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The BIONET.MICROBIOLOGY FAQ
V 3.2
July 11, 1997
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This is version 3.2 of the BIONET.MICROBIOLOGY FAQ (frequently asked
questions). This FAQ is largely compiled from suggestions and input
from
participants in the MICROBIOLOGY news group. There is always more
that can be
added, and I do appreciate additions, info, suggestions, criticism of
interest
to the microbiology community. Please send all submissions to
mlatterich at aim.salk.edu with Micro FAQ as subject header.
New versions of this FAQ will be posted once a month to
BIONET.MICROBIOLOGY,
as close to the beginning of the month as humanly possible.
The FAQ is organized as follows:
I. What is bionet.microbiology
II. How to access bionet.microbiology
III. How to retrieve old articles
IV. How and what to post in bionet.microbiology
V. Actual frequently asked questions
VI. Miscellaneous
I. WHAT IS BIONET.MICROBIOLOGY
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bionet.microbiology is an internet news group aimed at the discussion
and
information exchange of any relevant microbiological topic. The news
group is
in the bionet sector and is accessible to subscription via electronic
mail
and/or directly from news servers carrying the bionet newsgroups.
The news group, bionet.microbiology, is intended as a forum for
scientific
discussions and questions regarding all aspects of the microbiological
sciences. Topics ranging from the microorganisms9 biochemistry,
evolution,
genetics, host-parasite relationships, molecular biology, pathology,
physiology, role in biotechnology, role in pathogenesis, taxonomy to
the
teaching of microbiology will be covered.
In addition, the news group will allow announcements of meetings,
funding
sources and job opportunities, a collection of practical advice,
methodologies
specific to the field of microbiology, a list of frequently asked
questions,
including but not limited to common techniques, experimental
approaches to
reoccurring problems, the "to-knows" about microbes and pointers to
other
information sources.
II. HOW TO ACCESS BIONET.MICROBIOLOGY
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The news group is in the bionet sector and is accessible from your
local news
server (NNTP server), assuming it carries the bionet newsgroups. You
also can
subscribe to bionet.microbiology via electronic mail.
1) Access by NNTP server
The news group is accessible as bionet.microbiology by NNTP servers
carrying
bionet newsgroups. If your NNTP server does not have
bionet.microbiology, it
is likely that your local news administrator has overlooked this news
group.
Please contact your local news administrator concerning the addition
of this
news group to your local news server (see below).
2) Access by e-mail
Everyone in the AMERICAS and the PACIFIC RIM who has no access to a
news
server and wishes to subscribe to bionet.microbiology can send an
e-mail to:
biosci-server at net.bio.net
with the following text in the body of the message:
subscribe microbio
If you are located in EUROPE, AFRICA, OR CENTRAL ASIA and wish to
subscribe to bionet.microbiology, send an e-mail to:
MXT at dl.ac.uk
with the following text in the body of the message:
SUB bionet-news.bionet.microbiology
3) General BIOSCI/bionet information
If you like to know more about e-mail subscription and other bionet.*
newsgroups and are located in the AMERICAS or the PACIFIC RIM, send
an e-mail
from your account to:
biosci-server at net.bio.net
with
info usinfo
in the body of your message. If you like to know more about e-mail
subscription and other bionet.* newsgroups and are located in Europe,
Africa
or Asia, send an e-mail from your account to:
biosci-server at net.bio.net
with
info ukinfo
in the body of your message.
You will receive a file with instructions of how to access the
bionet.*
newsgroups and furthermore find pointers to other useful information.
Dave
Kristofferson, the BIOSCI/bionet Manager, and others have done an
excellent
job in compiling a list of helpful information which are 3a must2 to
everybody
not familiar with the internet and netnews. This BIOSCI/bionet FAQ
will cover
all aspects concerning access to newsgroups, subscription,
cancellation of
subscription, how to post articles, what to post and not to post, how
to reply
to posts. I strongly recommend everyone not yet familiar with netnews
and e-
mail subscription to take a few minutes to familiarize themselves
with the
BIOSCI/bionet FAQ document. The FAQ can be retrieved by sending an
e-mail to:
biosci-server at net.bio.net
with
info faq
in the body of your message.
III. HOW TO RETRIEVE OLD ARTICLES
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1) Access of bionet.microbiology archives by anonymous FTP and gopher
Archives for bionet.microbiology can be accessed by anonymous FTP at
net.bio.net [134.172.2.69] in the pub/BIOSCI/MICROBIOLOGY directory.
