Policy for adding data loader functions

[grst]

In principle I think it is good to support as many formats as possible as getting data into the right format can be very frustrating for users. However there will be a limit of what we are willing to maintain as core team members.

Possible solutions

• contrib or external module for "community maintained" IO functions vs. "core-team maintained" functions.
• ensure formats are reasonably popular (e.g. 5/10 upvotes on the respective issue)
• allow additional dependencies only in exceptional cases

[Zethson]

Ideally we'd have some kind of general API that other people could build upon. Like Pandas ExtensionsArrays or so.

Personally I think the only doable option in the current list is "ensure that the formats are reasonably popular" but it's not ideal.