[vsnet-chat 1764] Re: [AAVSO-DIS] Program planning

[Taichi Kato <tkato>]

Dear Brian, and all,

    However successful some of present pro-am collaboration outcomes look
to be, I'd like to express my concerns the potential hazard of over-relying
on this type of science.  The "success" and thea ideas being primarily from
the professional view, which is prone to fashionable ways and readily
publishable targets, some more potentially important impacts by long-term,
or individually motivated amateur observing can become only too overlooked.
As an example, the number of visual observers nightly monitoring important
recurrent novae or dwarf novae is apparently decreasing: however important,
this kind of work tends to be less productive (in terms of scientific
publications) than coordinated CCD observations.  The similar things happen
even within the same targets: too much concentrating on the specific targets
often resulted in unfavorable coverages of otherwise observable targets
(they are often difficult to read from published literatures, since
unfortunately missed phenomena aren't usually mentioned).  Some targets often
become completely neglected once the paper is published, even if there is
a good reason to follow the long-term trend.  They are all the hazards
of chasing the fashionable way.  I believe, at least for amatuers, the
diversity of interests should be more emphasized, rather than weighting on
the number of published articles or cited references.  This is one of the
reasons why I so admire individual amateur publications, rather than unifying
them to some authorized professional journals or mono-stylized pro-am
collaborations.

Regards,
Taichi Kato

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