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bfesser
Resident Wikipedian
Posts: 2114
Registered: 29-1-2008
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I know I'm pretty new around here, but I'd like to help out with this project as much as possible. I'd be willing to design a website and script up
whatever is needed and help out in any other way possible.
I'll see what I can come up with for a candidate logo.
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Duke
Harmless
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I guess I'll chime in to give further support to this idea of a HCS. Something I wanted to do myself, but if this actually works, I can help with
advertising at my university. I think it would actually attract some people.
I've never met anyone with this hobby in person and always wanted someone to work with. This seems like it will provide good opportunities for myself
and others in this situation.
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Fleaker
International Hazard
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MagicJigPipe,
I don't think we should exclude professional chemists! Don't forget that quite a few of us here are professional chemists and that what we do at home
is just a hobby continuation of what we don't have time to do at work!!
Woelen, that domain name sounds perfect. I would be willing to contribute financially to this endeavor. I think all of the videos should be on
youtube, but embedded in the site as well. Call it a ''videos'' section.
Maybe the website should cover: membership, experiments, videos, a legal section, perhaps a forum even (I too hesitate to say ''hey, link it here to
SMDB" as some of the stuff here is pretty advanced/dangerous). I agree that there should be some sort of criterion for what is posted and the
experiment MUST be replicated by another member in good standing, that way it is known that it works and is safe.
Fleaker
Neither flask nor beaker.
"Kid, you don't even know just what you don't know. "
--The Dark Lord Sauron
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woelen
Super Administrator
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Location: Netherlands
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I posted a suggestion for a logo in the logo thread. Consider it just a suggestion, nothing more, nothing less. Shoot at it, such that it can be
improved!
http://www.sciencemadness.org/talk/viewthread.php?tid=10176
I can supply any domainname of the form *.homescience.net, e.g. HCS.homescience.net, or chemistry.homescience.net. I also can supply 300 MByte of
internet storage space for a website with MySQL and PHP5 programming/scripting capabilities. I'll have to look into the technical details of that, I
am not a crack at MySQL and PHP5. If there is someone out there, who can put this to good use, then please let me know. Further details then can be
arranged by U2U. I am also willing to invest a little money in this endeavor.
I am not sure whether we should open a new forum. We have sciencemadness and to my opinion, sciencemadness is a perfect platform for home chemistry
discussions. On the HCS website, we could provide a page with interesting links, and I definitely think that one of the links at a prominent place
should be a link to sciencemadness.org.
It is a good idea that experiments must be replicated by at least one other member, before they become publicly visible on the HCS webpage. If
experiments require very special reagents, or special/hard to make equipment, then one also could use the review-mechanism and put such an experiment
in a special section of reviewed-only experiments. As soon as another member has repeated the experiment, it can be promoted as replicated experiment.
It would also be a good thing if a template is developed in which experiments can be described, such that experiment-pages all look similar. If such a
template is available, then one does not have to bother about formatting, one simply has to add text and pictures and provide links to videos, that's
all. This has the advantage of consistent look and feel all over the website and it allows us to concentrate on experiments and not on
web-development.
If we can create a nice looking portal for home chemists in a concerted effort, then that would be really great! That is the best thing I've seen in
years for home chemistry. I am not afraid of cooks and k3wls, especially if some voting mechanism is used, as I proposed in my previous post in this
thread. In that way, we have a good guarantee that no k3wl/cook crap can be entered on the website and made publicly available.
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7he3ngineer
Harmless
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Location: Perth, Western Australia
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| Quote: | | Maybe the website should cover... perhaps a forum even |
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I am not sure whether we should open a new forum. We have sciencemadness and to my opinion, sciencemadness is a perfect platform for home chemistry
discussions |
HEAR HEAR!
Anything like this should compliment SM, not take away from it.
Josh
Engineers aren\'t boring people, we\'re just interested in boring things!
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ScienceGeek
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I agree with all of you, but I also think we should aim to get the younger generation interested! In this case, SMDB could be a bit advanced...
These are my thoughts...what do you think?
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chemkid
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I'd saywe keep sciencemadness.org as an official part as the ACS if polverone would let us and then we work from there. Also we should at least start
off with a website. There's no hope of starting out by setting up chapters, may be later on once th organization is more established.
