The history of variable-star catalogues is a kind of permanent crisis due to wrong decisions (Argelander's system of designating variable stars using letters; the attempt of the 'Astronomische Gesellschaft' to issue catalogues every year; the tradition of globular-cluster variables kept outside the general catalogue; etc.). Now we are facing a new crisis, mainly because of the great flow of data from automatic surveys, and should not make new mistakes, especially serious ones.