HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: kristoff@GENBANK.BIO.NET (Dave Kristofferson)
Newsgroups: bionet.general
Subject: Re: bionet.bionette or bionet.women ?
Date: 2 Sep 92 22:56:36 GMT
Distribution: bionet


> 3. A number of people who voted and I presume have already, or will
> shortly, subscribe to bionette, are not the usual bionet subscribers.
> Thus, if we change the name before the formation of the newgroup, we
> will need to insure that the subscribers to bionette are subscribed to
> the newsgroup as they are not likely to see any announcements over the
> network.

No problem.  Both Daresbury and GenBank can handle any requests to
subscribe to bionette and ensure that they are signed up to whatever
the final name is.

> 4. The discussion of the name change is begin done over bioforum. I
> fear that there are scientists who may have useful suggestions and
> concerns about the name but do not subscribe to bioforum. Thus, it may
> be more useful to bring this issue to the subscribers to bionette
> after it is formed.In contrast the announement and voting for the
> formation of a newsgroup is to all subscribers.

When the newsgroup is formed the directory gets created in the bionet
hierarchy on machines all around the world.  It is much better to
resolve this first instead of creating and then promptly destroying
all of these files needlessly.  If it is O.K. with you, Cassandra, I
will post an announcement to BIONEWS/bionet.announce where the call
for votes, etc., were posted and ask people to send their naming
suggestions to you for your final decision.  You can send me text for
the announcement or I'll compose it myself, whichever you prefer.

While names are important to some extent my recommendation is not to
blow this out of proportion and just see if anything clever comes in
during the next couple of days.  I personally never had a problem with
bionette and think that it is more creative than the other options
that I have seen so far.

Dave
Newsgroups: bionet.general
From: pkemp@byron.u.washington.edu (Paul Kemp)
Subject: Re: bionet.bionette or bionet.women ?
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle
Date: Fri, 4 Sep 1992 19:18:33 GMT

In article <3805@fcs280s.ncifcrf.gov> pnh@fcsparc6.ncifcrf.gov (Paul N Hengen) writes:
>samodena@csemail.cropsci.ncsu.edu (S. A. Modena) writes:
>
>una@phy.duke.edu (Una Smith) writes:
>
>>>So far, the comments are running 12 to 2 in favor of
>>>bionet.women rather than bionet.bionette.  The general
>>>feeling is that '-ette' is distasteful.
>---
>>With the exception of one open post, Una could be making those numbers up.
>>Why are there 14 offline expressions of opinions to two online?  
>
>...I trust her; don't we all?
>
>>Let's name it for what it is: bionet.apartheid......according to
>>the dictionary:  "apart" = apart   "heid" = -hood....
>
>No...not so negative. I think it should be what we want and not what
>it was in the past. How about removing the gender thing and call it:
>*** bionet.equality *** ???
>
I agree whole-heartedly...I'm aagainst a group such as bionet.bionette and 
voted NO.  I don't think the biological community will benefit by such a fracturing.  
There are other groups that could easily splinter into their own discussion
groups, disabled scientists, or afro-american scientists, both much more under-represented than women in science.
I believe that a group such as bionet.equality would bring all these under-
represented groups together in one place and would do much more to stregthen 
the BIONET as a whole.
pk


>Paul N. Hengen
>National Cancer Institute
>Frederick Cancer Research and Development Center
>Frederick, Maryland 21702-1201 USA
From: kristoff@genbank.bio.net (David Kristofferson)
Newsgroups: bionet.general
Subject: Re: bionet.bionette was voted upon, and accepted.
Date: 3 Sep 92 17:23:50 GMT
Distribution: bionet
Organization: GenBank Online Service

dan@cubmol.bio.columbia.edu (Daniel Zabetakis) writes:

>   I assume that DK and others feel an obligation to uphold thier own
>rules.

Dan,

        You may recall recently that we renamed bionet.molbio.gene-org
to bionet.molbio.gdb after only a discussion.  The request for new
names for this group is no different from that case.  Both groups were
already approved.

Dave
From: kristoff@genbank.bio.net (David Kristofferson)
Newsgroups: bionet.general
Subject: Re: maize newsgroup:
Date: 2 Sep 92 10:46:33 GMT
Organization: GenBank Online Service

The proposal for bionet.maize has generated a fair amount of
discussion (which officially ended on the 31st but I'm just getting
cleared out from under my post-vacation backlog 8-).  Looks like some
good points have been raised on both the pro and con side.

