= Deprecating plugins

Plugins may be deprecated if they are superceded by another plugin that is better maintained or provides additional functionality. Plugins may also be deprecated if the functionality is directly integrated to the Trac core, or the Trac core adds equivalent functionality. A list of deprecated plugins can be found [tagged:deprecated here].

Anyone is welcome to maintain a deprecated plugin, and the deprecation of a plugin is not meant to be an absolute ruling on the fate of a plugin in any official sense. Plugin deprecation is usually done for the following reasons:
 * Two or more plugins have equivalent functionality and the maintainers agree to join efforts on a single plugin going forward.
 * The maintainer chooses to deprecate the plugin when there are better choices in the HackIndex.
 * The community managers make their best judgement about a plugin in the case that the maintainer is no longer reachable, in order to guide users towards the most useful solutions available on the site.

To deprecate a plugin, add the following notice to the top of the page just below the title:
{{{
{{{#!box warn
**Notice:** This plugin is deprecated. <Message here about why the plugin is deprecated and/or which plugin supercedes its behavior>.
}}}
}}}

This will then be displayed as:
{{{#!box warn
**Notice:** This plugin is deprecated. <Message here about why the plugin is deprecated and/or which plugin supercedes its behavior>.
}}}

The deprecated tag should also be added to the wiki page that describes the plugin.