sci.astro.research charter

The group

Name: sci.astro.research

Summary: Discussion of astronomy/astrophysics research & related topics and information.

Status: Moderated.

Moderators: Jonathan Thornburg, Phillip Helbig and Martin Hardcastle

The purpose of this newsgroup is the discussion of astronomy & astrophysics research, and the dissemination of information related to astronomy & astrophysics research. Postings appropriate for sci.astro.research would include (but will not exclusively consist of):

(i) inquiries or discussions about specific current or historical research, or

(ii) of research-related topics (observing equipment, computational techniques & software, catalogs, textbooks, journals, references, etc.),

(iii) observations of astrophysical phenomena of interest to researchers (novae, supernovae, variable stars, high-energy sources, extragalactic astronomy, planetary astronomy, etc.),

(iv) announcement of recent publications submitted to refereed journals or of collections of such publications received as preprints,

(v) announcement of future conferences & workshops, proposal or grant announcments of opportunity, and

(vi) general scientific news relevant to astronomy & astrophysics.

Moderation principles

The moderator will have relatively broad powers to determine postings that are appropriate for the newsgroup. However, there are some basic principles that the moderator will adhere to:

Postings will be judged on their relevancy to scientific research in astronomy and astrophysics. For example, inquiries such as ‘what are AM Her stars and can one make useful optical observations of them?’ are likely to be deemed within the realm of this newsgroup, while those such as ‘will the sun blow up one day?’ are likely to be rejected. The criterion is not the credentials of the author (contributions by amateurs are encouraged), but the relevance of the post to research issues.
Controversial topics and issues in research can be addressed, provided that they are discussed with scientific rigor and rationale; ‘because I say so’ speculations will be rejected.
‘Unverified’ astronomical observations will be posted with a disclaimer regarding the reliability of the observation. A verified observation is defined as one that has been checked and is certified for accuracy by the supporting institution (eg. bulletin from an observatory, research organization, etc.) It is hoped that posts of the unverified observations will serve as a source for other observers for further investigation or for astronomical organizations as a source of additional data for research programs, subject to their own verification.
Personal attacks, crossposts irrelevant to astrophysics/ astronomy research, commercial advertisements, and political discussions will be rejected. Posters should be aware that the use of invalid, spam-trap e-mail addresses in posts reduce the likelihood that they will receive followup e-mail or e-mail from the moderators.

Why moderate this newsgroup?

This group is proposed as moderated in order to limit the contributions to the newsgroup to research issues, and to provide a level of quality reflective of a scientific research newsgroup. Particular attention will be paid by the moderator to include contributions by amateur and professional alike, but requiring that posts be relevant to astronomy/astrophysics research issues.

Submission & Contact Addresses

The submission address for articles will be

sci-astro-researchTURTLE@moderators.isc.org

while the contact address for all active moderators will be

sci-astro-research-requestTURTLE@astro.multivax.de

Remove animals for valid addresses.

Submissions should be in non-encoded plain text with unquoted lines of not more than 72 characters.

Normally, if you read news on a news server, posts to moderated groups will automatically be sent to the submission address. (You can send posts directly to the submission address, but unless the corresponding headers which are normally automatically generated are included, the post might not appear to be part of the thread to which it logically belongs. Reasons for using the submission address directly include misconfigured news servers and lack of access to a news server. In general, it's better to post via a news server.)

Why sci.astro.research?

The newsgroup sci.astro.research is being proposed to provide effective and rapid communication within usenet of research activities in astronomy and astrophysics. Submissions from all realms of astronomy of postings relevant to research activities within astronomy/astrophysics are encouraged. Contribution of professional/research personel to sci.astro is now primarily feedback to amateur and enthusiast inquiries concerning general topics in astronomy. Contributions to sci.astro by these readers is likely to continue with the existence of sci.astro.research. Furthermore, the newsgroup sci.astro.research is likely to expand the level of participation by researchers on sci.astro.