Hi Friends,
I guess I haven't posted about this here lately. For a couple of years now the Inkscape project has been kicking around the idea of making an official forum. It would be the first official Inkscape forum. I think there are some older topics about the first effort, if you either search or look around.
Recently the project acquired its own server, and now some Inkscape developers have built a new forum which is integrated with the Inkscape website.
https://inkscape.org/forums/ Currently it's in testing and development, and we encourage everyone to visit and test it, to make sure it has all the features which you typically use in forums.
If you find something doesn't work, or something missing, please post it in this topic:
https://inkscape.org/forums/cafe/read-this-before-testing-the-forum/We hope to open it formally within 6 months, and possibly a little sooner than that. It doesn't look like the rest of the website yet, but once it's formally open there will be a new "Forum" item in the menu of the website (and links on other appropriate pages of the website). Then developers are planning to role out a new website design with the release of the long awaited Inkscape version 1.0, and at that time, the new forum will be made to look more like the rest of the website.
And what of us, Inkscape Community? Specifically, I'm not sure yet. Generally, it has always been my plan to close this forum, at whatever time an official Inkscape forum is created. Originally, I had 2 or 3 reasons for creating Inkscape Community. 1 - I wanted more features for the Inkscape community as a whole, than were available at the time (gallery and tutorials) (little did I know that only a year later, doctormo was going to make major improvements to the Inkscape website, doing exactly what I was wanting
). 2 - I wanted a fallback for InkscapeForum.com because I knew its owner had lost interest. And 3 - I had always wanted to try running a website/forum (or iow, for fun
).
Definitely I will continue to host the tutorials and other resources (Home tab) because they don't exist anywhere else, all in one place. Definitely I will put a sort of banner at the top of the forum, linking the new forum, and directing Inkscape users to go there for support. Eventually I'll either close this forum, or drastically re-organize it. But it won't be immediately, because I want members to have access to their contents here, and give them time to find new homes for them. Oohh....I just thought of this, and I don't know if it's possible. If it's possible, I'll disallow new registrations. That would allow current members to still access their contents, but prevent new users from posting.
And finally, what prompted me to finally post here, is that it's time to formulate, and write up the rules and guidelines for the new official forum. Anyone who would like to be involved in this, please contact me. You can reply here, or PM me, or email me, or however you want to contact me.
You don't necessarily need to have a lot of time, or any particular skills to do this. The only requirement is that you're interested in helping to get the new forum "off the ground" making it the best it can be. Your contribution could range from proposing rules and guidelines, to discussing proposals, to simply reading what others have proposed and giving thumbs up/down on it.
I suppose the Board will have to sign off on whatever we come up with. I think we'll be using some kind of gitlab feature to write them. I haven't looked into it yet, I've only been referred to it. I'll know more about it soon (later today). Or otherwise, we might use something like Framapad, or just old school ODT or DOC files which we exchange privately. We'll figure it out, but for now, we need people who want to help. Please contact me if you do
