Dear PLANT-BIOLOGY readers,

BIOSCI/Bionet is the long-running Biology news and discussion groups.
The management of these groups has been handled ably at MRC/Rosalind
Franklin Centre for several years now. They are turning over
management to me, Don Gilbert, at Indiana University Biology
department. The MRC/RFC folks deserve our thanks for their devotion to
maintaining this useful and unique biology news service.

Web access continues at http://www.bio.net/
Find there PLANT-BIOLOGY links to Read/Subscribe/Post messages.
E-mail postings continue to be through plantbio @ net.bio.net

This is group has no moderator, unlike most other BIOSCI groups. If
one or more among you would to like to take on this responsibility
of filtering out unwanted postings, please contact me.

The new home is at IUBio Archive, iubio.bio.indiana.edu, which I've
maintained for over 15 years. The names net.bio.net and www.bio.net,
and their related BIOSCI roles continue to work. Please keep using
these bio.net addresses, they will continue when the host computer changes.

There may be some hiccups over the coming weeks as the new BIOSCI home
gets a work out. Please bear with us, and let us know if problems
persist longer.

Regards, Don Gilbert

Biology Dept., Indiana University
Bloomington, Indiana, USA 47405
BIOSCI help mail: biosci-help @ net.bio.net
----------------------------------------------

BIOSCI Administrator wrote:
[...]
This is group has no moderator, unlike most other BIOSCI groups. If
one or more among you would to like to take on this responsibility
of filtering out unwanted postings, please contact me.
[...]

Hello, Dan.

I am one of the people responsible for the creation of bionet-plants and
I was also the discussion 'leader' until a few years ago. Unfortunately,
I no longer work in plant biology but I do still read the newsgroup from
time to time. I've always thought that the BIOSCI newsgroups are both
interesting and useful, but that they need SPAM filtering rather than
moderation.

Increasingly, people are using RSS and Blogs, and Wiki, to do the things
we once did with mailing lists because of the large amount of SPAM being
sent to lists/newsgroups like this. Good luck with your venture anyway.

Best wishes,

Tony.
--
Dr. A.J.Travis, |
Rowett Research Institute, | http://www.rri.sari.ac.uk/~ajt
Greenburn Road, Bucksburn, | phone:+44 (0)1224 712751
Aberdeen AB21 9SB, Scotland, UK. | fax:+44 (0)1224 716687

BIOSCI Administrator wrote:
[...]
This is group has no moderator, unlike most other BIOSCI groups. If
one or more among you would to like to take on this responsibility
of filtering out unwanted postings, please contact me.
[...]

Hello, Dan.

I am one of the people responsible for the creation of bionet-plants and
I was also the discussion 'leader' until a few years ago. Unfortunately,
I no longer work in plant biology but I do still read the newsgroup from
time to time. I've always thought that the BIOSCI newsgroups are both
interesting and useful, but that they need SPAM filtering rather than
moderation.

Increasingly, people are using RSS and Blogs, and Wiki, to do the things
we once did with mailing lists because of the large amount of SPAM being
sent to lists/newsgroups like this. Good luck with your venture anyway.

Best wishes,

Tony.
--
Dr. A.J.Travis, |
Rowett Research Institute, | http://www.rri.sari.ac.uk/~ajt
Greenburn Road, Bucksburn, | phone:+44 (0)1224 712751
Aberdeen AB21 9SB, Scotland, UK. | fax:+44 (0)1224 716687

Dear Tony and other Bionet/BioSci readers,

Thanks much for bringing these topics up about moderation, spam,
and other news/discussion group technology. These comments
echo others that I've heard, and it is time to discuss how to improve
bionet news groups.

Tony Travis wrote in bionet-plants:
Subject: BIOSCI/Bionet has a new home

I am one of the people responsible for the creation of bionet-plants ..
I've always thought that the BIOSCI newsgroups are both
interesting and useful, but that they need SPAM filtering rather than
moderation.

Increasingly, people are using RSS and Blogs, and Wiki, to do the things
we once did with mailing lists because of the large amount of SPAM being
sent to lists/newsgroups like this. ...

