From owner-btk-mca@hgmp.mrc.ac.uk Thu Feb 21 14:19:44 2002 Return-Path: Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by mercury.hgmp.mrc.ac.uk (Postfix) with ESMTP id 52BA517ACF for ; Thu, 21 Feb 2002 14:19:43 +0000 (GMT) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by mercury.hgmp.mrc.ac.uk (Postfix) with ESMTP id 79FE217AD6 for ; Thu, 21 Feb 2002 14:19:38 +0000 (GMT) Received: from niobium.hgmp.mrc.ac.uk (niobium [193.62.192.41]) by mercury.hgmp.mrc.ac.uk (Postfix) with ESMTP id BC10D17ACF for ; Thu, 21 Feb 2002 14:19:36 +0000 (GMT) Received: (from news@localhost) by niobium.hgmp.mrc.ac.uk (8.9.3+Sun/8.8.8) id OAA18116 for btk-mca-list@hgmp.mrc.ac.uk; Thu, 21 Feb 2002 14:17:20 GMT X-Authentication-Warning: niobium.hgmp.mrc.ac.uk: news set sender to using -f Message-ID: <3C7501B0.F17532E0@biokin.com> Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2002 06:18:24 -0800 From: Petr Kuzmic Organization: BioKin Ltd. X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.79 [en] (WinNT; U) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Newsgroups: bionet.metabolic-reg Subject: Re: moderation References: <3C7402FA.BB62216D@biokin.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 60 X-Complaints-To: abuse@prserv.net To: btk-mca@hgmp.mrc.ac.uk Sender: owner-btk-mca@hgmp.mrc.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Len Pattenden wrote: > [...] > The ones I run can be web-based or can e-mail directly to your > work/home e-mail account account. Ie, you don't need to ever visit the > website if you like, it's just like a massive e-mail forwarding service. [...] > Like I said I'll do it if people want, but last time I offered people > seemed reluctant to change or at most gave a lack-luster response, so I > didn't bother. As far as lackluster response, I do believe (as I said here before) that there is a very general trend in continually decreasing Usenet utilization. Even the groups that are still very active are much less so than they were three or five years ago. Some of it has to do with many ISPs no longer providing Usenet. For example my local dial-up ISP does have Usenet, but it regularly updates only about 1000 groups or so in the alt.* family, and it only catches every 10th message or so in the bionet.* tree. Posting to bionet.* through my local ISP does not work at all. Local University accounts only have Usenet dial-up access through Telnet / command line to a Unix account, which conveniently eliminates receiving pornographic images and other binary attachments. The bottom line is, the Usenet technology is less available and, on the other hand, alternatives such as general search engines improved dramatically. A good searcher can find useful things very quickly through Google these days. --- Another thing that might have changed over the last five years or so (in broad sense) are biological sciences. I believe that a group of people interested in discussing *metabolic regulation* ('metabolic-reg') could have greater success in attracting participants if the discussion broadened quite a bit from the current focus. It seems to me that, historically, this has been more-or-less a 'BTK-MCA' (bio-thermo-kinetics / Metabolic Control Analysis) group. I believe that MCA is only one formalism among *many* possible approaches to metabolic regulations and related issues, such as *mechanistic* analysis of biochemical kinetic data. Maybe I just don't understand enough MCA, but the fact that *mechanisms* are ignored as part of that formalism makes it not a very attractive topic of discussion. Long story short, I suggest that if there is any new discussion group being formed on 'groups.yahoo.com', the scope is very much broadened such that it includes a variety of approaches to understanding metabolic regulation. From my own perspective, *mechanistic* approaches are always on the top of my list. - Petr ------------------------------------------------------- P e t r K u z m i c, Ph. D. * BioKin Ltd. 1652 S. Grand Ave. * Suite 337 * Pullman, WA 99163 509.334.4131 * 509.332.3493 fax * http://www.biokin.com .