I have received a revised proposal for bionet.plants.maize (note the
name change) from Allen Wright, and I will post this shortly to
bionet.announce.  Those who favor the creation of the newsgroup should
obviously vote YES while those who think that it is premature and want
discussion to begin first on bionet.plants should vote NO.  It is not
my role nor any other individual's role to make this decision
singlehandedly.

				Sincerely,

				Dave Kristofferson
				GenBank Manager

				kristoff@genbank.bio.net


P.S. - Just about caught up on all of my mail ... should be back to
normal service sometime during the day on Wednesday.
Newsgroups: bionet.general
From: dan@cubmol.bio.columbia.edu (Daniel Zabetakis)
Subject: Re: bionet.bionette was voted upon, and accepted.
Organization: Columbia University, Dept. of Biological Sciences.
Distribution: bionet
Date: Thu, 3 Sep 1992 18:35:46 GMT

In article <Sep.3.10.23.50.1992.12611@genbank.bio.net> kristoff@genbank.bio.net (David Kristofferson) writes:
>dan@cubmol.bio.columbia.edu (Daniel Zabetakis) writes:
>
>
>        You may recall recently that we renamed bionet.molbio.gene-org
>to bionet.molbio.gdb after only a discussion.  The request for new
>names for this group is no different from that case.  Both groups were
>already approved.
>
  I didn't follow that rename. Was there opposition to it? There seems to
be much opposition to all suggestions regarding bionette.
   I can say that reorgs, even suggestions for reorgs, can degenerate into
long-term flamewars. Just wait til someone starts forging control messages :-)

   I really think that the best thing is to follow the letter of the law.
Since bionet.bionette passed, let it stand.

Danz


-- 
This article is for entertainment purposes only. Any facts, opinions,
narratives or ideas contained herein are not necessarily true, and do
not necessarily represent the views of any particular person.
From: ajt@uk.ac.sari.rri (Tony Travis)
Newsgroups: bionet.general
Subject: Re: bionet.bionette or bionet.women ?
Date: 2 Sep 92 14:04:17 GMT
Reply-To: ajt@uk.ac.sari.rri
Distribution: bionet
Organization: Rowett Research Institute
Original-To: bioforum@uk.ac.daresbury

In article <9282125555.MIN-LFHCa26691.bionet-news@uk.ac.daresbury> you write:
: [...]
: I said, I can stand any name, but I _prefer_ bionette.women.
                                                     ^^
Maybe you have hit on the solution to please everyone, Kay: We can just
rename the entire hierarchy from bionet to bionette ;-)

Seriously though, I agree with Dave's point about the purpose of
bionet.  I think that a genderless name would have been more
appropriate in the first place, actually, and something like
bionet.talk would make it clear that the group was a forum for all to
participate in (male and female) about issues of unfair treatment in
general as it relates to working biologists.  This would also allow the
issue of racial (as well as sexual) discrimination in science to be
discussed.

I described the bionette proposal as 'stupid' because I believe that
the issues it raises are a serious concern to all of us, not just
women.  I thought that the resounding silence in response to the CFD
indicated that most men reading bionet are NOT chauvinists?  On the
contrary, we want to make sure that the men who DO have victorian
attitudes to women scientists know that they are in the minority.

	Tony.

--
Dr. A.J.Travis,                       |  Tony Travis
Rowett Research Institute,            |  JANET: <ajt@uk.ac.sari.rri>
Greenburn Road, Bucksburn,            |  other: <ajt@rri.sari.ac.uk>
Aberdeen, AB2 9SB. UK.                |  phone: 0224-712751
From: ajt@uk.ac.sari.rri (Tony Travis)
Newsgroups: bionet.general
Subject: Re: Declaration of Purpose: recruiting by email
Date: 26 Aug 92 09:21:35 GMT
Reply-To: ajt@uk.ac.sari.rri
Distribution: bionet
Organization: Rowett Research Institute
Original-To: bioforum@uk.ac.daresbury

In article <92726035249.MIN-LZVAa26691.bionet-news@uk.ac.daresbury> you write:
: Fellow BioNet Telecommunicators:
: 
: [...]
: Perhaps there are parallel mailing lists in the equivalent genetics
: newsletters for soybeans, barley, tomato....to think of newsletters 
: that I personally have seen.  Whether one favors bionet.maize,
: bionet.plants.maize or bionet.plants as a forum, do you think you ought
: to become an cyber-activist in your chosen plant-related discipline 
: and encourage colleagues to tune into the bionet discussions groups,
: especially (at least) bionet.plants?

One of the most important things I hoped we could achieve with
bionet.plants is using it as a forum to make each other aware of what
else is going on in the electromic plant biology world.

