Would you like to see a ImageIO community meetings/mailing list/forum/...?

Contributor & Development Discussion
#1

Most of you have probably heard of or are already familiar with ImageIO. For those who haven’t, it’s a library that allows you to easily convert data between numpy arrays and various image and video formats and it is what scikit-image defaults to for reading/writing.

import imageio.v3 as iio

img = iio.imread("almost/any/format.tiff")
web_img = iio.imread("https://domain.com/path/to/image.png")

for webcam_image in iio.imiter("<video0>"):
    ...  # process webcam images here

...  # you get the idea

I have been maintaining ImageIO for the past 2.5-ish years and I’m quite happy to say that since then our monthly downloads have grown from ~2M/month to currently ~13M/month. This means that people (or at least their CI) like what we do; THANK YOU :heart: :star_struck: . What, unfortunately, hasn’t grown is the “active” community around the library. I.e., the number of people who give me feedback on what is good/bad or who say what features they would like to see in the future.

I want to build this community as I think this type of discussion is really valuable, but I need some help getting this off the ground. To start, I was hoping to get feedback on the following:

  1. What format should this take? May/can/should we “hijack” this discourse as a platform? Would a mailing list be better? How about regular (perhaps quarterly) community meetings in form of video calls?
  2. Do you have any tips/tricks for going about this? I have experience leading software projects, but community projects feel different. Guidance on how to avoid pitfalls is very welcome.
  3. Would you be interested in joining such meetings/discussions/…?
2 Likes
#2

Hi @FirefoxMetzger! :wave: Thank you so much for all your work on imageio—it’s made life so easy for skimage developers and users.

We are happy to create a category for you on this Discourse. For most projects, we use a category for community discussions and a group (equivalent of private mailing list) for developer discussions. I should also mention https://forum.image.sc, which existed before this forum, is dedicated to the bioimaging community, and would likely also be very interested. You are also welcome to your own channel on the Scientific Python Discord.

Building a community around a library is not easy; I recommend giving talks at venues like SciPy, PyCon, PyData etc., and hosting sprints at those same conferences, to raise awareness. It’s a flywheel process, so be patient. Video meetings is a larger ask; for that, would it make sense to join in with skimage for a while until there is enough interest to split it off? I bet no one on the team would mind if we change the title to “skimage/imageio meeting”.

Most of all, just keep focusing on providing excellent functionality, treat newcomers and potential contributors with exceeding kindness, and the rest will come! We are cheering you on along the way :tada: :clap:

2 Likes
#3

We are happy to create a category for you on this Discourse. For most projects, we use a category for community discussions and a group (equivalent of private mailing list) for developer discussions.

This is an excellent offer. How would we go about setting this up?

This option would be my personal favorite because it avoids a walled garden (non-members can read and it is indexed by search engines) and because the platform lives close to other communities with similar interests (e.g., scikit-image) so there is room for interaction.

You are also welcome to your own channel on the Scientific Python Discord.

Cool! I’d like an IRC, though I’m worried that it will look barren until we have enough active members. Let’s see who else is interested and how they think about Discord vs Discourse.

Video meetings is a larger ask; for that, would it make sense to join in with skimage for a while until there is enough interest to split it off? I bet no one on the team would mind if we change the title to “skimage/imageio meeting”.

This one is also interesting. Would this mean adding ImageIO items to the meeting’s agenda, or what would the format be? Things are generally more lively if you get to see faces, so this could be a fun option, too.

In general, I want to start with one thing first and grow from there. I want to avoid starting too many things at once, slicing the community (and information) into different channels, and then having to maintain them all with little time left to work on the actual project.

I favor the Discourse option, but I am happy to go with a different choice if people here prefer something else, e.g., if they want this to be part of the skimage video meetings instead.

I should also mention https://forum.image.sc, which existed before this forum, is dedicated to the bioimaging community, and would likely also be very interested.

True. I will add a crosspost there and point to this discussion. This way, the users there can become aware and participate here if they are interested.

1 Like