Currently, NOT_LOAN is setup so that negative values will allow holds and positive values will not. DAMAGED does not have this functionality, to my knowledge. AllowHoldsOnDamagedItems gives you an ON/OFF setting for DAMAGED items. It would be great if we did away with AllowHoldsOnDamagedItems and instead DAMAGED would function the same as NOT_LOAN in terms of positive and negative values distinguishing whether or not the item can be put on hold. This way, a library can determine if a damaged item is a lost cause and change it to a damaged status that can't be held.
I believe it would be really hard to deal with this change for upgrades as we cannot tell how libraries have used lost values (items, several system preferences, longoverdue cron, reports, etc). But admittedly adding consistency would be nice.
(In reply to Katrin Fischer from comment #1) > I believe it would be really hard to deal with this change for upgrades as > we cannot tell how libraries have used lost values (items, several system > preferences, longoverdue cron, reports, etc). > But admittedly adding consistency would be nice. I agree it would probably be hard, but not impossible. I would imagine a similar situation was faced with NOT_LOAN, assuming it didn't start out with this option.