mjb1@mbcr.cam.ac.uk (Martin Bishop) (11/07/90)
The proposal to set up a bulletin board for human chromosome 22 is interesting. This would provide a more continuous form of interaction than the single chromosome workshops which are being funded by various agencies. My worry is that there are 24 human chromosomes and that we may be asked to vote on each one separately according to whether the chromosome chairperson is a bulletin board user or not. Would it not be best to get a consensus from human chromosome chairs as to having a single board for all chromosomes or 24 boards and voting once on the lot?
kristoff@genbank.bio.net (David Kristofferson) (11/07/90)
> Would it not be best to get a consensus from human chromosome chairs as to > having a single board for all chromosomes or 24 boards and voting > once on the lot? Martin, BIOSCI is only responding to proposals that we receive. It is not in our charter to orchestrate these types of issues. However I intend to agree with the other responder to your posting that the delay involved in trying to get universal coordination here would probably be prohibitive. The chromosome 22 newsgroup will be interesting if for no other reason than to see if researchers in that area adopt this mode of communication. If it is successful, then a larger effort involving other chromosomes might be warranted. I don't see this becoming a tower of Babel overnight at the rate these things typically evolve. I will also point out that BIOSCI has maintained the GENOMIC-ORGANIZATION newsgroup (GENE-ORG on BITNET/EARN and bionet.molbio.gene-org on USENET) for quite some time. I have occasionally been inclined to suggest that we shut that group down due to lack of use, but have refrained from doing so under the hope that it could be used as a general group such as you suggested. At one point I almost thought I had a couple of well-qualified moderators for it but that dried up unfortunately. I also suggested this to the Chromosome 22 folks, but they had enough people in their circle that they wanted to have a more specific newsgroup. Up until recently I was under the impression that the BIOSCI newsgroups were more useful from the standpoint of sharing experimental methods than for discussing scientific concepts, but I am happy to have been proven wrong by the population biology community on POPULATION-BIOLOGY (POP-BIO, bionet.population-bio). This group has been very active for the last month now after a "critical mass" was finally achieved. The result has been very impressive. Given sufficient patience, I remain optimistic that the same thing will happen on these other genome-related groups. Consider this message, then, as an open invitation to workers concentrating on other chromosomes to use the GENOMIC-ORGANIZATION newsgroup if one wants to get up and running quickly. However, if other groups want to organize individual newsgroups, we will be happy to put their proposals out to vote under our usual set of regulations. -- Sincerely, Dave Kristofferson GenBank Manager kristoff@genbank.bio.net
overt@antony (Christian Overton) (11/07/90)
In article <mbua.7936.9011061700@uk.ac.cam.mbcr>, mjb1@mbcr (Martin Bishop) writes: >The proposal to set up a bulletin board for human chromosome 22 is interesting. >This would provide a more continuous form of interaction than the single >chromosome workshops which are being funded by various agencies. >My worry is that there are 24 human chromosomes and that we may be asked to >vote on each one separately according to whether the chromosome chairperson >is a bulletin board user or not. >Would it not be best to get a consensus from human chromosome chairs as to >having a single board for all chromosomes or 24 boards and voting >once on the lot? I am posting the following for Dr. Emanuel, Chairman for Chromosome 22: =================================================================================== A group of researchers working on chromosome 22 met last April at a Chromosome 22 workshop. It was decided by that group that some sort of newsletter would be quite useful. The biggest problem with such a newsletter was how to circulate it to interested parties, and there really was not a volunteer for that effort. An electronic bulletin board would serve that purpose and would not require that someone take the total responsibility for disseminating the information. I think that if the other single chromosome communities want to start such a bulletin board it would be reasonable. This would be a place to pass out information regarding STS development, mapping information etc. It might not be terribly useful to get all chromosomes on the same bulletin board. Also, if we wait until all of the chromosome chairs sign on, it might take too long to get it up and running. I would like to see some get started and see what kind of usage they get and how useful they are perceived as being. Beverly S. Emanuel, Chairman for Chromosome 22 =================================================================================== -- +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | G. Christian Overton || Telephone: (215) 648-2420 | | Center for Advanced Information Technology || Internet: overt@prc.unisys.com | | Unisys || FAX: (215) 648-2288 |