I agree that we should let in any and all interested in chemistry with the exception of energetics and drugs.
There are plenty of places to find information about energetics and if we allow energetics it will likely consume the website. I would offer my own
website however, it would be just barely temporary because of the very low memory i have on my site. (it's already a tenth full) I am willling to
start the organization on my site but i doubt it will last long there. Or one of us could start on a fresh google account.
Perhaps a wiki would work well, that way everyone could edit it and make it better.
Chemkid
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MagicJigPipe
International Hazard
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I agree. I do think the site should eventually contain a forum but it should be sufficiently different so that it doesn't compete. Hopefully, it can
be done carefully so that they compliment eachother without competition.
Perhaps the forum could only cover experiments that have been tested and replicated. Or, of course, other things to do with the organization.
My point is, I think a forum can be implemented that compliments sciencemadness if designed properly.
[Edited on 18-3-2008 by MagicJigPipe]
"There must be no barriers to freedom of inquiry ... There is no place for dogma in science. The scientist is free, and must be free to ask any
question, to doubt any assertion, to seek for any evidence, to correct any errors. ... We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it and
that the only way to detect it is to be free to inquire. And we know that as long as men are free to ask what they must, free to say what they think,
free to think what they will, freedom can never be lost, and science can never regress." -J. Robert Oppenheimer
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CyrusGrey
Hazard to Others
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Location: USA
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Mood: Oooh! Shiny!
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Perhaps instead of official chapters, we could have the senior members mark their city on one of those interactive maps (What are those things called?
with the little markers to show where members are). These would be people with atleast intermediate equipment that the newer members could contact by
email to hang out, discuss chemistry, and perhaps do some experiments together.
I think that if said senior members would hand out fliers to the chemistry teachers at their local high school/college/university so that they might
hand them out to the students, we might start to get clusters of members in those towns that can hang out together.
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ScienceGeek
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Ingenious idea! What I really need is someone to discuss chemistry with, in person!
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chemoleo
Biochemicus Energeticus
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a few thoughts
It's difficult to make that sort of thing independent from existing websites, such as this one and many countless other forums in many languages.
I'd suggest to focus such a site largely on video/photo representations, for which other platforms (i.e. utube) are more convenient. Forums
essentially saturate the market.
Didn't I recently hear that google is giving utube essentially away to developers? Anyone can use the utube platform for their own websites.
So perhaps it should be a repository of well documented vids, and photopages, for the clueless, intermediate and professional amateur.
However, not sure if this has been ressolved - a concerted effort such as this would eventually and undoubtedly draw unwanted attention - how can this
be avoided? With certain limitations as to the site's content?
Also the less effort re. the maintenance, the better, the less dependence on any given individual, the better, this way no specific person needs to
update the site regularly, and dependency relationships aka dictatorships cannot develop. It is essentially self-correcting, but of course it needs
some sort of mods to avoid spam and loonies...don't we know it all on this very site 
Advertising is indeed the problem, for better OR worse! Like sciencegeek mentions 3rd post from top, there's a huge swath of websites showing great
experiments - but noone collates these, there is no single well-known repository for links, nor any sort of rating as to their
validity. This is another thing that could be addressed.
Regardless- I think the more public such a platform is, the more limited it will become, for largely legal reasons. Unless it is strictly non-pyro and
non-hazardous and non-bioactive - but how many members here would be interested in such a place?
Never Stop to Begin, and Never Begin to Stop...
Tolerance is good. But not with the intolerant! (Wilhelm Busch)
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CyrusGrey
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Mood: Oooh! Shiny!
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Frappr maps! Thats what I was looking for.
If we start a Frappr map we could put people on it that have a bit of experience with chemistry that don't mind visitors.
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MagicJigPipe
International Hazard
Posts: 1554
Registered: 19-9-2007
Location: USA
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Okay, so we can all agree that the first step should be a website. I think the next step (to start the actual organization) is to set up a way to
accept donations. Advertising should accomplish this. People doing their part will definitely help. This will certainly be a group effort. We need
somebody with business/organizational/accounting experience to help us deal with logistics.
What we need now is a definitive plan of action.
Discussions here will help me shape the essay I'm going to write which, hopefully, will help shape the foundation of the organization. I know this
may sound cheezy but a member "constitution" or "bill of rights" sounds like something that we need and we should at least discuss what it might
contain. Any objections? Any more ideas? Let us continue!
