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Re: COMCIFS open meeting a Florence

I think you have chosen a good theme. One would just need to be sure 
that the Committee on Crystallographic Databases has not picked up the 
same topic for their MS (if they are thinking of organising one.)

> How can we avoid Data Frustration? 

   If you change the title to
        How can we avoid Frustration?
    I'm sure you will multiply the attendance by 100. If you need any 
illustrative material, I receive copious amounts of unsolicited e-mail 
containing just what you need or perhaps more precisely what the people 
who send this stuff think that I need!

> 2. Searching Across Databases
>       Importance of common definitions 

   It think you need something in here about metadata and the PMH 
(protocol for meta-data harvesting).

> 3. Taming the Data Generators: Synchrotrons and Neutrons
>       (Perhaps two short papers) 

   I'm not really quite sure what you have in mind here. If I follow the 
general title 'Data Frustration', the sort of complaint that I hear most 
frequently concerns the poor quality and lack of completeness of the 
information in database XYZ. Amusingly these same people seem very 
little influenced by the style and quality of the user interface to 
access the information and more concerned by its quality. CIF is an 
enabling technology for data validation and so has much to contribute to 
alleviate data frustration. Another perceived aspect of data frustration 
is one of access and in particular open access. Somehow I don't think 
that CIF and COMCIFS as such is the agency of change (progress?) in the 
'access' area.

> 5. Interfacing with Chemistry
>       CML and other chemical approaches 

   The choice of speaker is strongly influenced by the policy that the 
organising committee of IUCr 2005 takes with respect to invited speakers 
or organisers who only have an interest in attending one particular 
session. At a session on the internet that I organized for IUCr 1996, 
one of my speakers (a non-crystallographer) was local to the conference 
venue, only came for the morning of the microsymposium and was allowed 
to enter without paying any registration fee. At IUCr 2002 no matter how 
short a period one attended the conference, one could not get through 
the door without paying the full registration fee. If I mention this, it 
is because I think there are potential speakers on the above topic 
coming from the RSC (in Cambridge, UK). I see great merit in having 
someone from the chemical community coming along to tell us what is 
going on and what they expect from the crystallographers.


[I think I phrased everything sufficiently carefully to be able to send 
this message to the list.]

H.

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