[iaufwg] Call for vote on editorial issue

[Arnold Rots]

As another ex-radio astronomer, I'll fess up that I was in favor of
retaining the phrase, but my reasoning was that users might wonder
whether any such cases might actually exist; the reference to random
groups (however obscure to most people) would confirm the existence of
such applications.
However, I have no problem with the majority decision, as most do not
seem to share this view.

I had been away for a few days, so I missed all the exciting emails,
but thought that, for the record, this confessino might be helpful.

Cheers,

  - Arnold

Clive Page wrote:
> Mark
> 
> I don't understand why such a tiny issue is generating so much heat and so 
> little light.
> 
> Bill isn't the only one who thought that the reference to random groups was 
> undesirable: I do too.  Having an informal vote on the issue seems a good way to 
> resolve it.
> 
> Perhaps I can point out that I'm an ex-radio-astronomer who has spent at least 
> 20 years writing software to handle FITS files, but I have never encountered a 
> FITS file with the random groups structure, and I suspect I'm not alone in that. 
>   Random groups is clearly deprecated in the standard.  For those who need to 
> know, there's a whole chapter devoted to it, but it seems to me undesirable to 
> refer to it in the rest of the document unless it's absolutely necessary.
> 
> We want to make our documents as clear as possible, and my feeling is that this 
> document will be clearer without using as an example a deprecated structure of 
> which most people have no knowledge.   But if the majority think otherwise, them 
> I'm happy to abide by the vote: after all it is a pretty trivial issue.
> 
> Regards
> 
> -- 
> Clive Page
> Dept of Physics & Astronomy,
> University of Leicester,
> Leicester, LE1 7RH,  U.K.
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> 
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Arnold H. Rots                                Chandra X-ray Science Center
Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory                tel:  +1 617 496 7701
60 Garden Street, MS 67                              fax:  +1 617 495 7356
Cambridge, MA 02138                             arots at head.cfa.harvard.edu
USA                                     http://hea-www.harvard.edu/~arots/
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