A newsgroup for  :sci.engr.color passes, 366:21! |
| A newsgroup for : sci.engr.color passes, 366:21! |
Your Webmaster was the 'proponent' of this newsgroup: I wrote the charter, rationale, found a mentor, led the discussions, and called for a vote. It's quite a gauntlet! The story, rationale, and charter of the group are presented below.
Press the spectrum bar to return to the TOP, the COLORING logo to return to the Home Page.
Thanks to all 366 of you who supported the formation of our group. It is our intention to contribute to and benefit from the discussions that we expect to take place on this new newsgroup. Time will tell! Please go there with your questions, lend your expertise, and make this newsgroup your own. Thank you!
First, find the file "How to Create a New Usenet Newsgroup." It's usually in news:news.newusers.questions. This terse two-page message should be memorized! Also study news:news.groups.announce, where you'll see the RFD's and CFV's of other groups, along with the status report. Find a RFD (request for discussion) that is similar to the one you're planning and start writing your RFD.
Next, follow some discussions in news:news.groups. This may be the hardest part... traffic is heavy, with hundreds of messages per day, many inane. But your proposal must eventually survive discussions here. Follow several RFD's that interest you. Meanwhile, think about a newsgroup name, but don't make up your mind! You may post a draft 'pre-RFD' on news.groups, and any other groups where you expect to find supporters. It's a good idea to look around in any newsgroup for its FAQ before posting there.
All set? Do you really want to do this? OK. E-mail your draft RFD to group-mentors@amdahl.com, and ask for a mentor. Some kind person will jump in and hold your hand through the entire process. If needed, s/he will direct you to consult with groups-advice@uunet.uu.net to help choose a name to suit the proposed charter.
Doing a color newsgroup was pretty easy. Naming it was hard. But in the end, it's like naming a baby or a company -- one person decides it and gets some agreement. And here I am, asking all of you to let me name this baby sci.engr.color. Basically, it's because I'm a color engineer. If I were a color scientist, I might be willing to fight for sci.color.misc, but since I'm not, I'll leave that fight to someone else.
My first choice was sci.color. I was immediately and repeatedly informed that this would not suit the "net.gods", who are parsimonious about handing out second-level names. And if we wanted that, it would have to be sci.color.misc. Our RFD period was full of serious alternatives: sci.optics.color, sci.color-science, sci.color.general, misc.industry.color, and others. A very good objection was brought up by Hal Erickson, who urges you not to support this effort, but to go after sci.color.misc. However, our appeal to groups-advice was negative to this. Here's an excerpt from one of their replies:
From David Lawrence, who has done so much work for the Usenet, and is the moderator of news:news.announce.newgroups:
... in response to the naming questions, I must say that while I and other group-advice members do not favour sci.color.misc, that does not mean that you are compelled to not take it. We have pretty good reasons as far as the bigger namespace picture is considered (if we had a dollar for every time someone came to us saying "our science is multi/interdisciplinary! it _deserves_ a second level name!), but ultimately you are not required to use any name we recommend.
Actually, I don't think anyone from group-advice recommended the name sci.engr.color. I know I wouldn't have; I would have urged sci.optics.color given the current namespace. Colour is nothing without something to realize differences in colour, and for most intents and purposes that means optical sensing.
I personally have a much more hard line approach regarding sci.* naming, in that I think sci.optics should really be sci.physics.optics. This opinion is probably not shared by any of the other group-advice members. I believe sci.* is organized terribly because of the haphazard way that it grew, and sci.optics is certainly not the most egregious misplacement in the hierarchy.
Ed note: I suppose, then, we could have been sci.physics.optics.color.misc, if that wasn't too long, eh, David?
There are multidisciplinary aspects of every area of science, and I personally think it would be much better if things could be classified either according to the "pure" sciences or by the departments and schools in which they typically appear at universities. This would never fly though, and I have to admit that such an organizational scheme also has its down sides. Every organizational system does. I believe, however, that the downsides of poor propagation of new second level groups resulting from an overly broad second-level namespace are generally more of a disservice to the people who would desire to participate in such a group.
Proponent: Bill Dawes, <wmdawes@Xcolorpro.com>
Mentor: Jim Jewett, <jimj@eecs.umich.edu>
Votetaker: Jani Patokallio <jpatokal@alpha.hut.fi>sci.engr.color is intended to serve people with technical interests in color and the coloring of materials. Though 'color engineering' is not claimed by any specialty, it is a convenient term that does not exclude specialists from the diverse backgrounds that serve the art, science, and industry of coloring.
Everything we see around us was colored by nature, or by coloring specialists. This multi-disciplinary field includes
- educators;
- artists, art conservators and restorers;
- colorists, color technologists, scientists, engineers, mathematicians,
- chemists and spectroscopists;
- designers, stylists, advertisers, psychologists and philosophers; and
- workers in the pigment, dye, paint, plastics, textile, and color and appearance instrument industries.
Though workers in vision and lighting may find this group of interest, the existing newsgroups sci.med.vision and sci.engr.lighting are more likely to suit their needs. But the larger scientific color community is poorly served by these narrowly specialized groups.
The creation of this new group would provide an ideal forum for the widely diverse specialists in color science, as well as others with an important though temporary interest in the technology. There is a significant demand for such interaction, as evidenced by the growth of the COLORING mailing list to over 250 subscribers in six months. Since the COLORING List is hand operated, and issued in the form of monthly digests, it fails to serve the needs of those who want the kind of fast feedback that sci.engr.color can provide.
The auxiliary COLORING Pages, http://colorpro.com/info/, was started in May, 1995. It is now enjoying a hit rate of over 1000 per month. Again, it does not provide the rapid interchange of ideas that a newsgroup can, since it depends on manual interaction by the webmaster.
sci.engr.color will be devoted to the discussion of topics pertaining to coloring. These include, but are not limited to:
- color education;
- uses and meanings of various colors and combinations;
- color naming, color order systems;
- lighting and filters;
- vision and perception;
- instruments, measurement, standards and calibration;
- color difference metrics and tolerances;
- pigments and dyes;
- safety and environmental concerns;
- color stability;
- color matching, software, colorant calibration, and
- color processes and lab procedures.
Participants engaged in the practice, study, and research on the above and related topics are welcome, along with those whose interest in color technology is more transient. Organizations serving the technology may post brief announcements here. Mention of products and services pertinent to topics under discussion are appropriate; however, advertisers will be encouraged to use the Coloring Web pages. Similarly, entities seeking workers and people seeking work will be encouraged to post these needs in the COLORING List* rather than the news group.
* Footnote: the original manually-operated COLORING List is no longer active. Those seeking employment or employees may post in the newsgroup, as far as I'm concerned. Please join the new ListBot Coloring Mailing List for announcements about changes to this site. END CHARTER.
Sunday, January 7, 1996