Exclude known deprecated packages from search results

andys8 commented 7 years ago

Issue

Some common libraries from evancz were moved to elm-lang package. Other's are now elm-community. Search engines like Google still refer to deprecated one's. It's hard for beginners to see the difference and a quick search to look up documentation often leads to the wrong result.

Example

Google elm html -> http://package.elm-lang.org/packages/evancz/elm-html/latest/ Google elm http-> http://package.elm-lang.org/packages/evancz/elm-http/3.0.1 (and there is no manual deprecation warning)

https://github.com/evancz?utf8=✓&tab=repositories&q=deprecated -> start-app, elm-effects, virtual-dom, elm-svg

I think there are more results of libraries being transferred to elm-community, but it's more complicated because the ownership and state is not perfectly clear.

Possible solutions

Solution 1: `robots.txt`

Add popular, but deprecated packages to the robots.txt file to exclude them from search results.

Solution 2: Visualization

Elm Package page list view clearly show's for non updated versions that they're deprecated. The detail view doesn't. This could be done to make it clear for users.

process-bot commented 7 years ago

Thanks for the issue! Make sure it satisfies this checklist. My human colleagues will appreciate it!

Here is what to expect next, and if anyone wants to comment, keep these things in mind.

allytamas commented 6 years ago

Same for some packages for which the author removed his Github account: http://package.elm-lang.org/packages/r31gN/elm-dropdown/1.0.2/Dropdown

davetapley commented 5 years ago

FYI #285 gets us most of Solution 2 🎉 cc @thomasin

c-mart commented 5 years ago

This has been made worse with more popular packages moving their namespace for Elm 0.19 (e.g. elm-decode-pipeline which I just tripped over). Having "latest" in the URL for the old packages (e.g. here and here) is especially misleading.

It would be really helpful if old packages are removed from search engine results, and if those pages had warnings to guide folks toward the newest package. :smiley:

2019-05-29 update: this came into #beginners on Elm Slack today. It demonstrates that fixing this would remove a substantial frustration for new users trying to learn Elm.

andys8 commented 4 years ago

Screenshot_20191116-124018

https://github.com/elm/package.elm-lang.org/commit/2a7e80fd909eeb1b90fd5376ad22c0fa6b5f2136

https://github.com/elm/package.elm-lang.org/commit/a356a2d485bc521cfaeeafc84b17aa6997ee416c

andys8 commented 4 years ago

Great improvements :)

It would be awesome if evancz packages could be added to the list. E.g. https://package.elm-lang.org/packages/evancz/elm-html/4.0.0/Html (second result for search "elm html")

rlefevre commented 4 years ago

@andys8 See: https://github.com/elm/package.elm-lang.org/commit/f9c3cc452e7890850ee4e554bda117d8af843cab

andys8 commented 4 years ago

Nice, so maybe it takes more time. But I think the issue can be closed :) Awesome!

elm / package.elm-lang.org