"There must be no barriers to freedom of inquiry ... There is no place for dogma in science. The scientist is free, and must be free to ask any
question, to doubt any assertion, to seek for any evidence, to correct any errors. ... We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it and
that the only way to detect it is to be free to inquire. And we know that as long as men are free to ask what they must, free to say what they think,
free to think what they will, freedom can never be lost, and science can never regress." -J. Robert Oppenheimer
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CyrusGrey
Hazard to Others
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What exactly do you mean by a constitution and bill of rights? We don't have any way of enforcing rights or anything. I think we should have a policy
spelled out and maybe a code of conduct, is this what you mean?
I think first should be the website layout, design, logos, etc. Then we need to populate it with a bit of starting material, videos, some written
experiments, etc. While we wait for starting material we can set up donations and a frappr map to allow members to get together (There should be some
marking to show somone is somewhat experienced and willing to have guests in their home lab). Then we should set up a template on the website for an
easily printable flyer. Then I think we should have the members try and get the local chemistry teachers/professors to distribute those flyers to
their students.
For the website: Woelen has offered to host for us, and I sent him a U2U about helping with coding.
We need some people on creating some starting material. I have some beginner videos in mind, and I have a camera, so I can try and start on that. We
need other people too though.
We need a treasurer to handle the money. I think a senior member of the forum would be the most trustworthy. Of course we need something like a
president and vice president. Woelen has alredy volenteered for the website, we just need an official title for him.
[Edited on 19-3-2008 by CyrusGrey]
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MagicJigPipe
International Hazard
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Location: USA
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I agree with the idea that a senior member or moderator should handle the funds at first. I would be willing but I don't consider myself a senior
member. Also, I think the members should be able to vote on how the money is spent in a general sense and on certain important financial aspects
(I'll explain what I mean by that later).
The system, IMO, should be a democracy. Where on most important issues, the outcome is decided by an online vote. Except, of course, for minor
financial issues that would just be confusing to hold single votes on.
I suppose what I meant by constition is a set of rules and rights that cannot be changed without say, 3/4 consent of all members. That way we could
eliminate the possibility of someone making rules that the majority of members do not agree with. I think it would help with holding the organization
to it's roots and preventing it from slipping into some beuracratic hell. You know, we wouldn't want it to become, over time, something that only
supports professional chemistry. In my eyes, we should take every measure to guard against that scenario.
Woelen, do you accept your "duty" of hosting the site? If so, I (we) should oficially dub thee, Webmaster. Once the site is set up and running we
can focus on distributing flyers and increasing the member base.
So far, do we agree on the name Home Chemistry Society? If so, then I think we should try to obtain that domain name .org. Woelen, what are the
chances that you could do that provided that I/we helped you pay for the domain?
Now, I think we could post a link to this thread at the various other chemistry sites so we can get more discussions and support. Of course, there
are some things we would have to decide on and make it final.
Is the general consensus that the name the "Home Chemistry Society" is the way to go?
"There must be no barriers to freedom of inquiry ... There is no place for dogma in science. The scientist is free, and must be free to ask any
question, to doubt any assertion, to seek for any evidence, to correct any errors. ... We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it and
that the only way to detect it is to be free to inquire. And we know that as long as men are free to ask what they must, free to say what they think,
free to think what they will, freedom can never be lost, and science can never regress." -J. Robert Oppenheimer
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CyrusGrey
Hazard to Others
Posts: 123
Registered: 20-1-2007
Location: USA
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Mood: Oooh! Shiny!
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I like Home Chemistry Society, and I can't think of anything better.
I don't like the idea of bringing in people from other forums before its even started yet though. Here at Sciencemadness we have all seen eachother
post a bit on other threads so we know atleast a little more about eachother. I think the quality of people here is higher in general too. We should
post in other forums after we have a working website and a few videos.
Perhaps we should make the HCS a partially representative democracy. We could have a president who is elected say... once every 6 months. Major issues
such as where funding is spent should be voted on though.
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ScienceGeek
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I agree, especially on the "don't like the idea of bringing in people from other forums"!
Let's make it a fair and democratic society!
