Not making someone miss out on science

I feel bad to miss everyone's talks and posters at the IAU conference because I had to stand outside the door for two weeks, but I thank everyone who came to see my presentation on the double peaks and a new gap in the periods of planets that depend so much on iron abundance. I have come every day for two weeks to join in a conference with my colleagues, only to be kept out because being completely unemployed I don't even have my own money to pay for the registration fee.

The bigger issue is that science community must develop procedures collaborating groups to bring back into the group someone who has been randomly kept out by their organization. I have been kept “out the door” not just from one observatory but also from the larger collaborations such as Kepler that I had worked so hard to prepare LCOGT to join. Groups must not tolerate having authors keeping out someone because their organization lacks internal protections. I published my request for groups to “Go around the observatory” (http://arxiv.org/pdf/1309.3283.pdf). Paper authors should either find an alternative way to bring in someone being ostracized by another author or require that author to not ostracize any important contributors. Papers must not be considered to have undergone peer review if someone with a significant part has been kept out. Ethics statements that say all those who have contributed “intellectually” must be amended to disallow using not talking to or sharing data with a target of ostracism to contrive claims that an unwanted person has not contributed “intellectually.” I challenge the credibility of papers where author participation has been contrived to keep me from continuing my contributions.

I have been literally outside the door from writing papers just as much as I have been kept standing outside the door of the IAU conference with no way, not even using my own salary, to pay the registration fee. This has been because of being kept out of doing the science I planned for our LCOGT group to do.

By standing outside, I have demonstrated the importance of requiring procedures that protect inclusivity. I am showing the importance of being able to question keeping people out, and my disappointment at being pressured to cover up and not challenge the authority of those who stopped me from finishing LCOGT photometry.

I participated the best I could in the IAU conference just as I have tried hard to not be stopped from working with the groups I helped LCOGT join. I hope to start a discussion on not being a part of keeping someone out, even if that someone has been a part of another institution.

It is awkward to be inclusive when one author does not want to include another person, but being inclusive means not going along with keeping someone else out. This includes bringing in someone that another author's organization wants kept out.