IMCA Insights – March 2009
IMCA & The Encyclopedia of Meteorites
by Norbert Classen
Dear IMCA Members, Dear
EoM Users, Dear
Readers,
Most of you know the "Encyclopedia
of Meteorites" (EoM), a website originally created by former IMCA
Board Member Pierre-Marie Pelé - a fantastic online database and
resource with information on each and every meteorite, and with many
pictures provided by the nearly 1300 registered EoM users. Besides
that, the EoM provides its registered users with a most powerful tool to
manage their collections online, and to share pictures and information
with other users. Pierre-Marie's concept was so successful that even the
Meteoritical Society decided to use the EoM as a picture database for
their
Meteoritical Bulletin Database - whenever you search for a certain
meteorite in the MetBull database you will also find links to pictures
of the respective meteorite hosted on EoM, of course, including the
proper copyrights of the person(s) who provided pictures to the EoM
database.
Like many other people, the IMCA Board of Directors was very concerned
when Pierre-Marie Pelé announced on the MeteoriteCentral List that he
was about to auction off the EoM for personal reasons. Pierre-Marie
wrote: "My new work doesn't allow me to keep working on EoM website as I
would like to. I can't make the updates and make new features available.
So I'm selling my domain name encyclopedia-of-meteorites.com and of
course the account and the complete website. That's the only way for the
website to be continued and updated."
To make a long story short: The IMCA Board of Directors decided to put
a bid into the silent auction, hoping that we would be able to
continue Pierre-Marie's great work to the benefit of all parties
involved. And on February 1, 2009, we were informed that we were
actually the high bidder. So yes, the rumor is true - the IMCA is the
new owner of the Encyclopedia of Meteorites, and we intend to continue
the work of the site, and all prior cooperation such as with the
Meteoritical Society and the MetBull Database in the spirit of
Pierre-Marie Pelé, the original creator and inventor of the EoM.
We received a few emails by concerned EoM users, and it also came to our
attention that there has been some discussion about this subject on
various platforms and mailing lists. To answer most of these questions
once and for all:
- Yes, we will keep
the EoM open to the public, and its use won't be restricted to IMCA
Members
- Yes, the EoM will
remain a FREE resource, and we are NOT intending to charge anything
for its use or for registration
- Yes, we will keep
the links to the MetBull Database, and we will continue the
cooperation with the Meteoritical Society
- Yes, your data are
safe on EoM - we even increased the security of the site, and we are
doing our best to keep it a safe place and to the highest standards
of internet security
- Only the members
of our EoM Committee have access to the data stored in the backend
of EoM; this is currently two people (see below)
- So, no, your data
won't be accessible to IMCA dealers or third parties, and we are NOT
intending to sell, use or abuse any of your data
- Our mission -
authenticity and proper, ethical business practices - extends to the
EoM, and so there's no reason to worry
- If you removed
your data from EoM due to the change of ownership, feel free to load
them up again - the EoM needs you, and your data
- If you have any
other concerns regarding IMCA & EoM, please contact us at
questions@imca.cc and we'll
get back to you, ASAP.
We formed an EoM
Committee, chaired by IMCA Board Member Sergey Vasiliev, and we would
like to thank him for his time and his programming skills to keep the
EoM secure. Sergey is already working on a new MSSQL database that will
eventually replace the old MS Access database
- something that will provide the EoM users with a more stable database
and a faster performance of the site. It will also
allow us faster updates and new features that will be announced in time.
This is a huge pile of work, and so please be patient - it will be done,
but it sure takes time.
In the meantime, the second EoM Committee member, IMCA member Bob Falls,
will do his best to keep the good old EoM updated. Thanks to Bob for
volunteering for this important task - we wouldn't know what to do
without your help.
Having said that, we are always looking for computer-savvy volunteers to
help us with our various web-projects - so if you have time and
experience with html-programming and/or the content management system
Joomla, we are still looking for people to help us with the development
of our homepage www.imca.cc,
and other IMCA projects to be announced soon.
All the best,
Norbert Classen
President IMCA Inc.
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