Collection repossession

[iconogassed]

I propose that we treat public collections with MIA moderators the same as public collections with no moderators, and allow them to be adopted by another user.

After a certain amount of time, say, one year, with both no ratings AND no collections activity, a user's public collections would be eligible for adoption. If the user comes back and wishes to take over the collection again, they would of course be permitted to. To help prevent any disagreements, one provision of "adopting" such a collection could be agreeing that any changes made might someday be reverted, though I imagine such an occurrence is unlikely.

As an example of why I would dare suggest such a thing, take Female Directors, started by PeaceAnarchy, whose last visible activity was more than three years ago.

The value of this collection in particular obviously outweighs any one moderator's "right" to it. As djross has pointed out, it is truly an extraordinary piece of metadata with no equal either on the internet or off it. Unfortunately, PeaceAnarchy added a provision: "Do not add anthology films unless women make up at least half of the directors."

This, it should be obvious, is indefensible. Among many other reasons, it makes zero sense why the inclusion of an anthology with a self-contained film by, say, Chantal Akerman, is contingent on whether there is gender parity with the other directors. I am confident PeaceAnarchy would be persuaded away from this position if he were still around. But then, he probably would have deleted the films that violated his provision.

True, it might seem a rude greeting for someone returning to the site, unaware of this rule and finding one of their collections has been repo'd, but again, they could have it back, and I assure you that the kind of wonk who would actually take on such a project would do so responsibly and with due deference. And let's be honest: most of those folks ain't comin' back.

[mpowell]

Thanks for that suggestion! We agree that public collections connected with inactive users could be considered "orphaned", and will think about the best way to implement that!