Link zum neuen Beitrag: http://forum.vdsastro.de/viewtopic.php?t=4549#p28468

Hi all, I just discovered this publication:
https://xa.yimg.com/kq/groups/10138021/ ... 9_2016.pdf

The data used are coming from ARAS database, as indicated in a footnote
on page 1. This very footnote leads to the database. On that page one
also can find the conditions for use of data in publications.

*/- The observers concerned should be acknowledged.
- Observers contributing a significant amount of data or whose data are
pivotal to the findings of the paper should be included as
co-authors./*

Obviously the authors of the above paper did not take these conditions
into consideration. This already happened for another Nova Del
publication about two years ago. As a result, all amateur efforts are
potentially not correctly taken into consideration again. As some of
you might know, I am somewhat skeptical about such public databases
because professionals might not take necessary care when dealing with
such data. I do not need additional co-authorships because my
publication list is doing well, anyway. But as the person in charge of
the Teide campaign and responsible for the participants benefit it is
painful and inacceptable that people ignore guidelines and do not
mention the high motivation and large (financial) investments of
scholars and amateurs in their papers, especially if such people use
these papers for their own career.

The Southern Astro Spectroscopy Email Ring (SASER) recently decided not
to give their data to everybody but only to exclusive scientists who
agree with the SASER guidelines. I fully support this policy. This is
(again) confirmed by the present experience. If data guidelines are
important to single observers, I unfortunately can not recommend to
upload spectra to ARAS.

I would appreciate if some of the professionals in this forum give
their opinion.

Cheers, Thomas

I do not see any of your spectra there so why are you so concerned? How do you know the conditions were not met?

Have you asked the observer Keith Graham who's two spectra (out of 13) were used if he is happy for you to be so indignant on this forum on his behalf?

Perhaps instead of attacking others efforts to promote the work of amateur spectroscopists, you should be congratulating Keith and amateurs in general on yet again making a small contribution to increased knowledge in this area.

We already know your views on open databases, Thomas but you are not a spokesman for the amateur community.

(The views of other professionals, while of interest, is not particularly relevant here either since they have different priorities to the typical amateur)

Personally I also find it sad that SASER has gone dark.

Amateur spectrosopy has only advanced to the stage we are at now through being open and sharing data and experience.

Hi Robin!


As you can read (did you?) Keith is neither in the authors list nor in the acknowledgements. The ARAS rules have not been obeyed.

I don't believe SASER has 'gone dark', on the contrary
I think we have adopted a policy that best assures our data is both visible
and available to all ... as long as it is acknowledged.