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CyrusGrey
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Heres another idea for leadership:
We could have a group of 5 people. Each is elected for 5 months. Each month we have an election between the contributing members for one of the
positions. If there is a majority between them then they can do something. Financial projects would need to be approved by a 2/3 vote by the
contributing members.
By contributing member I mean somone who has put effort (money would not be a criteria) into the HCS. Perhaps they work with other members in their
lab, or perhaps they have posted a few videos or experiments, or maybe something else like Woelen offering to host a website.
[Edited on 19-3-2008 by CyrusGrey]
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microcosmicus
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| Quote: |
Is the general consensus that the name the "Home Chemistry Society" is the way to go?
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I vote in favor.
As I see it the primary purposes of such an organization would be the following:
1. Publicity --- Inform the general public about home chemistry, interest people in
taking up this hobby, and replace misconceptions with accurate information.
Basically, if we convince people that there is a world of difference between a
meth shack and a proper home lab, we will have done our job.
2. Advocacy --- Do what we can to improve the situation for home chemists.
3. Service --- This organization will serve the amateur science community
by providing useful information (the videos and the experiments would be
a good example), serving as a central hub to link to other chemistry sites,
and help network home chemists.
As for fora on the new site, I would suggest migrating some of the political and societal
discussions there. Not only have these discussions been poor fit to this site, but they would
work better in a venue where they were more widely accessible to the public and coupled
to action items such as talking points and petitions. Also, there might be a forum for trading
equipment and the like (maybe even expand to an online market). As for chemistry discussions,
there already is this site, Chemical Forums, and Science Forums. Between them, they seem to
have pretty good coverage so I am not sure that making an extra forum for discussing
chemistry would add much, maybe it would suffice to refer people to these venues .
| Quote: |
Regardless- I think the more public such a platform is, the more limited it will become, for largely
legal reasons. Unless it is strictly non-pyro and non-hazardous and non-bioactive - but how many
members here would be interested in such a place?
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As I see it, the limitations of HCS and SM complement each other so it is good to have both.
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woelen
Super Administrator
Posts: 8027
Registered: 20-8-2005
Location: Netherlands
Member Is Offline
Mood: interested
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I agree with the name Home Chemistry Society for the society. The domainname www.homechemistrysociety.org is too long and does not look good. I am willing to register another domainname, but I don't write the name over here
(it happened to a friend of mine, that after writing the name on a forum, someone else took it away  ). I have another quite different, but to my opinion pleasing name in mind. For more info, please U2U and I'll let
you know. But please don't write that name over here.
I have two options. One option is to register the domainname only and redirect it to www.homescience.net. This is easily done and the cost is less than $10 per year. I am willing to pay that. If that is done, I can supply 300 MByte
webhosting with PHP5 and MySQL features, but no email under the new domain name. I then simply allow part of my own webhosting space to be used for
HCS.
Another option is to take a new bundle. A nice bundle is available for EUR 47 for the first year, and EUR 33 for all subsequent years. This bundle
incudes:
1) 1 GByte disk space
2) Unlimited data bandwidth for accessing the website
3) PHP5, ASP and MySQL support
4) Unlimited email addresses under the new domain name
5) Subdomains
I am willing to pay 50% of this as a starter and then we can see how things develop over the first year. If some other persons too are willing to
donate a small amount of money for this, then we could arrange this bigger bundle.
One thing which we definitely should not do is become a competitor of sciencemadness. We indeed should complement each other, not compete.
The HCS website also to my opinion may contain more risky experiments (e.g. energetics, poisonous compounds involved, etc.), but the risks must be
stated clearly and good guidelines for safety must be supplied. The only things, which to my opinion should not appear on the HCS website is cookery
and worked out schemas for detonating and ignition devices. But a synth of a nice energetic should be allowed. That also is part of chemistry. If only
idiot-proof experiments can be published, then it will be dull and interesting for nannies only.
The HCS should indeed be a democratic thing. Visitors of the site should be able to read everything on the site, members can upload write-ups for
experiments. But important is that write-ups only become visible for non-member visitors when approved by at least a certain number of members,
different from the person, who submits the write-up. Any member, having an approved write-up himself can approve other write-ups. In this way, in due
time, the membership who has more power than just viewing the site grows automatically, and the approval mechanism is democratic. The only point is
that at the start a certain group of members must be appointed, because initially there are no write-ups. For this appointment, we could select e.g.
