Bug 61499 was initiated 8 1/2 years ago and has become a "catch all" for missing metadata issues. But, with its focus on viewing/changing metadata values -- a major GIMP enhancement for which stand-alone tools already exist -- it is easy to forget a much larger issue to GIMP users, that most would consider a "serious bug": (some) existing IPTC and other metadata is lost whenever you Open-Save a .jpg.

In my own case, I've been working, off and on, for a year to create a "Caption It Once, Use it Forever" approach for WordPress photo galleries that used the IPTC field "Caption_Abstract" of a .jpg file. Set the field right when the original picture is loaded on to a computer. And you have a caption for life, including automatically generated in WordPress photo galleries during upload. Obviously, this is not viable if a simple cropping or resizing in GIMP loses the metadata where the caption is stored. I have documented the problem in Bug 619554.

What is the best way to ask the GIMP Development team to consider dividing Bug 61499 into two separate tracks: serious bug (loss of metadata) and enhancement (view/edit metadata)?