[R-pkg-devel] puzzling removal of 'dotwhisker' from CRAN

Henrik Bengtsson henr|k@bengt@@on @end|ng |rom gm@||@com
Thu Apr 18 18:51:06 CEST 2024


On Thu, Apr 18, 2024 at 6:41 AM Uwe Ligges
<ligges using statistik.tu-dortmund.de> wrote:
>
> On 18.04.2024 15:35, Ben Bolker wrote:
> >     Yes, but ffbase was archived a long time ago (2022-04-04) and CRAN
> > has apparently just caught up to checking.  What's a little frustrating
> > (to me) is that the dependence of prediction on ffbase is *very* soft
> > ("enhances") ...
>
> No, but CRAN  has still not received an update and asked for this each
> month this year, so in Jan, Feb, and March without a response, so we
> assume prediction is unmaintained. Also, this was escalated to reverse
> depends.

Uwe, has the CRAN Team ever considered making these request-for-update
email messages from CRAN public in real-time? For instance, there
could be a public "read-only" mailing list that anyone can subscribe
to, but not send/reply to. I see several advantages with such an
approach, e.g.

* maintainers of reverse dependencies would be aware of potential
problems much sooner,
* so would end-users who rely on the package (who often only notice
when a package is archived),
* the community could early on offer their help to the package maintainer, and
* the community could help locate and notify maintainers whose email
addresses are no longer working.

I'd imagine this would help lower the workload on the CRAN Team, so a
win-win for everyone. I, for sure, would find that useful.