10 members from sciencemadness (and not from other forums), a few young but eager starters, a few median experimenters and a few really experienced.
A final remark is that we should not try to do too much at once. Let's start small and slowly grow. If we start too fast, then initially there will be
all kinds of (over)enthusiastic initiatives, but there is a SEVERE risk of loss of activity after such an initial period of high activitiy. A slow but
steady progress can be maintained for a long time, while an initial burst soon stops when the 'new feeling' is gone after some weeks. I give this
warning, because I have seen it so many times in personal experience on my work, at university and in clubs.
So, as a start, I would suggest to first implement a good framework and template, add a nice home page, add a nice portal to other websites with
experiments and add a few really good write-ups on the site itself (using YouTube for videos) and provide links to forums like this. Once, we have a
basic setup, the next step could be to add additional things, as mentioned above.
[Edited on 19-3-08 by woelen]
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evil_lurker
National Hazard
Posts: 767
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Location: United States of Elbonia
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Mood: On the wagon again.
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I suggest using the Society of Amateur Chemists (so that the abbreviation does not get confused with ACS).
Home chemistry does not have such a pleasant ring to it, because ideally chemistry should not be practiced in the home for a variety of reasons.
There first needs to be a registration with the IRS so that it can become tax exempt, then by-laws drawn up, then finally the website and membership
applications.
The founding pillars would be:
1. Safety: The promotion of safe practices should be the number one priority any any chemical related expirimentaitons. Good saftey begins with good
chemical hygiene.
2. Hygiene: The promotion of good chemical hygiene is very important. Proper storage or reagents and disposal of chemicals goes hand in hand with
safety and responsibility.
3. Responsibility: All members should work to ensure compliance with all local, state, and federal laws.
4. Understanding: To portray amateur chemistry in a positive manner among other individuals and promote understanding as to alleviate fear.
Maybe get some nice shirts and pens and what not drawn up, start up a business that sells hard to get reagents only to members, and maybe have a
yearly convention to trade unwanted reagents and demonstrate progress on various chemical synthesis.
Not all chemicals are bad. Without chemicals such as hydrogen and oxygen, for example, there would be no way to make water, a vital ingredient in
beer.
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woelen
Super Administrator
Posts: 8027
Registered: 20-8-2005
Location: Netherlands
Member Is Offline
Mood: interested
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There is an organization, called SAS (Society of Amateur Scientists) and the name you propose easily is confused with this. Home Chemistry Society is
less easily confused with ACS, because the latter has a rather formal image. SAS and SAC both would be in the same realm and are mixed up much easier.
Reagent sale and exchange seems to be a can of worms which we should not open as a starter. All the financial and legal issues are not the thing you
want to start with. It might be an option for the future though. I have the same feeling with all those financial things like registration with the
IRS and so on.
I see it just as with starting up a forum. A new forum also can be started without all kinds of regulations. When it comes to additional activities,
such as sales of promotion material, then it becomes another thing, but should we really start with that?
Your points (1) to (4) indeed are very important. As a portal for the general public it really is important to be good-looking in all these things.
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microcosmicus
Hazard to Others
Posts: 287
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Mood: spin up
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| Quote: |
Home chemistry does not have such a pleasant ring to it, because ideally
chemistry should not be practiced in the home for a variety of reasons.
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What? Providing appropriate precautions are taken, I see no good reason
why chemistry should not be practiced at home --- after all, isn't that what
we doing here at SM?
| Quote: |
There first needs to be a registration with the IRS so that it can become tax exempt,
then by-laws drawn up, then finally the website and membership applications.
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No, you can not register with IRS until after incorporation, which means, among
other things already having bylaws drawn up and at least having those
members who will assume official leadership positions in place. I have had
quite some experience with this sort of thing from setting up PlanetMath as a
non-profit organization and working with consultants and lawyers.
