🚀 go-pugleaf

I have had a couple of e-mail queries from bionet.* readers asking
me to explain about the sci.bio.* hierarchy.  So here is a short
blurb on each group.  Note:  I am not in any way in charge of them;
each newsgroup is an independent entity made up of the people who
read and post to them, especially the dedicated, hard-working list
administrators/moderators.  I merely helped some of them get going.

List admins:  please correct me if you spot any errors.  Perhaps



sci.bio	-- The sci.bio newsgroup has been around since before the
	"Great Renaming" a decade ago.  No one is even nominally
	in charge.  There is no gated mailing list, and (to my
	knowledge) no archive.  It is an unmoderated, open forum
	for non-biologists to discuss biological topics.  It is
	the most widely read of any biology forum in Usenet, and
	it generally has the most traffic.  Quite a few biologists
	read the newsgroup and respond to technical queries from
	readers.  Sci.bio serves a valuable function as a place
	where non-biologists can discuss biology without annoying
	the biologists who prefer the more technical newsgroups
	in the sci.bio.* and bionet.*. hiearchies.
	
sci.bio.ecology -- This newsgroup is gated to ECOLOG-L, a mailing
	list of over 1400 subscribers, nominally sponsored by the
	Ecological Society of America.  ECOLOG-L is run by David
	Inouye, a specialist on pollination biology, via listserv@
	umdd.umd.edu.  Dr. Inouye filters the mailing list to catch
	mis-directed subscription requests and off-topic articles; 
	the newsgroup is not moderated.  Archived on the host site
	via LISTSERV, which supports full-text searches by e-mail.

sci.bio.ethology -- Gated to the ETHOLOGY mailing list, run by Jarmo
	Saarikko, an animal behaviorist, via listserv@searn.sunet.se,
	for the discussion of animal behavior and behavioral ecology.
	This list has a strong european contingent.  Not moderated.
	Archived on the host site via LISTSERV.

sci.bio.evolution -- Gated to the EVOLUTION mailing list, run by
	Josh Hayes, a marine biologist, via evolution-request@
	pogo.cqs.washington.edu.  To discourage the permanent debate
	about evolution vs creationism from moving from talk.origins
	into this newsgroup, Dr. Hayes moderates it.  The newsgroup
	is archived on sunsite.unc.edu, in the Ecology and Evolution
	section, where it can be searched and read via gopher.

sci.bio.herp -- Gated to the HERP-L mailing list, run by Michael
	Eisen, an herpetologist, via listproc@xtal220.harvard.edu.
	This newsgroup is named to complement rec.pets.herp, and
	to provide a forum for the technical discussion of the
	natural history and biology of reptiles and amphibians in
	the wild.  Not moderated.  Archived on the host site via
	LISTPROC (?).
	
sci.bio.technology -- Gated to the BIOTECH mailing list, run by
	Dan Jacobs, via listserv@umdd.umd.edu.  It is moderated,
	and has over 500 subscribers.  This was one of the first
	LISTSERV mailing lists to have a gateway to the Usenet
	"mainstream".  Archived on the host site via LISTSERV.


-- 
	Una Smith			smith-una@yale.edu

Department of Biology, Yale University, New Haven, CT  06520-8104  USA