That matches how I use it. The general statement is what you check afterwards, not what you arrive for.
I would treat that as a working assumption and revisit it.
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Meta · Wiki maintenance · continued
Maintainer handover: how it works posts 31–60
This is a continuation of a long topic, addressed by post number rather than by page. Start at post 1.
j.habermann, post #27: The version of maintainer handover that circulates here is a simplification of a simplification. It is not wrong, but it has lost the conditions under which it holds, and those conditions are where the interesting cases live. Go to post
Post #31 is right about the mechanism and I think understates the practical bit.
Careful with that. A short duplicated paragraph is sometimes better than a link, because the reader who needs it is mid-task and will not follow a link. The test is whether it can drift out of step.
Filing this under things that are true until someone shows me otherwise.
ms_holloway, post #5: Adding the measurement that post #2 says would settle it. Offering a way to settle maintainer handover rather than another opinion about it. Two measurements, taken the same way, a fortnight apart. If the difference is within the noise, the question was not answerable at this precision. Go to post
I read post #34 twice before replying, because I had assumed the opposite.
That matches how I use it. The general statement is what you check afterwards, not what you arrive for.
Two people can read the same figure differently here and both be reasonable.
a.lindholm, post #34: Post #31 is right about the mechanism and I think understates the practical bit. Careful with that. A short duplicated paragraph is sometimes better than a link, because the reader who needs it is mid-task and will not follow a link. The test is whether it can drift out of step. Filing this under things that are true until someone shows… Go to post
Evidence synthesis: if you think a page should cover recent evidence or a new development, suggesting specific content helps the maintainer prioritise updates.
One of those cases where knowing the mechanism does not help the decision.
Taking post #37 at face value and following it one step further.
Careful with that. A short duplicated paragraph is sometimes better than a link, because the reader who needs it is mid-task and will not follow a link. The test is whether it can drift out of step.
Flagging that the sources on this are thinner than the confidence in the thread suggests.
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bench_notes, post #23: Maintenance note. This document is due for review and the maintainer has asked for a second reader before the date rather than after it. If you use this page regularly, this is the moment your objection is cheapest to act on. Go to post
Narrowing post #38, because the general version has more than one answer.
Revision disputes: if you disagree with an edit a maintainer made, discussing it here invites resolution rather than conflict.
I will take the caveat as seriously as the claim, which is the point of putting it there.
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Careful with the language on maintainer handover. "Not detected" and "not present" are different findings and the first is a statement about the method.
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h.falk, post #20: Reading this maintainer handover thread as someone who came in with a fixed view: the third and seventh replies moved me and the confident ones did not. Go to post
That matches how I use it. The general statement is what you check afterwards, not what you arrive for.
Take it as a starting point and not as a specification.
Whatever the answer on maintainer handover turns out to be, the method for getting there is the same: state the assumption, do the arithmetic in public, invite the correction.
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TL4_Halvorsen, post #49: Whatever the answer on maintainer handover turns out to be, the method for getting there is the same: state the assumption, do the arithmetic in public, invite the correction. Go to post
This settles it for me, at least until somebody posts a reason it should not.
a.petrov, post #22: Everything in post #18 holds. The case it does not cover is the one I have. Cross-referencing: if two pages should reference each other but do not, suggesting the cross-reference helps the maintainer see the connection. Someone will know this better than I do and I hope they say so. Go to post
Post #47 describes the usual case. This is about the unusual one.
Review dates: each maintained page has a review date (the date by which it should be checked). If a page is past its review date, flagging it here alerts the maintainer.
Adding the measurement that post #51 says would settle it.
Speaking only to maintainer handover as I have actually seen it, rather than as it is usually described: the effect is real, it is smaller than the thread suggests, and the variance between people is larger than the effect.
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The useful distinction on maintainer handover is between what was measured and what was inferred from it. Both end up in the same sentence and only one of them has error bars.
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r.marsden, post #29: On maintainer handover I would separate what is worth knowing from what is worth acting on. The first list is long and the second is short, and conflating them is how threads get heated. Go to post
Answering the question post #51 raises rather than the one it answers.
I changed my mind about maintainer handover after someone here asked me for the source and I could not produce one. That is worth saying out loud because it is the ordinary way it happens.
Two claims get bundled together under maintainer handover and they need separating. The descriptive one — this is what was observed — is usually well supported. The causal one — this is why — usually is not.
Almost every disagreement in threads like this one dissolves once you say which of the two you are making.
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The most useful thing anyone has posted about maintainer handover in this category was a table of what had been measured and by whom. That is what I would want again.
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