[vsnet-chat 7595] Fwd: ATel 2777 : 8.6 Hour Period in XMMU J115113.3-623730

[substelor at Safe-mail.net]

http://www.astronomerstelegram.org/?read=2777

Will someone kindly forward the above to VSNET ALERT and all the other lists Taichi has posted to with his orbital period, despite him in the past managing to timely notice and forward ATels to vsnet alert, but managing not to have seen this one that appeared four hours earlier (my time zone calculations being correct of course, you'd have to check that, I'm known for not adding up properly).

I don't even remember this being a VSNET Campaign.

I personally suggest to CBAers that they think about where they forward their data to and think of having a proprietary period of a week or two before sending data to nonCBA archives, especially vsnet, where it _is_ ironically proprietary to VSNET, because despite the stuff that one CBAer forwarded to AAVSO International Database being open and available to all, the CBAers who forwarded their stuff to VSNET were effectively making their data proprietary to Taichi, it seems.  Anyone can stuff photometry into period analysis nowadays and get a periodicity, I've been doing it for years.  First, you need the data.

ATEL 2777 is a more thorough provenance, with connections and references to two other ATels of extreme significance and relevance to the object (one for instance with important optical spectropscopic information, which for one matter disengages the object from any similiarity to V598 Pup, another ATel that hasn't been forwarded to vsnet alert as follow up, it seems.

<http://www.astronomerstelegram.org/?read=2771>  ATel 2771

It's not just matters of credit isn't this.  It's provenance.  I know some folk think I bang on about this too much, but in time, as time passes, study of this work will involve literature research in the archives of publications.  There have been cases in recent times, and I didn't notice this, professionals bought this to my attention by asking me about how this happens, anyway, in recent times there have been cases where some Atels, and even formal journal papers, have been referencing vsnet alert posts instead of the Atels the vsnet alert posts were based upon or follow up of (and vsnet alerts don't always keep their provenance).  Information becomes lost that way, connections missed, waters muddied.

That's the objective view.  The subjective view is that I'm beginning to see a pattern of things being announced on vsnet alert at times seemingly unaware of announcements elsehwere, even when the elsewhere is known of and used and forwarded to vsnet alert when convenient.  And never forget any post to vsnet alert of that ilk gets echoed to vsnet campaign lists, and vsnet newvar often, and vsnet outburst sometimes, etc, etc, even if _those_ lists don't always carry a copy of the _original_ vsnet alert where the provenance may have been given once, at the outset.  One can over interpret things, but repeated instances of a resource being used when it is convenient, and not appearing when it could be interpreted as inconvenient, leads to a cynical outlook on my part.  I can't forward to vsnet alert, as I'm quite rightly banned therefrom, else I'd be sending emails like this there, instead of simply forwarding the evidence of Atel 2777.

John

PS Congratulations to all on ATEL 2777.  Because of strange mutterings in other quarters, I have to note here that co-authorship on that pro-am project based ATel appears to be consequent upon marked and significant contribution of epoch photometry without which the analysis would not have been remotely possible.  This is of course self evident.  However, it should be noted because of the comments and views of some that this is _not_ even remotely the same as someone who proffers about a dozen measures on one or two nights and then when some professional paper based on _thousands_ and _thousands_ of amateur measures taken over many nights by many people eventually appears, expects to be a full co-author in that analytical paper.  When pro-am is good, it's very good.  It doesn't need the efforts of such serious and committed photometrists to be cheapened by silly buggarism.