As mentioned above, the first step in making the organization official is
incorporating it by filing with the commissioner of corporations in some
state (in the U.S.; differrent, but presumably analogous procedures will
hold in other countries). To incorporate, one needs to have the following
in place:
* Bylaws
* Board of trustees
* Corporate officers (president, vice president,
secretary, treasurer, perhaps others)
Then one fills out paperwork and files with the appropriate office. This typically
will mean retaining the services of a corporate lawyer. Altogether, you can expect
to pay a few thousand dollars and take a few months. Once you are incorporated,
there are then things which you are expected to do on an ongoing basis:
* Have regular board meetings
* File an annual report and reregister the corporation annually
* Have an annual membership meeting
In the case of PlanetMath, we are lucky to have a paralegal take care of our
annual report and similar things on a pro bono basis, otherwise we would be
going to the corporate lawyer on an ongoing basis.
Only once one has jumped through those hoops can one begin dealing with
the IRS. This again means filling forms, paying filing fees, and the like. In
our case, it also meant an uphill struggle with the IRS and took us the
better part of a year
While it is possible to streamline the process by registering as an organization
with no members and minimal bylaws and then ammending these later,
I would advise against skimping at this stage based upon my experience.
When PlanetMath was incorporated, we had no official members,
minimal bylaws which gave the board of directors authority over
everything because there was nobody else around, and the founder
wrote down a few people who had been involved in originally setting
up the website. This proved to be a recipe for disaster. Our board
had lost interest in being actively involved in the site but did not want
to give up or delegate power either, so we wound up with a
nerve-racking state of affairs in which members (who had no official
standing in the organization) would try to do things, propose
initiatives, initiatives, and the like but be frustrated by the board. In
the end, we had to go back to the lawyer to find out how to remove
this dysfunctional board and replace it and are still working on
fixing the situation --- in total it set us a year or more behind in our efforts
and has exacted its toll in aggravation, even to the point that
long-term members lose interest and leave.
Therefore, I would suggest that we start as an informal organization
and only incorporate later (maybe in a year or two) once we already
have a membership base, including a core of dedicated long-term
members who are willing to take on the responsibilities necessary
to make the organization not only continue but grow. As for finances,
during this initial phase, we could simply use an informal arrangement
like donations here at SM. As a first activity for the organization,
designing and maintaining a website sounds like a good choice.
However, while we may only be doing this one activity, for some time,
I think it is equally important to have a vision of what we would like this
organization to become and what sorts of other activities we would like
to be doing in the future so that we can slowly work towards these goals
and be inspired by them, even if it will require several years and much
work before these other activities start.
[Edited on 19-3-2008 by microcosmicus]
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MagicJigPipe
International Hazard
Posts: 1554
Registered: 19-9-2007
Location: USA
Member Is Offline
Mood: Suspicious
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I couldn't have said it better myself. Thanks for leaving me with nothing to say at the moment 
Next step, IMO, should be setting up a way to get donations to Woelen. I think having an intermediate "donation acceptor" would be better than just
transferring cash directly. It's not a trust issue, I just think it should be done right, you know? How can this be done?
PS If you can obtain that domain for cheap then I think we should do it if not for any other reason to have it for later. People type names like
that into the address bar sometimes when they're just curious, that way it could go to the site instead of somewhere else. Perhaps .com and .org
would be best if it's cheap.
"There must be no barriers to freedom of inquiry ... There is no place for dogma in science. The scientist is free, and must be free to ask any
question, to doubt any assertion, to seek for any evidence, to correct any errors. ... We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it and
that the only way to detect it is to be free to inquire. And we know that as long as men are free to ask what they must, free to say what they think,
free to think what they will, freedom can never be lost, and science can never regress." -J. Robert Oppenheimer
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CyrusGrey
Hazard to Others
Posts: 123
Registered: 20-1-2007
Location: USA
Member Is Offline
Mood: Oooh! Shiny!
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As far as the group name goes I have an idea. While telling several people I know about this, the conversation went something like this:
Me: "Yeah, I'm working with some members on a chemistry forum to try and make a hobby chemistry society."
Other person: "Cool, is this going to be something local?"
Me: "No its international."
Other person: *Raises eyebrows* "Oh wow, thats neat."
I think we should sneak the word "international" into the name. 
I agree that Woelen would be trustworthy as an intermediate for cash, but we should be careful about overloading him with additional responsibilities
other than that. He is already going to be hosting the website etc. I have never hosted a website, but maintenance seems like it would be a lot of
work to me. Unless of course, he says he wants to do some additional stuff.
[Edited on 19-3-2008 by CyrusGrey]
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