Using a sigma cutoff in refinement is almost always a bad idea. It appears that some people still use them. The problem is that sigma cutoffs almost always improve R-factors, because it increases the denominator in the error/average equation. Some people incorrectly think that the reduced R-factor means that the cutoff was an improvement in the structure quality. The result of a sigma cutoff is that the R-factor can be made to look better than it really is. I think that this should be prevented by never excluding any R-free reflections by any sort of cutoff criteria. That keeps the R-free value unbiased. If culling R-free is required for proper error analysis, or just because the culled data are almost certainly bogus values, then the un-culled R-free could be a separate value. Now days, most people use a sigma cutoff of zero, so it is normally not a big problem. However, it appears that PHENIX still throws out many reflections where Fobs==0, which can be a significant fraction in the last shell with anisotropic data. Unfortunately, the exclusion of weak reflections depends on how amplitudes were derived. If using CCP4 Truncate, those weak reflections will be inflated a bit to a non-zero value, and a zero-sigma cutoff will have a significantly different affect. Therefore, I think that the default should be to use reflections with Fobs==0, with SigFobs > 0 as the criterion for non-absent reflections in reflection files without a missing number flag (i.e. CNS format). Joe Krahn