[ome-users] Migration of OME mailing lists to https://forum.image.sc/

[Joshua Moore (Staff)]

Last December[1], we migrated the Bio-Formats forums to the
Discourse.org-based https://forum.image.sc site. Initially a merger of
the ImageJ forums and the CellProfiler forums, forum.image.sc has
grown to include at least 20 different projects from the imaging
community.

Bio-Formats was a natural choice for testing an initial migration
since a number of questions were already being asked with the
#bio-formats tag[2]. Since then, the #omero[3] tag has started to
receive more traffic and, more recently, an #omero-figure[4] tag has
been created!

>> With this in mind, we’re planning to shut down our public mailing lists in favor of image.sc. <<

We won’t immediately be turning them off. The general plan is:

 - to encourage all new posts to take place on image.sc
 - while we finish up any existing threads
 - after which, we will set the mailing lists to read-only
 - at the same time, we’re looking into migrating the archives to image.sc
 - at some point in the future, when all URLs redirect to image.sc,
we’ll shut off lists.openmicroscopy.org.uk

In other words, you are welcome to start using the image.sc forums
right now. And as a part of that image.sc community, you should feel
comfortable creating whatever tags you feel are appropriate. Plus, the
Discourse platform has a number of configuration options that we think
will make using it preferable to the mailing lists(not to mention
there is also an app for both Android [5] as well as iOS [6]).

If you have any concerns, you can let us know either by mail or on the
related image.sc thread:

  https://forum.image.sc/t/migration-of-ome-phpbb-forums-and-mailing-lists/25817

For the OME team, though, having the mailing lists hosted externally
on a more modern and secure platform means we have more time to spend
answering your questions. We also hope that using forum.image.sc is
both more enjoyable and facilitates chats with the wider imaging
community.

All the best,
~Josh

P.S. a similar announcement was sent recently to the forums
(https://www.openmicroscopy.org/community/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=8743)
where new threads are now no longer possible.

[1] https://www.openmicroscopy.org/community/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=8646
[2] https://forum.image.sc/tags/bio-formats
[3] https://forum.image.sc/tags/omero
[4] https://forum.image.sc/tags/omero-figure
[5] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.discourse&hl=en
[6] https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/discourse-hub/id1173672076?mt=8

The University of Dundee is a registered Scottish Charity, No: SC015096