It is incomprehensible that most of the bionet newsgroups are
essentially empty, except for spam. Every researcher in the world is
ready, even anxious, to discuss their field of interest, and seek help
with their current problems. We no longer have the problem with net
access that we had ten years ago. Even the most Ludite leaning,
computerphobic, lab admin can't be successful anymore in blocking access
to a hooked up PC, even for the poorest grad student. Since the
beginning of Bionet there has always been the promise of the continuous
scientific conference, where collaborators and colleauges can help each
other, and spur the rapid advance of research projects. In all this
time there has been nothing new on the net to replace the potential of
Bionet. So why then do we see little to no posting?
Here's my answer: spam. How is someone supposed to take a forum
seriously when many, sometimes most, of the messages are hawking porno,
MLM, and other unwelcomed trash and nonsense? Can you imagine the
impact on a scientific conference if a bunch of black hooded ALF
terrorists were allowed to march in and start their antics? That would
clear the hall pretty fast, don't you think? I run a fairly busy e-mail
forum, and I know the importance of keeping a low noise to information
ratio. People are always turned off by unsolicited bulk advertising,
and haven't the time, or the patience, to wade through it. It is always
disruptive, and has a huge impact on how successful the forum is in
achieving it's purpose.
The Bionet admins have always refused to do anything about cancelling
spam. They don't process the spam cancellations that they receive.
They make no effort to cancel the spam they can see right there on their
own screens. I've never understood this. It would not be a problem for
them. It is not a problem for the thousands of other news server admins
across the world. Perhaps if enough of us were to encourage them they
could at least institute the policy of processing cancels. I'm
convinced that it would go a long way toward making the bionet
newsgroups more useful.
Mike Holloway
holloway at concentric.net
