[vsnet-chat 4314] re recent convtroversy on vsnet chat

[crawl@zoom.co.uk]

Well, Berto, if I'd an inch for every person whose griped to me over scp's
gazumping over the years, I'd own one mother of an objective ;)

yours reductio ad absurdly

John

On a more serious note, I don't suppose I can let the "armchair astronomer"
bit ride...

...so, almost exactly 3 year ago the local river burst its banks in a bit
of a flash flood.  Due to various consequent rebuilding work, both to the
home, and to the local area in general, [plus a speight of new housing on
the flood plain (go figure local government, eh?) all leading to a dramatic
increase in light pollution], I've not been able to actively observe since.
 For a start, I can barely get the 'scopes mount out into the back garden
without scratching the fridge, and our lass would kill us if I scratched
the "new" fridge [the old fridge got quite scratched, though it floated
rather impressively during the flood, by the way].

Afore that though I observed, being a moderately active contributor to the
UK (and interntaional) ROP (Recurrent Objects' Programme).  Okay, I wasn't
fantastically prolific, and was also "limiting mag challenged", but then
again, I did have only eight and a half inches to play with [though they do
say it is what you do with that counts].

Now, this was a year or three before I was on the web, but even at that
time, when in communication with folk, every now and again there'd be
bitching about scp having pre-discovered variables.  I'd be picking the
conversation up over the phone whilst chatting to folk, which sometimes
included bits of info and gripes relayed on from other observers, oft times
from throughout Europe and from the USA.   It was as frequent as the
frequency of ROP and similar objects allowed, consequent upon its remit.
The ROP is meant to encourage observation of rarely outbursting CVs, and
some other odds and ends like low states of NL and the like.  In other
words, dubious prediscovery activity was bound to be a tadette more
noticeable in these circumstances.  Only one person was every suspected.
Don't think he was part of the ROP, which is strange considering its remit,
but of course the ROP was/is bound to attract other observers of rarely
active CVs.

If I remember rightly, HT Cas used to be a common bone of contention
"discovery" wise.  Not that folk themselves were worried about being the
first to see it or any other outburst, but as I said before, when someone
else seems to decide this is important, it begins to rancour with the rest
after a while.

Now, whereas I may have _descended_ into armchair astronomy, some of the
folk active in those days have _ascended_ into armchair astronomy, in that
they are nowadays more into using slithers of silicon to measure superhumps
in rarely outbursting CVs, than in monitoring the skies for unexpected
activity.  Thus I'm not entirely surprised some of 'em haven't commented.
Hell, they may not even have noticed this minor debacle.

There are a couple of folk who have been quiet who'd I've have expected to
speak up, but they haven't.  I think more relevant to yourself [Berto] is
what I read in Eddy Mullyeart's vsnet-chat post on the topic.  Read that
short post again, and not only will you get the feeling that he's given up
on this particular whole prediscovery business, but almost considers it to
be part of the dynamics of cataclysmic variables!  That is, he feels it's
inevitable, and can't be fixed!  [I am not cognisant of Mr Mullyeart's
status armchair possession wise, but I do believe he is an active observer
of some long standing].

But yer see, when every bugger goes around being polite and politically
correct, if one person doesn't quite "play the game", it is difficult in
such a self regulatory environment to say ought without seeming petty.
Some people may be being quiet just through fear of being deemed petty, or
just simply cos they're not interested in such problems.  They just wanna
look at their stars.

So, I'm just an armchair astronomer [well, currently, a squatted on t'floor
in t'lotus position astronomer actually], with no affiliation to either
professional or amateur organisations of any kind.  I can tell it how it is
without fear of censure.  Shit, I can get banned from vsnet lists for
mentioning this unspeakable (alleged) "forging" suggestion out loud, and it
won't really cause me any harm.  So, when Mr Simonsen spoke up, I gave him
some backing.  I knew he weren't wrong.

