About iraf.net

This site is a volunteer effort of the IRAF development team (aka the Former IRAF Group) in response to the NOAO decision to end community user support and major development of the IRAF system beginning in 2006. While no longer a major part of our paid job responsibilities, we remain committed to the project and see user support, and the continued participation of developers, as a critical part of any successful software system.

Since the IRAF help desk was first formed in 1986, we've received more than 28,000 questions from over 7,000 unique email addresses, resulting in a database of more than 72,000 messages to/from IRAF users. In all that time, there have been fewer than a dozen developers responsible for answering all user questions (and no more than ~4 at any one time). At its peak we responded to more than 5000 questions a year but are now down to just a few messages a day (still, about 1000 emails/year). These numbers demonstrate that IRAF still has an active user community and should underscore the continuing need for an IRAF helpdesk, and the new need for that community to now become involved and help itself.

The email database (probably some of the best reference material available) has been converted to a forum archive and is now fully searchable. Since October 1, 2005 the mail sent to iraf@noao.edu is being fed into new forums designed to replace the email-based help desk while we work to launch the site. Once formal support by NOAO ends, these forums will be the IRAF help desk for the community. We hope that by making the past email available users will be able to find answers to questions themselves, making the participation of the developers even less of a burden and permitting them to spend time on the site and other IRAF projects. On the other hand, we will be equally pleased if the forum format and the design of the website itself revitalizes users (and developers) and makes this a very active site.

Privacy Policy

Although the forums display email addresses and names from the archived email, we've done what we can to post old messages anonymously. Email adresses that remain are rendered using a technique that prevents web crawlers from picking them up so as to protect users from unwanted spam. Any user who has written us in the past and wishes to have their mail expunged from the archive should contact admin@iraf.net and we will make every effort to remove any and all past mail.

Iraf.net will never make available lists of registered users or email addresses to any third party for any reason. Users who abuse this site by posting inappropriate commercial material will be banned. Moderators reserve the right to decide what is "inappropriate" and will remove those postings when necessary.