From owner-btk-mca@hgmp.mrc.ac.uk Thu Jun 19 09:32:09 2003 Return-Path: X-Original-To: btk-mca-outgoing Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by mercury.hgmp.mrc.ac.uk (Postfix) with SMTP id 0208B7D131 for ; Thu, 19 Jun 2003 09:32:09 +0100 (BST) X-Original-To: btk-mca-list@hgmp.mrc.ac.uk Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by mercury.hgmp.mrc.ac.uk (Postfix) with ESMTP id 885E07D169 for ; Thu, 19 Jun 2003 09:32:08 +0100 (BST) Received: from niobium.hgmp.mrc.ac.uk (niobium [193.62.192.41]) by mercury.hgmp.mrc.ac.uk (Postfix) with ESMTP id 95F547D131 for ; Thu, 19 Jun 2003 09:32:07 +0100 (BST) Received: (from news@localhost) by niobium.hgmp.mrc.ac.uk (8.11.6+Sun/8.8.8) id h5J8W6B08619 for btk-mca-list@hgmp.mrc.ac.uk; Thu, 19 Jun 2003 09:32:06 +0100 (BST) X-Authentication-Warning: niobium.hgmp.mrc.ac.uk: news set sender to using -f From: gwilliam@hgmp.mrc.ac.uk (Gary Williams) X-Newsgroups: bionet.metabolic-reg Subject: Re: Moderation of this newsgroup Date: Thu, 19 Jun 2003 08:32:06 +0000 (UTC) Organization: UK HGMP Resource Centre Lines: 49 Message-ID: References: <3EEF3A9F.29132.18E107A@localhost> <0001HW.BB16A16A000B3AF4F0182600@news.demon.co.uk> X-Complaints-To: news@net.bio.net To: btk-mca@hgmp.mrc.ac.uk Sender: owner-btk-mca@hgmp.mrc.ac.uk Precedence: bulk In article <0001HW.BB16A16A000B3AF4F0182600@news.demon.co.uk>, Simon Dobbs wrote: >I am unsure about this- on demon's newserver there has been virtually no >traffic on this group for the past two years, exept the odd spam (one every >fortnight or so, which shows it is still working), which really amounts to >nothing compared with other groups. I agree, and hope that there may be >renewed interest in metabolic regulation, which maybe stimulated by Peter >Rich's recent essay in nature, but as yet we are hardly inundated with >information - is the initiator of this thread trying some sort of >'pre-emptive strike" in order to attain some sort of control of the heirarchy >or a kind of respectability due to moderation of a number of groups (sorry- >that sounds pretty paranoid!). >as i see it this group is almost dead, and certainly doesn't need moderation. > > >apologies for appearing negative > Many of the bionet.* newsgroups are poorly used. I believe that this is caused both by lack of moderation and the consequent high levels of spam in recent years, and by lack of education about the existance and possible uses of these network groups. We can (and the HGMP does!) educate people about these newsgroups in our bioininformatics introductory courses, and BioSci (http://www.bio.net/) are trying to get as many of the groups moderated as possible in order to remove the spam. As a member of the HGMP that hosts the BioSci newsgroups I have volunteered to moderate many of these groups. I have received some thanks in the past from users of other groups for moderating them (Thanks Rodger and James!) and a passing nod of thanks from the Director of my unit for doing this. I certainly would welcome some respect for doing this, but I don't expect it :-) I hope that this group will not remain moribund forever, but the use of this group is something that only the members of the community of people reading this can do something about. If you all lurk forever, then this group will remain unused! Moderation will not hurt, and it might help. Gary Gary Williams Tel: +44 1223 494522 Fax: +44 1223 494512 mailto:G.Williams@hgmp.mrc.ac.uk http://www.hgmp.mrc.ac.uk/ Bioinformatics, MRC HGMP, Hinxton, Cambridge, CB10 1SB, UK .