Hey, an objective project for yer.  Pick the dozen most active visual CV
observers on this planet [including scp], dig out the archives and check
for outbursts of infequently active jobs that've blown up over the past
half decade or so, tally up whose code lies next to the temporally first
listed obs, and do an histogram, and see what happens.

Just cos folk can't imagine a thing well, don't mean it ain't true.

I promise to say no more on this thread to vsnet after this post [in
reassurance to them that's bored wi' it].


A MINI HISTORY NOTE:

Hi folks, remember the days when vsnet had barely a dozen lists or so
[ignoring the recents and wanteds]?

Then, almost appropriately, things hit critical mass and new lists appeared
for a while as if it was a TNR, afore all went dormant again.

Remember the first of those new lists?  The one that set the precedent?
Yup, give yerself a coconut, you're right.  It was vsnet-outburst.

Why was vsnet-outburst born?  Well, somebody sent a snotty email to
vsnet-alert decrying two mails to alert by a couple of [separate]
astronomers.  That snotty email suggested they were wasting vsnet-alert on
trivial outbursts, and suggesting they didn't know what they were doing.
That snotty email was sent by Patrick Schmeer.  It's all archived at the
vsnet webpages, as are all vsnet postings.

I went livid and got my rag out over the whole affair [as is my want].  I
decried this behaviour long [what a surprise ;)] and loud, and some others
decried it a bit more succinctly.  I was even more livid when I found out
that the two castigated mailers turned out to be a USA professional and
possibly the most prolific amateur observer [ie over quarter a million, or
maybe far far more, observations to his belt] on the planet.  That is, they
were more than capable of deciding what was and was not a relevant posting,
without guidance from self appointed individual.  What'd set me off though
was that I was afraid two newbies could possibly have been put off by the
whole affair, as I didn't realise the experience of these people at the time.

Kato-san/sama/dono [delete where applicable] resolved the debacle in an
interesting (and to many confusing) way, via instigating vsnet-outburst,
for alerts deemed not quite as important as finding a rarely active CV in
outburst... ...soon after more lists appeared, in a flourish of diversity,
and there was a general wailing and a gnashing of teeth throughout the
lands [the new vsnet lists debacle was the biggest bitch session I'd ever
seen, strange for such a non-problem.  Unsubscription was easy enough,
after all.  Professionals and amateurs a like griping away.  Hell, you'd
have thought someone was dubiously prediscoverying CV outbursts the fuss
that was made... ...oh, sorry, I forgot, there'd have been less fuss over
that <NB extreme sarcasm is an unfortunate characteristic of folk born and
bred in t'North>.].

So's, if you think all this sort of stuff is new, naw, it's recurrent...
...about as recurrent as infrequently active CVs, if only by definition.

I'll leave it to the Simonsen unit to notify of you the next time it
happens, cos I think he takes it a "bit personal like" since the QY Per
episode, as well as being a currently active observer (hey Mike, got any
armchairs?) so he's more likely to notice this sort of thing when it
happens than I.  I'll just back him up with a short [honest] email that'll
probably say "nargh, nargh, ne, nargh nah, told yer so!"

Hey, if folk can't take this serious problem seriously, why the shit should I?

[I take no offence, and do not intend to give any, but the lack of
acceptance of even the feasibility of the existence of the problem has got
my sarcasm muscle thretching.]

Cheers

John

John Greaves
UK

PS, after several years of monitoring HP And to see if it'd ever blow up, I
finally decided I was just chasing a plate defect.  However, should any
fortunate individual actually catch this thing strutting its stuff, kindly
let me know, with full time details, so I can send my obs of it in logged
ten minutes a priori.

Hey, why not?  For as Bish rightly noted, there's no mechanism to stop me! ;)

yours, reductio ad absurdum uberalles [lucky old Alice],

 John

affiliations : none

NB to UK observers, I'm off down DFS now, to see if the Easter Sale is
still on, cos I might just get myself a new...

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