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IERS Message No. 58                                           June 15, 2004
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IERS Conventions Center: New discussion forum and web site.

The IERS Conventions center has developed a Discussion Forum and a new web
and ftp site for the IERS Conventions, on a server at the BIPM.

1) The user discussion forum tai.bipm.org/iers/forum
is open for users to offer their comments, criticism, and suggestions
regarding the update of the IERS Conventions. It is organized in
themes following the present structure of the IERS Conventions (2003).

To post a contribution it is necessary to be registered.
Registration is a very simple procedure. It is only necessary to provide
a login_name and password, and a valid e-mail address. It is recommended
that the login_name be representative of your real name because
the login_name is used to identify the authors of contributions.

Reading the contributions is open and anonymous.

A number of contributions have been posted in advance of the public 
opening by Jim Ray in order to stimulate discussions. Responses and new 
contributions are welcome.

2) The new ftp site tai.bipm.org/iers has two directories:
* tai.bipm.org/iers/conv2003 is a mirror of the usual ftp site
  maia.usno.navy.mil/conv2003 containing all files of the 
  Conventions (2003) (Note that as of June 4, 2004 the pdf files of the 
  chapters have not been updated on the USNO site).
* tai.bipm.org/iers/convupdt is used to store material relative to
  future updates of the IERS Conventions.

3) The new web site tai.bipm.org/iers has two main pages:
* tai.bipm.org/iers/conv2003/conv2003.html which ultimately points
  to the material of the Conventions (2003).
* tai.bipm.org/iers/convupdt/convupdt.html which is used for 
  Conventions updates.
It is planned to save all the information on successive updates
incrementing in the pages of each chapter. See an example version in
tai.bipm.org/iers/convupdt/convupdt_c5.html

Gérard Petit and Dennis D. McCarthy
IERS Conventions Center


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