According to the SciPy roadmap (https://github.com/scipy/scipy/blob/master/doc/ROADMAP.rst.txt#misc),
`scipy.misc` will eventually be removed. Currently, the combinatorial functions and the image-related operations are all deprecated.  The only non-deprecated functions in `misc` are `central_diff_weights()`, `derivative()` and the two functions that return image data: `ascent()` and `face()`.

As a steps towards the deprecation of `misc`, I propose that we create a new package, `scipy.data`, for holding data sets.  `ascent()` and `face()` would move there, and the new ECG data set proposed in a current pull request (https://github.com/scipy/scipy/pull/8627) would be put there.

An early version of the roadmap suggested moving the images to `scipy.ndimage`, but that is no longer in the text.  I think a separate subpackage for data sets makes sense.

What do you think?

P.S. If there is already a similar proposal in the mailing list or on github, or any other older mailing list discussions related to this, let me know.

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