Subject: Individual pages

From: Andre HECK <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 05 Aug 94 15:01:51 +0200

Dear Friends,

Here are a few considerations on an earlier discussion about individual
pages within the framework of AstroWeb.

1. As alluded by Daniel, I have no objection to go on with my own
   compilation of these pages fed into StarHeads. AstroWeb can freely
   point to StarHeads.

2. I am not really worried about the multiplication of these pages, 
   because we know that this will reach a plateau. We are currently in 
   the steep gradient of the curve of increase. And we are still far from
   the few thousands of astronomers who are IAU members. Not all of them
   are expected to have their page on the web, but of course other people
   have to be included.

3. This brings up another point: who has to be included? Astronomers and
   space scientists definitely. Site manegers and active persons in fields
   related to AstroWeb certainly. I am less positive about graduate students.
   After careful perusal of the pages, I decide whether it is appropriate or
   not to include them.
   
   `Appropriate' is of course difficult to explain in a few words here, but
   this is where the human brain has to interfere in order to build a useful
   database of quality. Remember also that there is a risk that graduate
   students move quickly from one institution to another and that it
   might be difficult to keep track of all of them.

4. There is also a last point on the intrinsic quality of the pages
   themselves. As all of you have probably already noticed, some of
   these pages are empty, or just contain rubbish. Obviously I have not
   included these in StarHeads.
    
Hope the temperature + humidity is more bearable at your place than here...  

Cheers,
Andre.

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