I think that the mailing lists are doing an excellent job on the techinical side, but they arent generating a users community in terms of art particularly well. I dont think that having all the devs reading all the forum is necessary for a forum once we start talking about it in the context of art rather than technical support. I think if they were done right, and kept pretty focused, then forums could be a good way to grow the creative aspect of the community, and could help tie together and stimulate some of the excellent work that has been going on with the youtube screencast tutorials etc. Very much feel they should be something that compiments the mailing list rather than replaces, as I'd see them performing a dfferent role.

...

That's the main reason I'd prefer the "official" Inkscape forum to be

an interface to the mailing list over other approaches, even though I certainly do appreciate the benefits of "real" forums (e.g. being able to post inline images as examples, more robust threading, etc.).

...

-mental

Hmm. If the goal is to develop an effective artistic community, then that's a whole new direction, and one that Open Source hasn't been very good at in my opinion (I view Gimp for example as a failure in terms of developing a cohesive Artistic community. If you want to find One community where there are lots of advanced Gimp artists, you just won't find that. Some Gimp artists would try to gather, but it's never been handled well in my opinion).

It's true though that an active, cohesive and visible (artist) community would increase the visibility of Inkscape. Some people like to gather and discuss about their favorite programs just as much as they like using the program (just like how there are fan communities of books etc). It's not easy to obtain though. Photoshop has active communities left and right but that's because it's the industry standard, and since the community is so active (both in producing artwork and in making tutorials), it leads to More people picking it up, much like a viral effect. By contrast, Procreate Painter is also a powerful painting tool, but fewer people pick it up because most people use Photoshop and that's where all the tips and tutorials are.

That said, I'm personally neutral on the issue of developing an artistic community for Inkscape. Inkscape can be used for casual art (and the online CG population happens to be quite large - see the size of Deviantart), but it's mostly (?) targeted at productive tasks such as icon or web layout creations, either for personal use or for work. And those people don't need as much of a marketing effect (at least... I don't think so?), because they might pick it up for work might pick it up just because it works fine and is free. It's productive issue.

By contrast, casual artists of the Deviantart type for the example, flock towards the program that seems to give the biggest number of pretty results (even if they can't achieve them themselves XD ).

If people are still curious though, here's an interesting non-forum community example I know of: a Japanese program known as Opencanvas (which, contrary to its name, is not open source). It started years ago as a free (as in "free beer") version, and subsequent versions had to be paid for, while the free one was no longer offered. Even then, however, it managed to retain a highly dedicated community.

You can find it here: http://www.portalgraphics.net/en/ (English main page) http://www.portalgraphics.net/ja/ (Japanese main page, more developed) http://www.portalgraphics.net/oc/en/ (English version of the community page)

No, I don't want Inkscape to mimick it (at all :S ). I just think it's an interesting case study. Opencanvas is actually a relatively simple program "that works". One interesting feature (that I don't want in Inkscape though :S ) is the "recording" of "events": basically for any finished work you can playback the whole process. Also interesting is the ability to automatically upload artworks (each process-playbackable) to its community page with just a few commands, where they can be judged and voted on.

From a user point of view: the user is curious as to the capabilities of

the program, he goes to the community page, he immediately sees the "best" recent artworks made by the program, said artwork can be downloaded for the user to playback its whole drawing process. Also located on the community page are a number of art tutorials (strange, I can't find them anymore, ah well). The user says "wow" and gets the program for himself.

Again, I am not advocating anything like that for Inkscape. I don't think it's possible, either. :S But it's an interesting and unconventional case study on artistic communities. Opencanvas as a result has become Very well known in Japan, and is even being adopted elsewhere. I admit, even I bought it at first (then practically never used it XD ).

Oh by the way, can someone tell me just how Do you reply in a way that the message ends in the right thread in the mailing list archive? :S

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