kristoff@GENBANK.BIO.NET (Dave Kristofferson) (09/21/90)
> My understanding of bionet is that it's a melange of newsgroups, > bboards, mailing lists, notesfiles, etc. Each type of media has its own > constraints and traditions. While I sort of feel that while it's a good > thing to get the word out in as many fora (plural of forum?) as possible, I > can't help but think that the conflicting media just don't mesh very well. > Many of the messages I see on the bionet newsgroups appear to be > unconnected, or somehow disembodied, almost as if I'm not hearing all of a > conversation. I wonder how much of that is because of media mismatches. I > barely understand how it's all pieced together (and that's what I do for a > living), so how can Joe Biologist be expected to deal with it all? Roy, Because there are various powers in DC right now that are debating the future of biological computing, especially as it impacts the Genome Project, I am always senstitive to these kinds of postings because they are fodder for people who want to tear things down without taking the time to understand why they developed into their current state. Although I know that this is not your intent, your casual remark might be wrongly seized upon by others. I believe that it is extremely important that these points be clearly understood since there is always a tendency in science for "someone who knows better and can do it right" to slander past efforts by spreading misinformation. The net result is often that the hubris of the new group leads them to rediscover the problems that were already tackled by the previous group. The biggest losers turn out to be the ***end users*** who are deprived of a system that works, despite its obvious (but explanable) flaws, and left with another operation that winds up reinventing the wheel ... only to find out to their embarrassment what they could have learned if there had been an open and honest exchange of views in the first place. Unfortunately in turf battles openness is a rare commodity. These newsgroups have always been dear to my heart because they are an antidote to "politics as usual." You are correct that BIOSCI is an amalgam of USENET groups and mailing lists on Internet, BITNET, EARN, and JANET. There is a very good reason for that and the complexity need not concern "Joe Biologist" (that much maligned whipping boy ... someday someone is going to have to start giving him/her some credit). All "Joe" need keep handy to use the system is the list of newsgroup addresses at his/her regional BIOSCI node. Beyond that the rest of the network complexities may be ignored, but I will explain below why they exist. The reason is simply to attain BIOSCI's goal of widespread international coverage *now*, not 10 years from now when "everyone will have a workstation on their desk." Were we to cut out mail and use only USENET you can rest assured that the reach of the newsgroups would be so severely limited as to render them completely ineffective. A large number of sites still depend only on e-mail access and will continue to do so for some time. You may or may not be aware, however, that the European members of BIOSCI that are participating in EMBNet, the networking effort centered at the EMBL and designed to help share sequence data and information in Europe, are actively moving towards adopting the USENET model (primarily using the public domain package ANU-News on VAX systems at present). This is obviously going to take some time still, but we are left with the obvious choice: do we cleave the users into those using mail and those using news software or do we use a certain degree of chewing gum and bailing wire during this transition period to keep them together. If one's goal is to produce a beautiful technoloigcal structure, then one will decide to keep them separate. If one's goal is to get ***people to talk to each other*** via electronic channels, then one tries to weld the systems together and evolve towards something better as technology becomes more widespread. Our choice at BIOSCI has been obvious. You might be interested to know that during my survey of BIONEWS usage earlier this year, many JANET users in the U.K. were only able to respond to my queries in the U.S. by using the BIOSCI relay addresses set up at the BIOSCI SERC Daresbury lab. If we did not have the mailing machanism in place there, a good part of the U.K. would have been completely unable to respond. USENET alone would have been useless. The same is true for the hundreds of scientists on BITNET in the U.S. Do we leave these people out in the cold too? Or do we opt for purity and just let the people on BITNET stick with LISTSERV software which handles news by sending out mass mailings? BIOSCI has successfully combined all of these services (and it has not been without its headaches which most of the readers never see). Not only that, it has been one of the most community-spirited international collaborations that I have seen in science. The BIOSCI node at University College Dublin runs LISTSERV software on an IBM mainframe and services users all over Europe (and other parts of the world) who are on EARN (the European counterpart of BITNET) as well as at other BITNET sites. Unfortunately LISTSERV does not follow every mailing standard used on the Internet, and this causes some incompatibilities, BUT THESE PROBLEMS ARE TRULY INSIGNIFICANT COMPARED TO THE VASTLY GREATER GOOD that we achieved through the expanded coverage. There is, of course, another solution, and that would be to base the entire system solely on mailing lists like LISTSERV. USENET news software, however, is a superior method of keeping network traffic down, saving on disk space by keeping only a single copy of a message at each computer site for common access, and error checking for bounced messages. (This is not, of course, to say that LISTSERV has no features to its advantage.) I know that Roy knows this but am expanding on these points for the benefit of others. The BIOSCI node at the Unversity of Uppsala is already on the Internet and is using USENET style news software. Mats Sundvall there among others is heading the EMBnet effort to upgrade the systems at other EMBnet nodes to this standard. Nonetheless U. Uppsala as well as all other BIOSCI nodes must still rely on a parallel e-mail distribution system for other computer users in their regions that do not have news software. I already mentioned the critical role that SERC Daresbury plays in keeping U.K. users on JANET connected to the rest of the BIOSCI network. JANET has yet another set of network standards to deal with and one should not underestimate the value that this BIOSCI node brings to the whole. SERC Daresbury is also an EMBNet node and will be involved in the ANU-News effort according to my latest information on EMBNet progress. Finally there is our group at GenBank which came out of the former BIONET Computer Resource. We handle the routing of messages between the mail distributions at all four nodes and the USENET groups. If you are having any problems with USENET you should direct them to us currently (biosci@genbank.bio.net). Longer term we hope to have everyone migrate to the USENET model. At that point (reminds me of the communist utopia at times), there will no longer be BIOSCI nodes. All that will be needed are the newsgroups themselves which will be co-equal at all sites that particpate. The mail will "just wither away." Whether we ever reach that goal or not could be long debated. I have other more pressing things to get on with at the moment. However, as I said above, decisions in these areas should be made on full information and not on off the cuff comments complaining about how complicated things are. This does not mean that we are closed to suggestions for further improvements. We hope that our service is the best that we can provide, and we have excellent experts in mail systems, LISTSERV, and USENET systems among the BIOSCI managers. However, many of these people do volunteer their time from other projects and things can sometimes be overlooked as a result. We will always respond to constructive suggestions and continue to upgrade BIOSCI as capabilities improve. Please remember the obvious though. The latest technology and the best solution will always be the least widespread. I have seen the unfortunate effects of ignoring this obvious point in the past. The enthusiasm of experts usually needs some tempering by reality. -- Sincerely, Dave Kristofferson GenBank Manager kristoff@genbank.bio.net