Crystallography World Wide

The second summary of interest for sci.misc.xtallography

This Homepage is located at http://www.unige.ch/crystal/stxnews/stx/summary.htm


2ND SUMMARY OF INTEREST IN SCI.MISC.XTALLOGRAPHY.


Groups posted to :-
sci.chem, sci.engr.chem, sci.geo.geology, sci.materials, sci.misc, sci.physics, bionet.xtallography

In theory, follow-ups to this post should go to sci.chem. I hope the readers at sci.chem don't mind but some of the following may be of general interest. Sci.chem also seems to have a very diverse readership and is most likely to contain people interested by the following. If you don't normally post to the newsgroups, feel free to email me with comments. Also remember that I do not "own" this discussion! People are free and welcome to participate by simply pressing the follow-on button of their newsreader or emailing me.

Disclaimer: Please forgive the bad grammar :-)

Lachlan (lachlan@dmp.csiro.au).

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Apologies to people who were expecting to see an official RFD follow the 1st SUMMARY of interest in a crystallographic newsgroup - as it was rejected by Usenet administrators who stated several concerns. Renaming the group to sci.misc.xtallography fixes two of these concerns - usenet "hierarchy" and the 14 character per word limit.

The other main concern was the possible lack of readership once this group was created. There seems to be good interest in this proposed newsgroup and the aims of this proposed group are consistent with the internet being an international academic and research network. Whether this group "works" in the long-term depends on the interest of the scientific crystallographic community and those who would like to apply and use its techniques. It also depends on the enthusiasm of people to "spread the word" down the line to get other people interested.

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Much gratitude and thanks must go to the excellent support and advice provided by our CSIRO site librarian (Jean Deacon) and her colleagues. They are "wise" and "wonderful" beyond their years! As sounds typical of using such organisational resources, I only sought their help after I had struck snags in getting the RFD accepted - which they were able to advise on a solution in a very positive way.

I would hope scientists who are interested in creating other specialist science newsgroups have such equivalent support staff in their respective organisations.

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The term "specialist" should not imply this proposed group is intended to be "elitist" or sustain a "clique". It's aim is to provide an "open" forum for anyone interested in using the power of the internet newsgroups to discuss (in "near real time"!) issues, results, problems and applications in crystallography that would take months and years in conventional paper journals.

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SUMMARY OF EMAIL AND POSTINGS :-

Thankyou very much to the 33 people who sent email with suggestions and comments, as well as the two people who posted their support on sci.chem. This was 3 times the amount compared to the previous summary The following "overall" opinions were given on the creation of sci.misc.xtallography :-

33 varied from supportive to extremely supportive
1 was supportive but was concerned the group would only have a very small volume of news
1 was negative stating this should go through a mailing list first

This is a good percentage result for creating this group and people mentioned they were already forwarding information on this proposed group to colleagues and friends.

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SPECIFIC REQUESTS AND OPINIONS:-

Of the above 35 messages :-

There was one request to include "crystallographic texture determination" under "topics for discussion" in the RFD which has been done.

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One message specifically stated an interested in seeing how this group progresses so as to get an indication what "hints" might be given to help create other specialist science groups.

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One person, stated that lack of news on this proposed crystallographic newsgroup should not occur as there seems to be a decent amount of news in bionet.xtallography. Two other people gave an opposite view. One implied that as bionet.xtallography does not have much "news", neither will this group. The other asked to have Biological crystallography as part of the RFD as bionet.crystallography does not seem to attract much news. This has been accepted but should not imply that this group is intended to replace bionet.xtallography. It would be expected that if this general crystallography group could attract enough interest, there would be a flow on to groups such as bionet.xtallography as well as possible creation of other newsgroups. I have already had one powder-XRD colleague verbally state that "sci.misc.xtallography" already sounds to broad a group and that "sci.misc.diffraction" would be a better group to start. This was my initial suggestion on a sci.chem post (I am mainly a Powder X-ray Diffraction person) but replies from newsreaders stated crystallography newsgroup would be "better".

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A number of messages specifically stated or implied people find the present "general" science newsgroups such as sci.chem and sci.materials too broad to be "useable" for specialist fields of science. While not meaning to be a slur on these groups, it implies that there are people who want or need "specialised" groups such as this that are "directly" relevant to them. If you extrapolate up, it could also imply that there is a need and desire for many other specialist newsgroups. However, the present newsgroup creation "guidelines" (in practise) don't seem to favour the formation of specialist science groups such as this without determined effort and access to people who can advise on solutions when problems arise.

