Proposal for a GIMP newsgroup (7th draft)

Back in June/July 1996, there was some discussion on the GIMP mailing list (before it was split into several lists) about creating a GIMP newsgroup. I said that I could provide some help for the creation of that newsgroup, and I posted a draft RFD (Request For Discussion) a few weeks later.

That was two years ago... At that time, I suggested that we wait until the next official version of the GIMP is released before posting the RFD in news.announce.newgroups, because the GIMP-related traffic on Usenet was rather low. In February 1997, a search on DejaNews showed more than 1000 articles mentioning the GIMP in the comp.* hierarchy alone, so the traffic was getting higher. At the beginning of this year, a similar search showed more than 3000 articles posted between January and March 1998 in comp.*. Now that 1.0 has been released, the number of articles mentioning the GIMP is always increasing and it seems to be the right time to propose the creation of the newsgroup officially.

Included below is an HTMLized version of a new draft RFD. Comments and suggestions are welcome. Please post them to the gimp-user mailing list, or send them directly to me (Raphaël Quinet). If you are not familiar with the RFD/CFV process for creating Usenet newsgroups, I recommend that you read the documents available from www.uvv.org or that you read the articles "How to Create a New Usenet Newsgroup" and "How to Format and Submit a New Group Proposal" (posted periodically in news.announce.newgroups) before reading this draft.

1998-07-30 -- Changes since the sixth draft:

• Small addition to the charter: request for tolerance regarding other operating systems and environments (for example, Windows or KDE users should be welcome in this group).
• Hopefully this is really the last draft... I will post it soon if nobody objects.

1998-07-28 -- Changes since the fifth draft:

• More cleanups and updates, now that 1.0 has been released.
• Addition of some vague statistics about the GIMP-related traffic on Usenet newgroups.
• Charter re-organized a bit: new comments about GTK, better examples of what is on-topic, last sentence discouraging people from posting too much source code.
• Hopefully this is the last draft...

1998-03-11 -- Changes since the fourth draft:

• Cleaned up some dust from this old draft...
• Typos and URLs corrected.
• Addition to the rationale section: choosing comp.* instead of gnu.*.

1997-04-05 -- Changes since the third draft:

• Changed the proposed date back to "a few weeks after the next release of the GIMP", because it is better to wait until there is more discussion about the GIMP on Usenet.
• Removed comp.graphics.apps.photoshop from the distribution of the RFD, in order to avoid votes against c.g.a.gimp from immature users of another program who do not understand the purpose of this vote.

1997-03-06 -- Changes since the second draft:

• Added sci.image.processing and comp.graphics.algorithms to the list of groups, as suggested by Quartic. Now the list is 200 characters long, which is the maximum allowed.
• Mentioned OS/2 in the list of ports, and a link to the GIMP homepage, also suggested by Quartic. I also added a link to the mailing list archives.

1996-??-?? -- Changes since the first draft:

• New tentative date. End of March 1997 instead of "a few weeks after the next release of the GIMP".
• Replaced "General" by "GNU" in the GIMP acronym.
• Modified my e-mail address. Other proponents still welcome.
• Included GIMP toolkit and GIMP widgets as appropriate topics in the charter.
• Included some infos about possible ports.

From: quinet@gamers.org (Raphael Quinet)
Newsgroups: news.announce.newgroups,news.groups,comp.graphics.misc,comp.graphics.algorithms,comp.os.linux.misc,comp.os.linux.development.apps,comp.windows.x.apps,sci.image.processing
Subject: RFD: comp.graphics.apps.gimp
Followup-To: news.groups
Date: (Real Soon Now!)

                     REQUEST FOR DISCUSSION (RFD)
	      unmoderated group comp.graphics.apps.gimp

Newsgroup line:
comp.graphics.apps.gimp		The GNU Image Manipulation Program

This is a formal Request For Discussion (RFD) for the creation of a
world-wide unmoderated Usenet newsgroup comp.graphics.apps.gimp.  This
is not a Call for Votes (CFV); you cannot vote at this time.
Procedural details are below.

RATIONALE: comp.graphics.apps.gimp

The GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program, previously known as the
General Image Manipulation Program) is a high-performance,
high-quality, free image manipulation program for Unix and the X
Window System.  It is especially popular among Linux users and it
compares favourably with some well-known commercial graphics packages.
Three mailing lists are dedicated to the GIMP (the original mailing
list had to be split because the traffic was too high) and it is
discussed in several newsgroups.

A search on DejaNews shows that several thousand articles about the
GIMP have been posted in the comp.* hierarchy in the last months
(mostly in comp.os.linux.*, comp.sys.sgi.*, comp.unix.* and
comp.infosystems.www.*).  For more than one year, there has been a
sustained traffic related to the GIMP in several Usenet newsgroups.
If you have WWW access, you can also get an idea of the current
traffic on the GIMP mailing lists by looking at the archives available
from http://www.findmail.com/lists/Computers/Applications/Graphics/ or
http://www.gimp.org/mailing_list.html.  More information about the
GIMP can be found on its homepage at: http://www.gimp.org/.

The creation of comp.graphics.apps.gimp will provide a unique forum
for discussing the GIMP, instead of scattering it in several groups
related to X Window, Linux, computer graphics or image processing (for
plug-in authors).  It will also be a good place where casual or
regular users of the GIMP can look for help or exchange ideas.