The 'moderation' status of Bionet groups has more to do with
spam-reduction today than controlling discussions. Bionet groups have
been undergoing automated spam-filtering for several years, since the
MRC-UK home or before. But spam filtering can only be applied to
moderated newsgroups, due to the mechanics how Usenet works.

All the new web-based methods (Wiki, RSS, ...) are useful and offer
good choices for biology discussion and news. They however are not
spam-immune. These new methods are now recieving spammer's attention
and have growing problems similar to Usenet and e-mail lists.

Spam has damaged use of Bionet/BIOSCI groups greatly, though newer
web-only choices and other factors have also contributed to making it
less compelling than 10 years ago.

One of the continuing values of BIOSCI/Bionet I think is its widely
distributed public nature. Many people learn of these biology
discussion groups via Usenet distribution or from the established
scientists who have used Bionet over several years.

I've taken over the task of Bionet administration to maintain and if
possible improve its value for public biology research discussions. Good spam
filtering is a first priority. I'm proposing for discussion that we
convert all of the active, but non-moderated groups into moderated
ones, to eliminate spam. This also requires human moderator(s), as
spam filters are not perfect. These can be a group of people, to
spread the effort around.

These groups are unmoderated, and appear active:
ag-forst bionet.agroforestry Agroforestry research.
bioforum bionet.general General BIOSCI discussion.
cellbiol bionet.cellbiol Cell biology research.
fluorpro bionet.molbio.proteins.fluorescent Fluorescent proteins and bioluminescence
immuno bionet.immunology Research in immunology.
jrnlnote bionet.journals.note Advice on dealing with journals in biology.
methods bionet.molbio.methds-reagnts Requests for information and lab reagents.
microbio bionet.microbiology The science and profession of microbiology.
molmodel bionet.molec-model Physical and chemical aspects of molecular model..
neur-sci bionet.neuroscience Research issues in the neurosciences.
plantbio bionet.plants Research into plant biology.
proteins bionet.molbio.proteins Research on proteins and protein databases.
wantjob bionet.jobs.wanted Requests for employment in the biological sciences.
x-plor bionet.software.x-plor X-PLOR software for 3D macromolecular structure det..

These groups are seeking new moderators:
audiolog bionet.audiology Research on audiology and hearing science
biochrom bionet.genome.chromosomes Mapping/sequencing of eucaryote chromosomes
biojobs bionet.jobs.offered Job openings in the biological sciences.
btk-mca bionet.metabolic-reg Kinetics and thermodynamics at the cellular level
comp-bio bionet.biology.computational Computer and mathematical applications
gen-link bionet.molbio.gene-linkage Research into genetic linkage analysis
mycology bionet.mycology Research on mycology
staden bionet.software.staden The Staden molecular sequence analysis software
virology bionet.virology Research into virology.
womenbio bionet.women-in-bio Discussion of issues related to women in biology

Some of these are little used, and may be better discontinued
as bionet groups, depending on comments.

There are good reasons that many of you know for non-moderation:
unfettered, rapid distribution of new messages. When the chore of
moderation falls on one person, it will eventually weary anyone, and
discussion can go silent.

It is feasible and recommended that any group have several moderators
who have a continuing interest in the group, to avoid this. It is also
feasbile for Bionet groups to join a common pool that the same group
of moderators oversee (again mainly as human spam filters).

Here is the charter for BIOSCI/Bionet that has been in place for
many years now:

BIOSCI/Bionet is a set of electronic communication forums - the bionet
USENET newsgroups and parallel e-mail lists - used by biological
scientists worldwide. No fees are charged for the service.

BIOSCI promotes communication between professionals in the biological
sciences. All postings to the newsgroups should be made in that
spirit. While the general public may "listen in" to the discussions,
these newsgroups are intended primarily for communications between
researchers. There are other forums on Usenet such as sci.bio.misc for
the asking and answering of biological questions from lay persons.

It is probably a good time to weed out the un-used groups, and those
that have strayed from bio-sciences discussion. There is a longer list
here of of groups that are active and defunct:
http://www.bio.net/BIOSCI-group-status.html

The bionet.general / bioforum group would be a good place to
continue this discussion.

-- Don Gilbert


--
-- d.gilbert--bioinformatics--indiana-u--bloomington-in-47405
-- /