[vsnet-chat 4316] re recent controversy

[Patrick Schmeer <extpasc@rz.uni-sb.de>]

In [vsnet-chat 4314] JG feels called upon to write:

>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

outbursts actually

>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,
 
I think he was part of the ROP.

>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.

You do not express it explicitly but I think you mean that HT Cas is Scp's
most favourite "forging"/"faking"/"fabricating" target. I remember three
cases where the outlaw was involved. They include one negative observation
immediately prior to detection, two "pre-discovery" uncertain/suspected
estimates, one "post-discovery" independent detection, and one typo.
Hey, that makes five, not three! He even now cannot stop faking! 
Well, if anyone is interested I can post the full stories to vsnet-chat.

>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.

Please note that in a similar number of cases Scp made the last negative
observations before an outburst detection.
To name a few : LL And, UV Per, HT Cas, CY UMa, T Leo, HV Vir, V592 Her,
IR Com, DO Dra, ... - all from my memory. But of course you can (and
probably will) call all these observations "fabricated", too :-)
 
>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.

JG really has a talent for choosing the wrong example ;-)

>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
 
'snotty' is your eloquent word for 'reasonable'?
 
>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 suppose they knew what they were doing. I only wanted to help them doing
it better ;-)

>I went livid and got my rag out over the whole affair [as is my want].  I

Would you have turned as choleric/hysteric if the afore-mentioned reasonable
e-mail had not had originated from your best friend? ;-)
 
>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

I was pretty saddened by the fact that he was not the only professional
astronomer who showed considerable lack of common sense during that
discussion.
 
>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.

I (and hopefully many others) really do not need guidance from this self 
appointed fighter for justice.

Only few contributors (Kato, Jensen) got it right during that discussion.
You may not know but there actually is a written VSNet charta, in which is
proclaimed that the vsnet-alert address "is for alert on the discovery of ... 
rare outbursts ...". I do not read anything about "all outbursts" here.  
Many astronomers have subcribed to vsnet-alert but not to vsnet-obs. Guess why?
Because they want to be informed about the most important variable star
events, and do not want to sift through tens of postings and hundreds of
observations a day. But if you report each and every dwarf nova outburst
to vsnet-alert the rate of postings is going to increase in an inflationary
manner. You should try the opposite: keep the rate of postings to vsnet-
alert as low as possible.
 
>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... 

Another proof of Taichi Kato's creative genius! I think vsnet-outburst
was the only positive outcome of that nasty discussion. The newly born
baby quickly grew up and is now a healthy and well-fed child :-)

>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!"

Poor boy(s)! Wrong example again! The only person who can be accused of
wrongdoing in the "QY Per case" is MS himself, since he cheated twice 
(once intentionally, once inadvertently).
Again, if anyone is interested I can post the full story to vsnet-chat.

>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.

And I will be the first one to heartily congratulate you on the second-ever
visual sighting of HP And! ;-) 

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

Can a knife be called a "mechanism"? ;-) ;-) ;-)
(before I get thrown out of this list: that was meant only IRONICALLY ;-))

Cheers,
Patrick

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