So far I've got Adolf Ceska to send BEN to bionet plants and bring it
to a wider audience, and I would like to see wider distribution of
other interesting email relating to plant biology.

Jonathan Marder also promised to send things from PHOTOSYN, but I've
not seen anything appear yet.

One of the issues we discussed before creating bionet.plants was the
intention of sub-dividing it as the need arises for 'specialised'
topics.  I want to see a bionet.plants hierarchy like bionet.molbio and
I'm particularly keen to bring together people from different groups in
a cooperative way.

I said on bionet.general that I thought bionet.plants.maize was a good
idea if the traffic warrants it and the same is true of any other topic
in plant biology.  We voted to create bionet.plants when there was no
general plant.biology forum except bionet.agroforestry and a reasonable
consensus at the time was that we should sub-divide the group when the
need arose.

I (also) said, I don't think the name of a group really matters that
much (I proposed bionet.botany originally) but I think a
bionet.plants.* hierarchy (cf. bionet.molbio) has some merit in helping
potential readers find dicussions relating to plant biology.

What I hate most (and I am about to do it!) is cross-posting messages
to different groups and finding that I'm reading/replying to the same
message in different places.  What I find slightly surprising is that
bionet only really wakes up when we start to discuss network politics,
voting procedures and (red face) unsubscription problems %-}

Maybe we should vote on renaming bionet.plants bionet.maize ;-)

	Tony.

--
Dr. A.J.Travis,                       |  Tony Travis
Rowett Research Institute,            |  JANET: <ajt@uk.ac.sari.rri>
Greenburn Road, Bucksburn,            |  other: <ajt@rri.sari.ac.uk>
Aberdeen, AB2 9SB. UK.                |  phone: 0224-712751
From: klier@iscsvax.uni.edu
Newsgroups: bionet.general
Subject: Re: bionet.bionette or bionet.women ?
Date: 1 Sep 92 23:09:27 -0500
Organization: University of Northern Iowa

In article <1992Sep1.064103.3207@ncsu.edu>, samodena@csemail.cropsci.ncsu.edu (S. A. Modena) writes:
> Why are there 14 offline expressions of opinions to two online?  

Well, I didn't think it was worth wasting bandwidth.  I'm one of the people
who wrote to Una that I found "bionette" a bit cutesy, and preferred
bionet.women.  Doesn't really make a hair-ribbon's worth of difference to 
me what it's called, though.

I said the same to Dave K. when there was the slight hoo-hah earlier
about "I didn't see the proposal before the voting started" -- I
e-mailed him that I _had_ seen the proposal, and didn't find it 
worth commenting on my only objection, the name.  Mind you, I'm a plant
taxonomist, so I'm used to putting up with inappropriate names-- as
I said, I can stand any name, but I _prefer_ bionette.women.

> Wasn't the discussion period the time and place to dicuss renaming?
Dunno.  Are them the rules?  Does anyone truly care?  Does it really matter?

> Let's name it for what it is: bionet.apartheid......according to
> the dictionary:  "apart" = apart   "heid" = -hood....

Gee, I didn't catch the rule in the proposal that said "BOYS KEEP OUT".
I thought I read "to discuss subjects of interest to women in science"
or something close to that...   And some of my favorite feminists have
an XY chromosome complement.

Kay Klier    Biology Dept    UNI
Newsgroups: bionet.general
From: samodena@csemail.cropsci.ncsu.edu (S. A. Modena)
Subject: Re: more bionette stuff
Organization: Crop Science Dept., NCSU, Raleigh, NC 27695-7620
Distribution: bionet
Date: Wed, 2 Sep 1992 22:52:10 GMT

In article <25441@castle.ed.ac.uk> sarah@castle.ed.ac.uk (S.J.McQuay) writes:
........clipped some out....
>
>Why has the discussion degenerated into comments about women being set
                        ^^^^^^^^^^^
>apart from men because of the creation of a bionet.bionette group? (the
>name I favour for the resaons stated by Dave K.)  

The degenerate interpretation of "To discuss the obvious and 
and non-obvious obstacles to women in biology" is male-bashing.

Think not?  Let's look alittle farther down and see what *you* say next.

>
>The group _will_ be part of bionet.  A separate group for a particular
>discussion, not of interest to all, is the norm for all other topics,
>why is this any different?
..............
>
>Why is there any question in anyone's mind that men would not be able
                                                 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>to read the group?  Are physicists excluded from reading bionet?  Are
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^                  ^^^^^^^^      ^^^^^^^
>botanists refusing to let other people read biology.plants?  No, of
           ^^^^^^^^        ^^^^^        ^^^^
>course not.