The current version of the GIMP runs on most Unix platforms and it is
being ported to other operating systems: OS/2, MacOS, Windows NT, etc.
Besides, it is very likely that a user looking for a newsgroup about
an image editing program would start looking in comp.graphics.apps.*
first, because the newsgroups discussing comparable applications that
run on Unix or other operating systems are already grouped there.
Hence the choice of c.g.a.* instead of the less obvious comp.os.* or
gnu.* hierarchies.

CHARTER: comp.graphics.apps.gimp

comp.graphics.apps.gimp is a forum for the discussion of the GNU Image
Manipulation Program (GIMP), a powerful freeware graphics package, and
programs related to the GIMP, such as 3rd party plug-ins that add
special effects and other new features.

Here are some examples of topics that are acceptable in this group:
- tips and tricks: how to create such and such effect, how to convert
  some images to other formats, tips for scanned images, etc.,
- technical questions: installation, configuration, bug reports,
  programming plug-ins and scripts,
- announcements of new versions of the GIMP and plug-ins.

Discussions about GTK (the GIMP ToolKit) or GLib are allowed as long
as they are related to the GIMP, for example for people trying to
create or modify a plug-in using GTK.  The questions or discussions
about GTK that are not directly related to the GIMP should be posted
to a more appropriate newsgroup or mailing list.

Articles avout any version or port of the GIMP are welcome in this
newsgroup, regardless of the operating system or environment used.
This forum has been created for exchanging ideas about the GIMP (an
application), and not for comparing the merits of the systems on which
it runs.  Such discussions should be directed to comp.os.*.advocacy.

Binary files such as images or compiled programs do not belong in
discussion groups and should not be posted here.  Instead, the files
should be put on an FTP or WWW site and a short announcement should be
posted in this group.  When relevant, excerpts of source code, scripts
or configuration files may be posted, as long as they are reasonably
short (at most a few dozen lines) and readable.  Posting the full
sources of a plug-in or script is explicitely discouraged, since this
is a discussion forum and not a channel for distributing programs
(even in source code).

END CHARTER.

PROCEDURE:

This is a request for discussion, not a call for votes.  In this phase
of the process, any potential problems with the proposed newsgroup
should be raised and resolved.  The discussion period will continue
for a minimum of 21 days (starting from when the first RFD for this
proposal is posted to news.announce.newgroups), after which a Call For
Votes (CFV) may be posted by a neutral vote taker if the discussion
warrants it.  Please do not attempt to vote until this happens.

All discussion of this proposal should be posted to news.groups.

This RFD attemps to comply fully with the Usenet newsgroup creation
guidelines outlined in "How to Create a New Usenet Newsgroup" and "How
to Format and Submit a New Group Proposal".  Please refer to these
documents (available in news.announce.newgroups) if you have any
questions about the process.

DISTRIBUTION:

This RFD has been (will be) posted to the following newsgroups:

    news.announce.newgroups
    news.groups
    comp.graphics.misc
    comp.graphics.algorithms
    comp.os.linux.misc
    comp.os.linux.development.apps
    comp.windows.x.apps
    sci.image.processing
    (any comments on the list of groups?)

Short pointers to the RFD will be posted separately by the proponents to
the following newsgroups:

    comp.windows.x.announce
    comp.os.linux.announce

and the following mailing list:

    gimp-announce@scam.XCF.Berkeley.EDU (GIMP-Announce mailing list)
         Subscribe via: majordomo@XCF.Berkeley.EDU
- 
Proponent: Raphael Quinet <quinet@gamers.org>
Proponent: Scott Goehring <scott@wilberworks.com>
(other names would still be welcome here!)

If you are still reading this, here are some additional comments:

• The list of newsgroups to which the RFD will be posted does not contain any "announce" groups, which are usually moderated. Cross-posting to more than one moderated group can cause some delays and technical problems, so I think it is better to cross-post the RFD to news.announce.newgroups and unmoderated groups only. A separate pointer to the RFD can be posted in comp.windows.x.announce and comp.os.linux.announce (i.e. an article with the subject "Pointer to: RFD: comp.graphics.apps.gimp" and a few lines explaining in which groups the RFD can be found).
• The proposed newgroup will be an additional forum for discussing the GIMP. It will not replace the gimp-user or gimp-developer mailing lists. If will fit nicely next to the newsgroups dedicated to PhotoShop and PaintShopPro, and it will be accessible to a large number of people.
• If everything goes well and enough people support the group, then it could be created in about two months.
• The RFD is a Request For Discussion. It is posted by the proponents of the group, and it is followed by a discussion which takes place in news.groups. news.groups is a high-traffic group with lots of heated discussions, so some good filters are recommended when reading it.
• After about one month, the RFD is followed by a CFV (Call For Votes). This document is posted by a volunteer votetaker (not by the proponents) and it is mostly copied from the last RFD. This is a kind of interest poll. During that period, the people who would like to see the group created (that means you!) should send an e-mail to the votetaker according to the instructions given in the CFV. If there are at least 100 more people supporting the group (voting YES) than people opposed to its creation (voting NO), then the group will be created. We also need 66% YES votes.
• You can show your support for comp.graphics.apps.gimp during the RFD period by posting some messages in news.groups. But it is more important that you show your support later by voting when the CFV is posted. It is not so easy to get the required number of YES votes, even for a popular application such as the GIMP. If the group fails, there is a mandatory delay of six months before we can propose it again, so we have to get it right the first time.
• I encourage you to visit news.groups during the RFD period. If you post an article there, you should try to show that you really understand how and why groups are created. Having too many clueless supporters tend to encourage some news.groups folks to vote against the group later. There are unfortunately many people posting "I vote for this group" or "please create this group", and this does not help - don't be one of them. :-)

Happy GIMPing!

Raphaël