While waddling through the Distributions forums, I was wondering about a number of subforums: Some are dead (like the PrathamOS one), some are "official" but there is (obviously) no representative left (like the Gentoo one). Are the subforums basically "created and left to rot" or does the LQ team actually keep an eye on them?

I'd hate to see old forums deleted if they have valid posts in them. The number of people that use something old because "it just runs" are legion. Taking away posts that might help them with issues should they arise would be bad IMHO.

In my own career I keep detailed notes of everything I do simply because often such things are done once then I have to refer to them maybe 6 months to several years later.

Of course I always urge management to move on to newer things but for some systems it just isn't going to happen as rapidly as technology changes so having old reference sources comes in handy. For the same reason we should urge people questioning older things that it is time to move on but should still try to help them. I still see people asking about RHEL5 which has been EOL for more than a year and RHEL4 (or earlier) that have been EOL even longer. I urge them to move on but also try to answer the question as asked.

It truly annoys me when vendors like HP, Oracle, or others delete old posts and/or downloadable packages just because they no longer offer paid support for a given release and think that everyone magically upgrades to the latest as soon as it is available.

I did not intend to propose removal of no longer supported software. I was just wondering if subforums can "expire" or lose their "official" status here.

We do archive distribution fora when that distribution becomes unmaintained. The URLs are still accessible and available via search, the forum itself just doesn't appear in the forum list.

--jeremy

3 members found this post helpful.

I think that is the right approach. I agree strongly with MensaWater. Many times it happens that someone has to maintain one or another unknown system. For any valid reason. It is a great help to find old, outdated and obsolete posts for an old, outdated and obsolete system.

jlinkels