Well, thank for your thoroughly sexist invitation to *read* bionette.
Read? But not participate?  You did repeatedly use that passive, exclusionary 
verb: "read"....not the active, freedom-loving verb: "participate."

"would not be able" ....   "excluded from"  ...... "refusing to let"  .......  
"other people" (somewhat closely related to "you people" and "your kind" ).

Jim Crow apologetics resurrected. 

If we are not one, then we are divided.......

>
>SJ
>
>Sarah J. McQuay
>Biocomputing Research Unit, University of Edinburgh, Scotland.  
>e-mail: S.J.McQuay@ed.ac.uk


Newsgroups: bionet.general
From: nmrdb@vms.macc.wisc.edu (BEVERLY SEAVEY)
Subject: Re: more bionette stuff
Organization:  University of Wisconsin Academic Computing Center
Distribution: bionet
Date:  3 SEP 92 08:24:18    

In article <1992Sep2.225210.13735@ncsu.edu>, samodena@csemail.cropsci.ncsu.edu (S. A. Modena) writes...

>In article <25441@castle.ed.ac.uk> sarah@castle.ed.ac.uk (S.J.McQuay) writes:
>.........clipped some out....
>>
> 
>>
>>The group _will_ be part of bionet.  A separate group for a particular
>>discussion, not of interest to all, is the norm for all other topics,
>>why is this any different?
>...............
>>
>>Why is there any question in anyone's mind that men would not be able
>                                                 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>>to read the group?  Are physicists excluded from reading bionet?  Are
>^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^                  ^^^^^^^^      ^^^^^^^
>>botanists refusing to let other people read biology.plants?  No, of
>           ^^^^^^^^        ^^^^^        ^^^^
>>course not.
> 
>Well, thank for your thoroughly sexist invitation to *read* bionette.
>Read? But not participate?  You did repeatedly use that passive, exclusionary 
>verb: "read"....not the active, freedom-loving verb: "participate."
> 
>"would not be able" ....   "excluded from"  ...... "refusing to let"  .......  
>"other people" (somewhat closely related to "you people" and "your kind" ).
> 
>Jim Crow apologetics resurrected. 
> 
I think this is a gross overreaction. I think Steve is reading a lot of stuff
there that just isn't there. Sara's posting was inviting and neutral. THere's
really no need to twist the meaning around. This is really silly. WHy don't
you just calm down? See what happens in the group. Read it and participate.
I haven't seen *any* one say that men would not be welcome to participate,
and I have seen several postings, from men and women, saying that men would
be welcome. I have received some fairly misguided, hostile email from someone
that either has trouble reading English or doesn't read very carefully. 
>
From: masuda@fcs280b.ncifcrf.gov (Michiaki Masuda)
Newsgroups: bionet.general
Subject: Re: bionet.bionette or bionet.women ?
Date: 4 Sep 92 19:35:47 GMT
Distribution: bionet
Organization: Frederick Cancer Research and Development Center

In article <zxmkr08.715537023@mailserv> zxmkr08@mailserv.zdv.uni-tuebingen.de (Cornelius Krasel) writes:
>
>Well, when I read the name "Bionette" the first time, I thought of something
>connected with Netiquette... I guess I would have had a look though (just
>because of curiosity) but I NEVER would have guessed the purpose of this
>newsgroup from its name.

   This is the very point that the name "bionette" is worth.
If you could guess the results of a research project easily, how much 
would you be interested in it? Being more curious than others (true?),
we scientists are attracted something more amorphous, more obscure and more
unpredictable (though sometimes curiosity kills 8-)).

   The word "bionette" with a poetic and mysterious sonance might attract
more attention and could potentially increase the number of readers and
contributors. 

   BTW, how long will this discussion on naming keep going? As a male scientist
surrounded by three female colleagues, I've been waiting for the opening day
in order to understand more of female scientists' point of view. There may be
other netters who are in real and urgent need of this kind of group, too.
Would it be possible to let this new group go before someone starts to say,
"those indecisive and irresolute attitudes of women...", "those women who
want to have it perfect from the beginning...", etc.?
       
