My favorite forum: Chromatography Forum

Chromatography Forum is a public discussion group where you can post questions, news, or messages of interest to chromatographers everywhere.

I have asked Tom Jupile (founder and moderator) for some factual data about the Chromatography Forum. The forum was started in May 1999 as an adjunct to the LC Resources web site, and was updated to its present format in September 2004. Nowadays, it is probably the busiest chromatography site in the world with about 250 new messages every week. The database has over 57 000 messages (plus another 14 000 or so in the pre-2005 archives), all of which can be searched by keyword.

It is truly an international site: in the past month, it had 15 000 visits from 116 countries, of which almost 2/3 were from outside the US (btw. 69 of them from the Czech Republic;).

Chromatographers: nice community

One thing has to be pointed out. More then half of the Tom’s answer is devoted to the mentality of the chromatographic community. It is nice to hear, that the group of people surrounding the 100 years old separation idea is willing to help and share the ideas, advices and thoughts.

I have been the administrator and moderator since the beginning, but apart from occasional issues with the software (and the internet service!) the amount of effort involved has been minor. Unlike other discussion groups with which I am familiar, the Forum is a remarkably civilized place, with a negligible level of sarcasm, rudeness, and “flames”.

I think this is quite a tribute to the professionalism and generosity of the “chromatography community”: as a group they show a remarkable willingness to share their expertise and knowledge. Over the ten years of the Forum’s existence, I have only ever had to “warn” perhaps a half-dozen people about inappropriate posts, and only ever banned one person. (

Tom Jupille, ChromForum.org moderator

Exactly, chromatographers are nice people!