Skip to content

Add Sunsetting content guide#43588

Open
pepelsbey wants to merge 7 commits intomdn:mainfrom
pepelsbey:sunsetting-content
Open

Add Sunsetting content guide#43588
pepelsbey wants to merge 7 commits intomdn:mainfrom
pepelsbey:sunsetting-content

Conversation

@pepelsbey
Copy link
Copy Markdown
Member

Description

Adds the “How to sunset a section of content” guide.

Motivation

To describe the process for retiring entire sections of MDN Web Docs content.

@pepelsbey pepelsbey requested review from Rumyra and dipikabh March 26, 2026 17:01
@pepelsbey pepelsbey requested a review from a team as a code owner March 26, 2026 17:01
@github-actions github-actions bot added the Content:Meta Content in the meta docs label Mar 26, 2026
@github-actions github-actions bot added the size/m [PR only] 51-500 LoC changed label Mar 26, 2026
@pepelsbey pepelsbey removed the request for review from a team March 26, 2026 17:02
@github-actions
Copy link
Copy Markdown
Contributor

github-actions bot commented Mar 26, 2026

Copy link
Copy Markdown
Contributor

@chrisdavidmills chrisdavidmills left a comment

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

The reason will be displayed to describe this comment to others. Learn more.

@pepelsbey a few comments for you, as I've got a keen interest in this content ;-)

Looking pretty good already; nothing too serious.


After the agreed sunsetting period has passed, the content can be removed from MDN Web Docs:

1. **Archive the content.** Copy the section to the [MDN Museum repository](https://github.com/mdn/museum) for archival purposes. Keep the content in a directory that matches the original URL path. For example, content at `https://un5j2j18xhuv2emkwgjjkgb49yug.julianrbryant.com/en-US/docs/Games` would go in a `/docs/games/` directory in the museum repository. This preserves MDN's content history while keeping deprecated material off the active site.
Copy link
Copy Markdown
Contributor

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

The reason will be displayed to describe this comment to others. Learn more.

Is this all the user needs to do? Are landing pages, menus, etc. handled automatically?

@wbamberg
Copy link
Copy Markdown
Collaborator

I think it might be worth keeping "tombstones" for deleted content sections. I remember Josh once saying that just deleting content and redirecting somewhere like the home page is kind of gaslighting readers, and whenever content is removed we see confused readers showing up wondering where it has gone.

So if there's already a GitHub discussion to record the decision, and you're already archiving the deleted content, then you could have a page that lists these decisions, just saying what was removed, quickly why, and linking to the discussion.

Then the redirect could go to that page, and a reader landing on the deleted page would get context about what's going on and how to access the old content, if they still want to.

Sign up for free to join this conversation on GitHub. Already have an account? Sign in to comment

Labels

Content:Meta Content in the meta docs size/m [PR only] 51-500 LoC changed

Projects

None yet

Development

Successfully merging this pull request may close these issues.

4 participants