User:Cedric/astrowikification

Wikimbad, as a super-simbad wiki, with second-level information, all automatic, free, for professionals.

Thoughts
Some not-so-random, wiki-like thoughts about wiki, VSOP and observational astronomy in general.

First, one thing I've learn at ESO/Chile: VLT observations are industrial. Fits production is industrial. Fits archival is industrial. Ok, I don't know where I'm heading at here, but just to say. Astronomical data production is just enormous. It's scientific assessement is however extremely slow, human, and complex.

Wiki technology is natural, as in "naturalistic". Wikipedia's success is revealing something, maybe how people think and imagine knowledge. Knowledge is wiki-like, even more than web-like. I mean that knowledge is not organised really like internet, with (hyper)links between words and images, and sensations. It is a too static view of how knowledge works. Wikipedia is also revealing that most of the time, most of the people are just honnest. And that they can share a large goal without knowing each other. It's not always perfect, and it's not always without problems, but look, globally, it works extremely well.

I think knowledge is much more wiki-like: i.e. not only with hyperlinks, but where external information modify the existing content. Moreover, the last version is the best in wiki, assuming total absence of vandalism of course. Immediate and easy information updating is the wiki.

Now, in astronomy, we have Simbad. Simbad is an essential tool, but is only "web-like" and not much "wiki-like" of course. Last version of information is not there, not immediate, since it must go through publication first. And no one can directly modify Simbad information.

Simbad provides a wealth of links to relevant information.\, not only current information, but also old information. There are identifiable catalogues. Thousands of catalogues as astronomers like. But catalogues are extremely hard to read, and to access. So Simbad can be thought as a simple interface to catalogues for basic information (coordinates, magnitude and so on...).

What if we introduce a Simbad-like wiki? (Wimbad? :-) Isn't VSOP a wiki-like super-simbad prototype?

Just imagine an enormouse wiki site, where each star has its own wikipage, where registered people can act. Just imagine an enormous wiki site accepting automatic submission of reduced data (like spectra) with basic automatic informations of 2-nd level, like abundances and variability types?... Isn't it we we start with VSOP in some sense?

I mean, we are producing enormous amount of data, but we these data are extremely under-used, because they are often used in an optimized way. For instance: have an idea, make a proposal, got time, got data, reduce it, think about it, publish, make available. It is extrenely slow, and your spectra are just for you and your colleagues.

Ah, of course, there is archive, like ESO's or MAST. But archive give you data with 2 problems: (1) it is raw data, (2) it is "only" data. So of course Simbad or NED can give you more basic infos. But what if we think about 2-nd level informations, like abundances, for stars, logg Teff, but industrialy provided. Of course, we might imagine that different method give different results, but either give both, or just accept that there is some uncertainty. For more general-purpose work, it is by far enough, no?

Just imagine an enormous wiki site, where registered professional astronomers can update information, and a wiki site that accepted publication-quality reduced data made with local and dedicated pipeline, and then processed by industrial 2-nd level information software, like abundance analysis, all automatically. Of course, this is possible if the wiki is scriptable, which is one of the most amazing feature of this MediaWiki. Imagine a wiki site for all professional astronomers, who can submit there data, there work themselves.

One problem is that the data we get for instance in VSOP belong to a given program, associated with given people. If we make auotmatic process of data and automatically uploaded to the wiki, then it does not "belong" really to the proposers. But we could imagine large-scale general-purpose programs where information is for everyone, immediately. Imagine a switch in P2PP where you allow the resulting OB result to be automatically processed and uploaded to the wiki.

In summary:
 * Simbad/NED are essential, but very static, not easily updatable, has no data, but provides zillions of useful links. Very much web-like.
 * Data archives are essential, but very basic, providing only data (the rest is provided by Simbad/NED), and raw data (have fun to reduce and analyze yourself).
 * Both are actually providing 1-st level information.
 * Astronomy will continue to produce more astronomical data at an enormous and growing rate (which BTW implies that variability studies will become more and more possible).
 * More and more softwares, even not perfect, are developed for large-scale missions such as GAIA. They can produce industrial 2nd-level information.
 * A scriptable, professional, wiki-like website storing automatically-submitted reduced data and updated informnation would maybe fill a need?

'''Check PLoS ONE! here.''' For publications. Interesting, but IMHO, it is just taking blog-fashion-like comment feature to scientific articles.