Michiaki Masuda
Laboratory of Molecular Oncology
National Cancer Institute
Frederick, MD 21702-1201
U.S.A.
From: kristoff@GENBANK.BIO.NET (Dave Kristofferson)
Newsgroups: bionet.general
Subject: Re: Tsk, tsk ...
Date: 3 Sep 92 17:05:57 GMT
Distribution: bionet


P.S. - I worked in some pretty good labs before coming to
IntelliGenetics, e.g., Marc Kirschner's and Bob Stroud's at UCSF, yet
I still remember games of nerf basketball, etc., during incubations and
centrifuge runs in the lab.  Please don't pretend that scientists are
serious intellectuals 24 hours a day 8-).
From: pnh@fcsparc6.ncifcrf.gov (Paul N Hengen)
Newsgroups: bionet.general
Subject: Re: bionet.bionette or bionet.women ?
Summary: *** bionet.equality ***
Date: 1 Sep 92 15:23:37 GMT
Organization: Frederick Cancer Research and Development Center

samodena@csemail.cropsci.ncsu.edu (S. A. Modena) writes:

una@phy.duke.edu (Una Smith) writes:

>>So far, the comments are running 12 to 2 in favor of
>>bionet.women rather than bionet.bionette.  The general
>>feeling is that '-ette' is distasteful.
---
>With the exception of one open post, Una could be making those numbers up.
>Why are there 14 offline expressions of opinions to two online?  

...I trust her; don't we all?

>Let's name it for what it is: bionet.apartheid......according to
>the dictionary:  "apart" = apart   "heid" = -hood....

No...not so negative. I think it should be what we want and not what
it was in the past. How about removing the gender thing and call it:
*** bionet.equality *** ???

Paul N. Hengen
National Cancer Institute
Frederick Cancer Research and Development Center
Frederick, Maryland 21702-1201 USA
Newsgroups: bionet.general
From: nmrdb@vms.macc.wisc.edu (BEVERLY SEAVEY)
Subject: Re: bionet.bionette or bionet.women ?
Organization:  University of Wisconsin Academic Computing Center
Date:  3 SEP 92 08:50:18    

In article <5048@news.duke.edu>, una@phy.duke.edu (Una Smith) writes...
> 
>Several months ago, there was a long discussion on WISENET
>about how women graduate students tend not to speak up, and
>the reasons for this.  There was fairly general agreement 
>that women are not repressed by the faculty or other students,
>but rather that they silence themselves.  One measure of
>success for a woman graduate student is learning to speak
>up and participate fully in the educational process (and in
>reseach in general).  I am saddened to see evidence of the
>same phenomenon in the discussions here on bionet.   

Eek! I am a woman and I think I have taken plenty of initiative for my own 
education. (Had to, but that's another story) I generally don't post
to the bionet groups because the discussion in them generally seems
to run at a very low intellectual level. A possible exception is
the information theory group, and I had to hit "kill" quite a bit recently
when the old Monty Hall travesty popped up again. I am in the field of
computational biology and I get pretty sick of seeing just postings
about "How can I run a sequence allignment program on X computer?"
or " What can I use to visualize proteins on a MacIntosh?"  This is as
if all of biochemistry and mo bio were reduced to " WHat is your
favorite marker for labeling test tubes?" Sorry, but I don't usually
post because there isn't much of intellectual interest in these
groups for me. I *do* keep reading for the occassional useful post.
From: nmrdb@vms.macc.wisc.edu (BEVERLY SEAVEY)
Newsgroups: bionet.general
Subject: Re: bionet.bionette or bionet.women ?
Date: 31 Aug 92 23:24:23 GMT
Organization: University of Wisconsin Academic Computing Center

In article <5010@news.duke.edu>, una@phy.duke.edu (Una Smith) writes...

>So far, the comments are running 12 to 2 in favor of
>bionet.women rather than bionet.bionette.  The general
>feeling is that '-ette' is distasteful.
> 
>	Una
Absolutely! I agree.
From: clsmith@UX5.LBL.GOV (cassandra smith)
Newsgroups: bionet.general
Subject: bionet.bionette
Date: 1 Sep 92 19:45:20 GMT
Distribution: bionet

I would propose that we wait until the newsgroup is formed and take up
the question of whether the subscribers would like to change the name
and what alternative names would be appropriate at that time.

Cassandra Smith
From: jasper@vax.path.ox.ac.uk
Newsgroups: bionet.general
Subject: Re: more bionette stuff
Date: 1 Sep 92 22:21:39 GMT
Distribution: bionet
Organization: Oxford University Molecular Biology Data Centre
Nntp-Posting-User: jasper


 
> P.S. What would happen if all the men scientists asked to be subscribed
> to bionette?

and then of course there will be that huge silent majority reading though news 
and watching in wonder to see what happens......... 

and they will be of both sexes!

Of course the posting will be gender specific :) unless someone hacks the 
code to prevent this.

in amusement,    jasper