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One person asked if this group could be a "catch-all" for techniques "slightly" related to crystallography until more appropriate newsgroups are created. Given I don't want to define what crystallography is and "artificially" limit the scope of potential posts to this group, I think this is OK.

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The range of people who gave support to this group includes post-grad students, university professors and scientists in both government and private industry. The range of techniques and applications that were stated range from AFM to X-ray diffraction; fundamental studies to industrial applications. The countries of respondents ranged from North America, Europe, Southern Africa and Australasia.

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Conclusions :-

1. This implies a sci.misc.xtallography has enough support to justify a internet newsgroup.

2. While the statistics are not that great, it implies there is also a desire amongst the scientific community who use the internet to have more specialised science newsgroups.

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As stated in the last summary, only a small proportion of people reading the internet newsgroups would be expected to "follow-on" or email support. (It also only takes 100 votes to form a new newsgroup - most optimistic scenario.). Thus it is important to email your vote when the time comes. If you rely on other people to do the voting - this group will never happen.

As part of this post, I would like people to either post or email me whether they would like this new sci.misc.xtallography group to occur. If you would like this group to happen, please also mention via email if you want to have your name and email address added to the RFD which is to be submitted to announce-newgroups@uunet.uu.net around a week after this post.

I would again recommend that if people want a "very good" chance of this group succeeding, you should discuss this proposed newsgroup with colleagues and also draw up an email list of people who could benefit from this group - and ask them to vote when the time comes. Even if they do not presently have time or need to get involved with the scientific newsgroups --- sci.misc.xtallography will be there when/if they get the chance to take part.


Lachlan (lachlan@dmp.csiro.au)

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Following is a copy of the RFD (request for discussion) for sci.misc.xtallography that is to be "submitted" around seven days from now to announce-newgroups@uunet.uu.net. This RFD is for people who may want to mail it off to colleagues now to get further interest and support. Feel free to email me with any queries but please don't post any discussion to news.groups until the RFD is "officially" posted sometime in the next seven days.

Please note that my above opinions are "separate" from the RFD for sci.misc.xtallography.

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Groups posted to :-
sci.chem, sci.engr.chem, sci.geo.geology, sci.materials, sci.misc, sci.physics, bionet.xtallography


Followup-To: news.groups


Request for Discussion (RFD) of sci.misc.xtallography (unmoderated).
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I propose a new unmoderated newsgroup called sci.misc.xtallography. The main aim of sci.misc.xtallography is to provide a forum for the discussion of topics on crystallography and related fields.

A pre-RFD has already been emailed in many of the sci.* groups and the response was very encouraging.

(Could people reading this post mention it to colleagues who might be interested and benefit from a sci.misc.xtallography group but not normally use the internet newsgroups.)


This RFD is being cross-posted to the following newsgroups :-

sci.chem, sci.engr.chem, sci.geo.geology, sci.materials, sci.misc, sci.physics, news.groups, news.announce.newsgroups, bionet.xtallography



Proposed Name of Group
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sci.misc.xtallography (unmoderated)

Purpose of New Newsgroup
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The purpose of sci.misc.xtallography is to provide a forum for anyone interested in using the "power" of the internet newsgroups to discuss (in "near real time"!) issues, results, problems and applications in crystallography that would take months and years in conventional paper journals. It would also allow non-crystallographers to find out how this field could assist their work.

Topics for discussion would include :-
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Powder diffraction (neutron/X-rays)
Single crystal diffraction
Electron diffraction
Crystal Structure determination
Structure determination
Rietveld Refinement
Software
Data formats
Databases
Hardware/Equipment - specs, alignment, opinions, etc.
Phase Identification - search match software/techniques/....
Discussion of complementary/confirmatory techniques :-
e.g.:- SEM, XRF, MicroProbe, AFM, STM, Optical Microscopy......
Applications to the fields of Mineralogy, Geology,
Physics, Chemistry, Industry
Announcements/reviews of papers/conferences.
Preparation techniques.
Non-ambient techniques (high-pressure/temperature/??)
Discussion on the accuracy/validity of various structures
and reference patterns.
General Discussion/opinions/questions.

Synchrotron radiation
Positions vacant

Crystallographic texture determination

Biological crystallography and applications

Anything else that is relevant to crystallography in general.

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Discussion of this RFD is to take place in news.groups. For those reading other newsgroups, the followup to this post should appear automatically in news.groups.

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What is the Process of Creating a Newsgroup
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Please email me if you have any queries at lachlan@dmp.csiro.au.

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