From: Larry Klaes (lklaes@bbn.com)
Date: Mon Nov 01 1999 - 09:21:16 MST
From: David Woolley <david@djwhome.demon.co.uk>
Subject: SETI sci.astro.seti newsgroup created
To: seti@sni.net
Date: Fri, 29 Oct 1999 08:31:17 +0100 (BST)
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL25]
Sender: owner-seti@lists.csn.net
The sci.astro.seti newsgroup has been created, although I have some
fear that it will attract the same rec. and comp. material as
alt.sci.seti. alt.sci.seti still has more on topic SETI material
than this list, even though it is only 2 or 3%.
This is the charter from the first Call for Votes (the creation control
message didn't make it to the office because the office ISP has a 50% loss
rate on their news feed) - note that USENET voting rules meant it was
not possible report the CFV to this list before the end of the voting:
RATIONALE: sci.astro.seti
The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) is the scientific
discipline of searching for electromagnetic evidence of
extraterrestrial civilizations. SETI has received a lot of attention
recently due to the SETI@home project. The SETI@home project has
shown that at least several hundred thousand individuals are willing
to dedicate computer resources to the search for alien radio signals.
This has brought an increase in the amount of discussion of SETI and
the possibilities of extra-terrestrial intelligence (ETI). Which has
increased the number of posts about SETI in related newsgroups
(sci.astro, etc.) by a large amount.
The SETI@home project is a distributed computing project which
harnesses the computing power of hundreds of thousands of Internet
connected computers to search for radio evidence of extraterrestrial
civilizations. It is the newest and most public SETI project to date.
Currently it has attracted almost a million people willing to donate
computer time to this search. However, SETI@home is not the only SETI
project, nor will it be the last new one. Several SETI projects are
on the drawing board (1HT, etc.) and many of them will require as much
or more computing power as the SETI@home project uses currently. It
would be surprising if none of these new SETI programs use the
distributed computing model that has allowed SETI@home to harness
computing power equivalent to multi-million dollar super-computers for
very low costs.
This newsgroup will serve as a forum for discussion of SETI in
general, and any SETI projects in specific. This includes discussion
of SETI@home, both it's scientific aspects, as well as the use,
configuration, and troubleshooting of the SETI@home client software
and any similar software by future SETI projects. Additionally, it
will serve as a place to discuss the technical specifics of all
current and future SETI projects, and as a place for teachers who are
developing curricula around SETI projects (such as SETI@home).
CHARTER: sci.astro.seti
This group will be unmoderated and distributed worldwide. This
newsgroup is intended for the discussion of the Search for
Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence.
Appropriate topics for discussion include the following:
1) Discussion of SETI projects (such as SERINDIP, Phoenix,
SETI@home, BETA, ARGUS, etc.)
2) Installation and configuration of the SETI@home client
or other SETI projects using distributed computing.
3) Trouble shooting the use of the SETI client programs.
4) The possibilities of Alien life (Drake equation, planetary
abundance and its relavance to SETI, etc.)
5) Discussion of statistical results for SETI projects.
6) The potential content of alien messages and how to decode
them, as well as any messages we (humans) have / will /
could send into space that are intended for ETI's (such as
the Voyager record, the Arecibo message to M13, the Encounter
2001 project, etc.)
7) Potential alien technology in the context of detection /
communication by / with humans (using visible light lasers
instead of radio, for example).
8) Discussion of school curricula built around a SETI
program
Inappropriate posts include:
1) Commercial advertisements of any kind, including those for
items related to SETI or any SETI project.
2) Binaries, with the exception of cryptographic signatures.
3) Discussions concerning UFOs, "alien abductions", etc,
which should take place in other groups.
END CHARTER.
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