Newsgroup and mailing list on color and coloring

From: William Dawes <*wmdawes*> Date: Friday, October 27, 1995 · wmdawes

Request for Discussion (RFD)
unmoderated group sci.engr.color

Newsgroups line:
sci.engr.color          The art, science, and industry of color.

This is a formal Request for Discussion on the creation of the unmoderated
newsgroup sci.engr.color. It is being issued according to the accepted
guidelines for newsgroup creation.

Rationale: sci.engr.color

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, at http://www.colorpro.com/~color/,
was started in May, 1995. It has an average access rate of over 140
hits per week. Again, it does not provide the rapid interchange of
ideas that a newsgroup can, since it depends on manual interaction
by the webmaster.

CHARTER: sci.engr.color

    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.

End Charter.

Mailing List

    There is a mailing list devoted to this topic, called COLORING.
    This is a moderated, hand operated list, published about once a
    month in digest form. Subscription is open and free of charge.
    One may SUBSCRIBE to, or request a SAMPLE DIGEST from
    COLOR [at] COLORPRO__COM. Applicants are required to give their full
    names and write a sentence or two about their special interest
    in color. A gateway to sci.engr.color is planned, in the form of
    weekly postings from the Digest's proposed and completed
    articles.

WEB PAGES

    There is a WWW site devoted to the topic: the COLORING Pages at
    http://www.colorpro.com/~color. These pages attempt to make
    permanent archives of the more important discussions that have
    occurred in the COLORING List/Digest. Other features include
    links to organizations, institutions and companies that serve
    the coloring community, a color conference calendar, links to
    spectral data collections, a list of articles and reference
    works, and a directory of coloring specialists.

    The owner of the COLORING List/Digest and the COLORING Web pages
    is also the proponent of this  newsgroup, Bill Dawes,
    wmdawes [at] colorpro__com.

DISTRIBUTION:

This RFD is being cross-posted to the following relevant newsgroups:

     news.announce.newgroups, news.groups, sci.engr.lighting,
     sci.optics, sci.chem, sci.chem.analytical, sci.materials,
     sci.materials.ceramics, sci.polymers, sci.image.processing,
     sci.techniques.spectroscopy, and sci.math.

In addition, it will be submitted for posting to the following
mailing lists:

     COLORING: the art, science and industry at COLOR [at] colorpro__com
     CVNet: Color and Vision Network at CVNetList [at] skivs__ski__org
     COLORCAT: Color Categorization List at COLORCAT [at] brownvm__brown__edu
     CoOL: Conservation On Line, through http://palimpsest.stanford.edu/

The progress of this proposal, RFD's and CFV's will also be posted
in the COLORING Pages at http://www.colorpro.com/~color. There will
be no attempt to post votes from the pages through CGI mail forms.

PROCEDURE:

Please post any responses to this message to "news.groups" newsgroup
only. All discussion about the merits of this proposal should appear
on news.groups.

After a discussion period of 21-30 days, if there are no
overwhelming objections to the proposed newsgroup there will be a
Call For Votes (CFV) posted to the same newsgroups as this RFD.  The
voting period will be at least 21 days.  If the newsgroup passes by
receiving 100 more YES votes than NO votes, and at least twice as
many YES votes as NO votes, it will be created.

Proponent: Bill Dawes <wmdawes [at] colorpro__com>
Mentor: Jim Jewett <jimj [at] eecs__umich__edu>

Bill Dawes
WmDawes [at] ColorPro__Com
http://www.ColorPro.Com/~wmdawes
ColorPro Communications
Professional Web Page Services
804 748-8639
Fax: 804 768-8170
13020 Birchleaf, Chester, VA 23831, USA
Editor of the COLORING Pages (http://www.colorpro.com/~color)

                                  ***
                  Conservation DistList Instance 9:38
                Distributed: Thursday, November 2, 1995
                        Message Id: cdl-9-38-023
                                  ***