How to deprecate a service, and when to do so

Phoenix Deprecated Services
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Introduction and Disclaimer

NOTE: At the time of writing this topic, there is no way to deprecate a service by deleting it (which would be a much more useful solution). Therefore, this guide will be valid until it is explicitly marked as outdated.

Hopefully this will no longer be a needed in the future.

- Dr_Jeff, Staff Member

If you’re a Curator or Staff member, the following are some guidelines I strongly recommend when deprecating a Service consistently.

When Is A Service Deprecated?

A service is deprecated when:

  • Must be merged with another existing service
  • Is a duplicate of an already existing service
  • The URL is not found (404 or domain for sale page)
  • It has gone bankrupt and/or been discontinued
  • The website no longer appears anywhere
  • The service provider has communicated with us to tell us that the service will no longer be valid

Bear in mind that one or more of the reasons above can occur. The more apply to the target service, the more definitive is the deprecation.

Guidelines

Unless a step is explicitly directed to a specific role, the following instructions apply both for Curators and Staff members. I highly suggest you follow them:

  1. Rename the service to add [DEPRECATED] as a prefix. For example, Service “Foo” must be renamed to “[DEPRECATED] Foo”.

    • The “[DEPRECATED]” tag must be in all caps - This is to catch the attention of other users.
    • Avoid different tags, such as “[DISCONTINUED]” or “[DEPRECATED, MERGED(?)]” - You can add extra information in the service’s comments or in this category.
    • Don’t add the tag at the end (e.g. “Foo [DEPRECATED]”) - Please respect the recommended format for consistency!
    • Tags such as “(DEPRECATED)”, or “Foo (is discontinued)” are not valid - Again, please respect the consistency!

  2. Delete all Service domains, except the “main” one, then rename it from foo.com to foo.1.

  3. Remove the Wikipedia link, if there even is one.

  4. If the “Comprehensively Reviewed” checkbox is checked (), uncheck it.

  5. Wait for at least 10 seconds before saving changes to the service, then save. Phoenix has a bug where saving would undo your changes if saving before the webpage has fully loaded (@erik, @evan).

  6. If there are any approved or “changes requested” points for said service, decline them all. Ignore pending/declined ones.

  7. (CURATORS) Notify Staff about the deprecated service so that they can do the next step.

  8. (STAFF) Ensure all approved and “changes requested” points are declined, then open all the documents for said service and, if there are points for that document, press the “Nuke” button. Repeat until all documents are “nuked”.

If you encounter an issue at any step (and you followed through as instructed) please notify Staff about it, or try again.

Final Remarks

I hope this guide was helpful for you. If you have any feedback, questions or comments for this, please reply below.