Note that
files are ordered by date, and that the filenames are case sensitive.
The same archived files are accessible via Gopher using net.bio.net
as your
gopher server. Gopher also allows you to view the individual messages
within
each monthly archive file. The files are in the MICROBIOLOGY
directory. Please
see the BIOSCI/bionet faq for details (see above).
IV. HOW AND WHAT TO POST IN BIONET.MICROBIOLOGY
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Any message or post concerning microbiology, it9s sub disciplines, or
any
aspect of interest to the microbiology community are welcome in this
news
group, provided they are scientific in nature or are of scientific
interest.
Some technical guidelines to posting messages to the bionet
newsgroups are
described in the BIOSCI/bionet faq (see above), and anybody not
certain of how
and what to post should become familiar with the document.
If you like to post to the news group with your favorite news reader,
please
follow the instructions of your news reader of how to post an article.
If you like to post to the news group by e-mail, and are located in
the
AMERICAS or the PACIFIC RIM, send an e-mail from your account to:
microbio at net.bio.net
If you like to post to the news group by e-mail, and are located in
Europe,
Africa or Asia, send an e-mail from your account to:
microbio at daresbury.ac.uk
V. ACTUAL FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
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1.) bionet.microbiology is not on my NNTP server ?
Give an updated version of the so called checkgroup-message to your
news
system administrator to update your current list of newsgroups.
The message is posted to bionet.announce on the first of
each month and is available for retrieval at any time from
net.bio.net via FTP, gopher, and Mosaic:
2) How to deal with inappropriate and/or offensive posts ?
BIONET.MICROBIOLOGY is not moderated, meaning that every post made to
that
news group will be distributed to all recipients, irrespective of
content.
The advantages are speed and lack of censorship ;-). The obvious
disadvantage
is that anybody can make an inappropriate or in the worst case even
offensive
post. While I as discussion leader will make any effort to educate in
private individuals who posted letters to the news group that do not
belong
there, or as it happened recently take action against individuals
that are
guilty of gross violations of news policy (spamming) resulting in the
termination of internet access for that party, readers will still be
able to
read inappropriate or offensive posts. My humble advice is to delete
such
messages where the header suggests that they may be offensive and not
read it
at all because the message content can be disturbing. The only
alternative is
to have BIONET.MICROBIOLOGY moderated (and even moderated newsgroups
are not
fool proof) which involves a lot of work for the moderator, and
certainly will
slow the information flow.
Having said the above, I personally do not think that our news group
has
seen to much inappropriateness. I very much favor the idea to have an
unmoderated news group because in my opinion moderation will bring
along some
low level censorship (dependent on the moderator of course) which is
inhibitory to the free and uninhibited information flow in any field.
3) What is the policy on Flame-Wars ?
Flames (a letter meant to insult or provoke) have become somewhat
popular even
among scientists. While the BIONET.MICROBIOLOGY news group
encourages free
expression of opinion and even the unconventional opinion, freedom of
expression has it9s limits when it obviously interferes with the
rights of
another individual. I strongly encourage people to use their common
sense
when making a post, and not post anything that others might find
offensive or
worse, with the intend to downplay an opponent.
4) Do I need permission to post here ?
No, anyone is free to post here as long as the post is of scientific
interest,
and as long as it does not represent a commercial ad or flame.
VI. MISCELLANEOUS
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This FAQ reaches a size which is no longer convenient to post to the
news
group in one piece. I may set up a WEB page containing links to other
sites of microbiological interest and delete this information in
future
editions of the FAQ.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
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Thanks to Dave Kristofferson and the bionetters for compiling an
excellent
and comprehensive BIOSCI/bionet faq, which served as the basis to the
technical subscription information in this MICROBIOLOGY FAQ in
sections II.
and III. Thanks to Mark Pallen for creating an HTML version of this
FAQ. Also
many thanks to Keith Robinson, Harvard University, for much
information on
internet resources and Jim Graham, Indiana, for contributing Barbara
Bachman's
E. coli culture collection information, and last but not least to
Meta Kuehn
for running the journal club (yes there is one if people would submit
articles
of interest ;-) ) and the informal microbiology discussion group.
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More information is always welcome. Please mail your suggestions,
criticism
and information to
mlatterich at aim.salk.edu
Martin Latterich, PhD
bionet.microbiology Discussion Leader
The Salk Institute
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