Thanks,

Henrik

>> Best,
> Uwe Ligges
>
>
> >
> > On 2024-04-18 9:28 a.m., Thierry Onkelinx wrote:
> >> The cascade is even longer. prediction got archived because ffbase was
> >> no longer available. https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/ffbase/
> >> <https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/ffbase/>
> >>
> >> ir. Thierry Onkelinx
> >> Statisticus / Statistician
> >>
> >> Vlaamse Overheid / Government of Flanders
> >> INSTITUUT VOOR NATUUR- EN BOSONDERZOEK / RESEARCH INSTITUTE FOR NATURE
> >> AND FOREST
> >> Team Biometrie & Kwaliteitszorg / Team Biometrics & Quality Assurance
> >> thierry.onkelinx using inbo.be <mailto:thierry.onkelinx using inbo.be>
> >> Havenlaan 88 bus 73, 1000 Brussel
> >> *Postadres:* Koning Albert II-laan 15 bus 186, 1210 Brussel
> >> /Poststukken die naar dit adres worden gestuurd, worden ingescand en
> >> digitaal aan de geadresseerde bezorgd. Zo kan de Vlaamse overheid haar
> >> dossiers volledig digitaal behandelen. Poststukken met de vermelding
> >> ‘vertrouwelijk’ worden niet ingescand, maar ongeopend aan de
> >> geadresseerde bezorgd./
> >> www.inbo.be <http://www.inbo.be>
> >>
> >> ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
> >> To call in the statistician after the experiment is done may be no
> >> more than asking him to perform a post-mortem examination: he may be
> >> able to say what the experiment died of. ~ Sir Ronald Aylmer Fisher
> >> The plural of anecdote is not data. ~ Roger Brinner
> >> The combination of some data and an aching desire for an answer does
> >> not ensure that a reasonable answer can be extracted from a given body
> >> of data. ~ John Tukey
> >> ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
> >>
> >> <https://www.inbo.be>
> >>
> >>
> >> Op do 18 apr 2024 om 15:25 schreef Ben Bolker <bbolker using gmail.com
> >> <mailto:bbolker using gmail.com>>:
> >>
> >>         Thank you! (I know about package_dependencies() but ran into
> >>     precisely the same problem and didn't want to re-implement it ...)
> >>
> >>     On 2024-04-18 9:11 a.m., Josiah Parry wrote:
> >>      > Well, after trying to install the package, I believe the issue is
> >>      > because margins has been archived.
> >>      >
> >>      > https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/margins/index.html
> >>     <https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/margins/index.html>
> >>      > <https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/margins/index.html
> >>     <https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/margins/index.html>>
> >>      >
> >>      > You can check recursive dependencies using
> >>      > `tools::package_dependencies("pkg", recursive = TRUE)` which
> >>     would help
> >>      > you in this case. I couldn't run it since the package is not
> >>     available
> >>      > on CRAN, however.
> >>      >
> >>      >
> >>      > On Thu, Apr 18, 2024 at 9:05 AM Ben Bolker <bbolker using gmail.com
> >>     <mailto:bbolker using gmail.com>
> >>      > <mailto:bbolker using gmail.com <mailto:bbolker using gmail.com>>> wrote:
> >>      >
> >>      >         The 'dotwhisker' package was archived on CRAN: from
> >>      > https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/dotwhisker/index.html
> >>     <https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/dotwhisker/index.html>
> >>      >
> >>  <https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/dotwhisker/index.html
> >>     <https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/dotwhisker/index.html>>
> >>      >
> >>      >           Package ‘dotwhisker’ was removed from the CRAN
> >> repository
> >>      >           ...
> >>      >
> >>      >           Archived on 2024-04-12 as requires archived package
> >>     'prediction'.
> >>      >
> >>      >          However, I can't for the life of me see where this
> >>     dependence
> >>      >     could
> >>      >     come from. Neither the DESCRIPTION file of the last-archived
> >>     version on
> >>      >     CRAN
> >>      >
> >>  <https://cran.r-project.org/src/contrib/Archive/dotwhisker/dotwhisker_0.8.1.tar.gz <https://cran.r-project.org/src/contrib/Archive/dotwhisker/dotwhisker_0.8.1.tar.gz> <https://cran.r-project.org/src/contrib/Archive/dotwhisker/dotwhisker_0.8.1.tar.gz <https://cran.r-project.org/src/contrib/Archive/dotwhisker/dotwhisker_0.8.1.tar.gz>>>,
> >>      >     nor the version on github
> >>     <https://github.com/fsolt/dotwhisker
> >>     <https://github.com/fsolt/dotwhisker>
> >>      >     <https://github.com/fsolt/dotwhisker
> >>     <https://github.com/fsolt/dotwhisker>>>, seem to
> >>      >     show any signs of importing prediction ... ?? I suppose
> >> there's a
> >>      >     possibility of a recursive dependence, but in that case why
> >>     wouldn't
> >>      >     the
> >>      >     direct dependence be reported?
> >>      >
> >>      >     Depends: R (>= 3.2.0), ggplot2 (>= 2.2.1),
> >>      >     Imports: grid, gtable, gridExtra, stats, parameters,
> >> performance,
> >>      >               patchwork, margins, dplyr, stringr, ggstance,
> >>     rlang, purrr
> >>      >     Suggests: ordinal, tibble, knitr, rmarkdown, broom
> >>      >
> >>      >         What am I missing?
> >>      >
> >>      >         (I'm concerned because I have packages that Suggest:
> >>     dotwhisker,
> >>      >     and
> >>      >     the absence of the package from repos is breaking GitHub
> >> Actions
> >>      >     checks ...)
> >>      >
> >>      >
> >>      >         (This is cross-posted from an issue on the dotwhisker GH
> >>      >     repository:
> >>      > https://github.com/fsolt/dotwhisker/issues/115
> >>     <https://github.com/fsolt/dotwhisker/issues/115>
> >>      >     <https://github.com/fsolt/dotwhisker/issues/115
> >>     <https://github.com/fsolt/dotwhisker/issues/115>>)
> >>      >
> >>      >     ______________________________________________
> >>      > R-package-devel using r-project.org
> >>     <mailto:R-package-devel using r-project.org>
> >>     <mailto:R-package-devel using r-project.org
> >>     <mailto:R-package-devel using r-project.org>>
> >>      >     mailing list
> >>      > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-package-devel
> >>     <https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-package-devel>
> >>      >     <https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-package-devel
> >>     <https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-package-devel>>
> >>      >
> >>
> >>     --     Dr. Benjamin Bolker
> >>     Professor, Mathematics & Statistics and Biology, McMaster University
> >>     Director, School of Computational Science and Engineering
> >>     (Acting) Graduate chair, Mathematics & Statistics
> >>       > E-mail is sent at my convenience; I don't expect replies
> >> outside of
> >>     working hours.
> >>
> >>     ______________________________________________
> >>     R-package-devel using r-project.org <mailto:R-package-devel using r-project.org>
> >>     mailing list
> >>     https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-package-devel
> >>     <https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-package-devel>
> >>
> >
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