7,828 websites are using the SpamSpan filter and yet the only release available is a beta from 2010!

It's a lot of work to maintain a module, but there are quite a few websites that still find this one very useful.

How do we help support the maintainer's call for co-maintainers of this module?

There aren't all that many open bugs, but it's clear that there's a call for new maintainers.

The project page may be out of date, but looking at activity in contrib on d.o it occurred to me that we don't really have a good process for bringing on co-maintainers. Not that there isn't a process to make it happen, but it is all very mechanical.

I've proposed a few issues that might help bring in more motivated developers:

Ultimately though it depends on the community of folks using this code. I do think it would be beneficial to talk about giving the maintainer the support that he has asked for.

Comments

indigoxela’s picture

Hi mgifford,
it's not that there were no co-maintenance offers for spamspan:
https://drupal.org/comment/7518195#comment-7518195
There are also concerned users:
https://drupal.org/node/1808266

But unobtrusive inquiries like that are futile, if the original maintainer completely left drupal.org (has he?).
On the other hand, becoming a project owner and being fully responsible for a module is something, most people try to avoid.

It's not too hard to provide patches, but it needs someone who keeps an eye on general concepts and who commits and releases.
But I fear, that's an issue of Open Source projects in general and not specific for drupal.

mgifford’s picture

There is a process for dealing with unsupported (abandoned) projects.

We should wait 2 weeks until moving this item to the Webmasters Issue Queue.

Feel free to take this further.

I wouldn't say that this inquiry is useful. It pointed out that it really shouldn't be listed as Seeking co-maintainer(s) since the maintainer seems to be no longer involved in the community.

There are thousands of sites using this module. There are ways to add incentives to ensure that it is worth the while for a Drupal shop to adopt this orphaned project. We just have to be creative about it.

The Prairie Initiative had lots of good ideas about this. I've also been looking at how projects are maintained.

This is changeable.

gpk’s picture

masipila’s picture

Is there anyone else in addition to me who would be willing to pay a bounty if someone would take over the ownership of this module?

peterx’s picture

I have the module for a month to apply the changes/fixes needed for a site I am working on.

One of the changes will be to add some extra options. Another is to reduce the code load. Some of the fixes are relevant to my site and will go in. I may release beta 2, 3, etc for each change. I hope there will be plenty of people testing the changes.

Some of the other issues are not occurring at my site. Applying them will depend on feedback from people experiencing the problems.

peterx’s picture

Status: Active » Fixed

1.1 is out for D7. I finished work on the D7 site using Spamspan and will pass the D7 version back to the community. There are some changes to backport to D6 if anyone is working on D6.

mgifford’s picture

excellent, thanks!

roball’s picture

Only drawback is that 1.1. does not work and instead breaks all JavaScript on your entire sites ...

indigoxela’s picture

Status: Fixed » Needs work

Unfortunately I can confirm that version 1.1 is broken.

The problem occurs in line 18 in file spamspan.js.
$('span.t', this).replaceWith('.');

Actually a span with class "t" isn't always there.
It would only be there, if "Replace dots in email with text" in filter settings were set to on.
Without that filter setting javascript fails.

So what's missing is a check before replacing. A suggestion:

if ($('span.t', this).length) {  
  $('span.t', this).replaceWith('.');
}
roball’s picture

Title: Time for a 7.x-1.1 release & help for the maintainer » Release 7.x-1.2
Issue tags: -co-maintainership
jdanthinne’s picture

Suggestion #9 works for me.

peterx’s picture

7.x-1.2 contains the js change from https://www.drupal.org/node/2200775#comment-9379049. I am no longer working on a site using Spamspan so that is the last change from me.

roball’s picture

Status: Needs work » Fixed
Vali Hutchison’s picture

Yep the fix works for me - make sure you clear your caches after upgrading to the new version, that caught me out for a few minutes ;-)

Status: Fixed » Closed (fixed)

Automatically closed - issue fixed for 2 weeks with no activity.