[vsnet-chat 4320] Re: re recent controversy

[Taichi Kato <tkato>]

Re: [vsnet-chat 4316] re recent controversy

> 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.

    This was not an original fashion of VSNET, but some of readers may
remember this trend was triggered by (almost) daily postings to vsnet-alert
of AAVSO News Flashes (and later their announcements), which reports
all outbursts.  It may have been a natural consequence that new observers
who read these new flashes and annoucements start posting similar
outburst detections.  Many professional and amateur astronomers have written
to us and the AAVSO headquarter to stop doing a nonsense job of sending
daily announcements (and no information), but we didn't receive any
constructive comment from the AAVSO, and announcements continued to be
posted.  It was only when we provided and a made an notification to
the AAVSO a new appropriate place (vsnet-aavsonews) instead of vsnet-alert,
when they changed the manner.

Regards,
Taichi Kato

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