Subject: Free Encyclopedia of Comput. Chem. ?

From: Didier MATHIEU <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 03 Aug 1999 10:16:05 +0200

Hello everybody,

addicted to internet and more specially to the CCL for a couple of years
I enjoy getting free information and software this way. I noted that
many subscribers use Linux, are looking for or annoucing free
software... However, a kind of stuff that does not appear to be widely
available for free are encyclopedias.

I realize that it may be almost impossible to set up a general-purpose
encyclopedia this way because of the need to avoid patented material,
but in a specialized field such as computational chemistry, it might be
possible unless there are some legal barriers I am unaware of. Therefore
I wouldn't be surprised to heard about such an encyclopedia. Does
anybody knows about such a project ?

Otherwise, I wonder what CCLers think of the idea of developping an
Encyclopedia of Computational Chemistry on the basis of volunteer
contributions as for Linux ? To me it seems a priori that a high quality
might require a "cathedral-style" development with the content
well-planified in advance, however the wealth of good free softwave
available suggests the opposite. In addition the rate of advancement of
the field probably make it hard to design an encyclopedia in the
standard way (I am considering buying the Encyclopedia of Computational
Chemistry published by Wiley).

The main question may be whether many people are ready to write
contributions or trust such information which didn't go through a
standard refereing process. According to me it would be conceivable to
design "trust indexes" calculated from readers's responses and collect
their comments as done for books on the site of the Amazon.com online
bookshop.

In the long-run, such an online encyclopedia should be useful to those
working in industrial plants only anecdotically involved in the field,
who are the only computational chemist in their lab and have to get an
overview of many subfields according to the needs of their colleagues
and customers, ...like me. Hence it would be a gift of academics to
industry...-)

Best regards.

--
Didier MATHIEU
CEA - Le Ripault, BP 16
37260 Monts (France)
Tel. 33(0)2.47.34.41.85