SDSS, LSST, and Gaia: Lessons and Synergies
  The advent of deep, wide, accurate, digital photometric surveys exemplified
by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) has had a profound impact on studies of
the Milky Way. In the past decade, we have transitioned from a scarcity to an
(over)abundance of precise, well calibrated, observations of stars over a large
fraction of the Galaxy. The avalanche of data will continue throughout this
decade, culminating with Gaia and LSST. This new reality will necessitate
changes in methodology, habits, and expectations both on the side of the large
survey projects as well as the astrophysics community at large. We argue, based
on the experience with SDSS, that surveys should release data as early and
often as possible incorporating incremental improvements in each subsequent
release, as opposed to holding off for a single, big, final release. The
scientific community will need to reciprocate by performing analyses and
(re-analyses) appropriate to the current fidelity of the released data,
understanding that these are continually evolving and improving products.
