microUgly wrote:
I'd be happy to buy a domain name and host an Inkscape forum. I already pay for a host that's grossly underused for my personal website.
You could also hosts it using Web services like QuickTopic, Forumer... why not Nabble ! The problem is that you can't migrate the database if you decide to switch from one host to an other or host it yourself. We encountered the problem with a community I used to maintain to. Other services are listed in the "Hosted Components and Services: Message Boards" [1] Open Directory category if you're interested.
The only thing that stops me is that unless you can attract a large enough community it would go to waste. I'm a member of an Illustrator forum which is a far more popular product and yet it only attracts a handful of regular users which makes it's usefulness limited.
I agree a community with no users is just useless. You have to find solutions to attract them. In my reply to Jim comments I talked about "value added". I think it's what would make the difference. You could survey Inkscape users, in this very group/mailing list, for example. What do we like about it ? How could it be improved ? Someone posted about attachments for example. On deviantArt they have many users because you can post your images, get feedback. On some Usenet groups it's better to use a Web service because you can miss messages if you don't synchronize your client to the server everyday. Some other communities provide users with high-end-AJAX-Web 2.0 cool features like RSS feeds, thread-real-time-no-page-refresh browsing... Seriously you necessarily have to be creative, providing a French forum just made the difference for me, even if to tell the truth... I have not browsed it for months. Because I already don't have much time to browse this group.
I almost forgot, some users might be interested by professional support ! It's one of the best way to drive an open source business these days. Services, it's all about services. Submit a ticket and get help from a pro the next hour.
If someone can suggest a good domain name that might get the ball rolling :)
InkschelpMePlease.net :)
Notes : * [1] http://dmoz.org/Computers/Internet/Web_Design_and_Development/Hosted_Compone...