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Re: skils recommendations

OK, I will be a pain in the ass on this for a short time only, then give
up if I'm the only one.
 
> The CFHTLS is intended to create a new "facility" unique
> to the CFHT community to help address that situation over the next
> five years.
 
Redefining a survey to be a facility seems a little fanciful to me.
Let's call it what it is.
 
> Best to do this now, if ever.
 
Agreed.
 
> It would be quite
> embarassing to increase the prop time after the survey started.
 
I think it's embarrassing to think we have to do it now.
 
> A
> large coherent data release, as proposed by the MSWG at about the
> third year mark, would be a good thing for everyone.
 
So we're taking the Sloan model for our inspiration... god help us.
 
> The prop time
> could always be decreased midway through.
 
Agreed.
 
Out of curiosity, who is a Canadian in this model? What if you've got a
Canadian passport but are a postdoc at a US institution, aiming never to
return to the mother ship? What if your Dad is a Canadian but you've
never lived here? What if you've got an Italian passport but are a
postdoc at CITA for a year... do you get data rights forever then, or
just for the year you were at CITA? What if a Canadian student does her
thesis project at UBC on the data but then goes to Caltech and wants to
continue her involvement by working with people there? What if....
 
It gets complicated quickly when the data release timescale is of order
a postdoc or PhD timescale, and when the intention is to exclude good
people that would work with Canadians to everybody's benefit in order to
take pressure off of student PhD timescales. If we're seriously thinking
of a 3 year proprietary period then I guess we:

(a) have to suck it up and actually have a big honking document like the
SDSS guys do defining who has data rights in 100 pages of detail, and
 
(b) will have no reason to complain if the next HDF or SIRTF-style
legacy program excludes us. How would Canadian PhD students benefit then?
 
I'm in favor of laissez-faire and common sense in terms of ensuring
students don't get scooped, and just try to go for the global maximum
science benefit. We've got ourselves pretty well organized and have
enough money from NSERC that we've got no excuse not to do a tremendous
job with the survey data regardless of proprietary time restrictions.
 
Bob
 
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