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Australasian regional FITS committee - AusFITS

From: <Mark.Calabretta_at_email.protected>
Date: Fri, 13 Aug 2004 14:51:49 +1000

On Wed 2004/07/07 09:47:12 +1000, Mark Calabretta wrote
in a message to: dbarnes_at_physics.<!--nospam-->unimelb.edu.au
and copied to: Wim Brouw <wbrouw_at_atnf.<!--nospam-->csiro.au>,
      Jeremy Bailey <jab_at_aaoepp.<!--nospam-->aao.GOV.AU>,
      Brian Schmidt <brian_at_mso.<!--nospam-->anu.edu.au>

>>is your plan to provide a mailing list for our regional
>>FITS committee? I think this would be helpful so then

>Yes, but let's wait till it's official, then I'll also try harder to
>drum up some more members.

Greetings, it's now official! (see below). The mailing list is

   AusFITS_at_atnf.<!--nospam-->csiro.au

and the archive is accessible via an unadvertised link:

   http://www.atnf.csiro.au/~mcalabre/AusFITS.html

Cheers, Mark

>>>

The archive of the IAUFWG mailing list is publically accessible at

   http://listmgr.cv.nrao.edu/pipermail/iaufwg/

Date: Mon, 09 Aug 2004 15:39:51 -0400 (Tue 05:39 EST)
From: William Pence <William.D.Pence_at_nasa.<!--nospam-->gov>
To: IAU-FWG <iaufwg_at_nrao.<!--nospam-->edu>
Subject: [iaufwg] FITS Voting Results

Dear IAU FITS Working Group members:

I'm pleased to report that everyone has voted in a timely manner on the 2
FITS proposals, despite it being the middle of the vacation season for many
of us, and the results are as follows:

1. Resolution to endorse the FITS MIME-type proposal:

        22-Yes, 0-No, 0-Abstain

2. Proposal for an Australia/New Zealand regional FITS committee:

        19-Yes, 1-No, 2-Abstain
        (90.9% non-abstaining votes, 95% of which are 'Yes').

Both vote tallies far exceed the required 3/4 majority, therefore both
proposals are approved by the IAU FITS Working Group and take effect
immediately. (Also note that the 'No' vote for the 2nd proposal does not
cause the automatic 6-month delay in the proceedings because this vote was
on an internal procedural issue, not a FITS standards issue). I plan to
post an announcement of these results on sci.astro.fits/FITSBITS very shortly.

In the interests of providing full transparency of the voting process I list
below the date and time stamps (in your local time zone) for the three email
messages that cast a 'No' or 'Abstain' vote:

     No: 2004-07-23T11:53:27
     Abstain: 2004-07-23T10:54:11
     Abstain: 2004-07-27T11:53:23

As was suggested by Preben Grosbol, these timestamps allow those of you who
did not vote in the affirmative to verify that your vote was recorded
correctly. (If you no longer have a copy of your email vote message, I can
'bounce' a copy back to you).

Regarding the FITS MIME type proposal, the next step will be for the authors
of the proposal to submit it to the appropriate Internet regulatory
authorities for approval as an Internet standard. Note that our vote to
endorse the FITS MIME type proposal does NOT make it an Internet standard;
that authority rests with the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and the
Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA).

Regarding the new Australia/New Zealand regional committee, first, I think
it is clear from the discussion that preceded the vote that the few 'No' and
'Abstain' votes should not be interpreted as a desire to exclude this
particular geographic region and instead reflects some dissatisfaction with
the whole concept of having any region committees at all. This issue will
likely receive more attention at about the time of the next IAU meeting in
2006 when Commission 5 will again need to review and justify the continuing
existence of all of it's Working Groups.

Mark Calabretta has agreed to organize the Australia/New Zealand Regional
FITS committee and serve as it's first chairman. As such Mark will become a
member of the IAU FITS Working Group Executive Committee along with the
other Regional committee chair persons. Finally, while it is not the role
of the IAU FITS Working Group to approve or disapprove the membership on
this new regional committee, I think it is fair to say that we encourage
Mark to strive for as wide a representation as possible, including diverse
geographic regions and organizations within both countries.

regards,
Bill
-- 
____________________________________________________________________
Dr. William Pence                          William.D.Pence_at_nasa.<!--nospam-->gov
NASA/GSFC Code 662         HEASARC         +1-301-286-4599 (voice)
Greenbelt MD 20771                         +1-301-286-1684 (fax)
Received on 2004-08-13 14:52:02