--Dear FADS-III subscribers (all 14 of you!),
Welcome to the FADS-III preliminary Email discussion. I cannot say that I am overwhelmed by the number of enthousiasts, but that should not deter us. Every second spent on thinking about FADS beforehand will lead to a better session.
Our main purpose should be to identify the FADS issues for this year, and how to structure the FADS session at ADASS. In the original invitation to join this email discussion we explained what happened at FADS-I and II, and thanks to Peter Teuben you have easy access to all the relevant information via the FADS home page:
http://www.astro.umd.edu/~teuben/fads/
We also outlined the main FADS theme. Unless any of you argues very strongly for another theme, we propose to stick to it.
Let me start with a stimulating quote from Will Deich, who was the very active co-organiser of FADS-I two years ago:
"I am unenthusiastic about FADS III, because I've concluded that these are mostly exercises that have little or no long-term influence on real software. The fact that hardly anyone wants to contribute to the email discussion emphasizes that while it may be fun to spend one hour on a FADS BoF at ADASS, most people don't take it seriously enough to invest any time in a substantive email discussion."
The Email discussion before FADS-I was very lively, perhaps because it was the first time. The one before FADS-II was disappointing, but we partly blamed ourselves for starting too late. Also, there seems to be a remarkable consensus in our community about the way things will and should go, so perhaps people feel that there is nothing more to say. If that is the case, why should they keep showing up at the FADS session in large numbers? Just for the `fun' of it?
I look forward to some comments: on the words of Will Deich (he is one of us 14), on the FADS theme, the FADS purpose, the FADS issues and the FADS session structure.
Cheers, Jan
-- Jan E. Noordam | Internet: "noordam@nfra.nl" NFRA, P.O.Box 2 | Phone: (31) 521 595(240), secr: (100) 7990 AA DWINGELOO | FAX: (31) 521 597332 The Netherlands |