Topic on Talk:Reading/Web/PDF Functionality/Flow

Based on a previous discussion Johan noted:

> > must admit I'm not quite certain I even understand the main point of this message, but the sad truth is that not knowing when something will be fully solved one year later is not very uncommon in software development, because you never know exactly how to solve something in beforehand.

That might be true. But it is better to admit failure than leave a message like that indefinitely. Three or six months might be reasonable, but years is not. Aside from the fact that is a bad software development approach to create a link saying "create a book" only to tell the user that they can't create it anyway in this case there are two such links.

That's like creating a sign leading people to a "working toilet" only to have another sign on its door indicating that the toilet is no longer functional. In such a case a person might have a desperate need to relieve themselves, but might find another place to do so. In this case it just makes the site look unprofessional by needlessly wasting people's time.

My suggestion is to simply remove the link from the sidebar, disable the special page, and restore it if the book feature ever returns.

One benefit of retaining the link and message: People with an interest in making these books learn that this process is underway and can provide input. Whether that benefit still outweighs the negatives you point out is another question, of course.

The books-to-PDF function is also used by a group of users who have occasionally used it for years. Removing the link would confuse them, and have them spend a large amount of time trying to find it or figure out what's happened, which could waste far more of their time.

(This is unprofessional, by the way, in the sense that it's largely done in people's spare time, unpaid. The Wikimedia wikis are, for most part, a volunteer effort. Including some of the software development.)