS thing to do ...