Redundancy exists in BIOSCI

[Tony Travis]

macrides at edu.wfeb.sci wrote:
: [...]
: "convienient" ("comfortable," "easy") -- versus not leaving those who *truly*
: have no better alternative in the lurch.  How *does* the per user cost
: associated with joining UKNET to get a USENET feed (and all the other Internet
: services) presently compare with the *total* per user cost (not just local
: cost) of continuing email subscriptions and having a local gateway to a NEWS
: reader?  That's a very different question, with a very different set of

What?

The cost of receiving BIOSCI or other mailing lists is the cost of a
single email subscription on a channel that is already open to us. 

Several JANET sites now have Internet access via JIPS, but the debate
about re-distribution of news in the UK is an old story that I don't
think is appropriate to raise here other than to remind you that access
to the Internet is not the same thing as access to a USENET newsfeed.

: considerations, than "How can one maintain access to USENET while doing field
: research in the Amazon?" or "How can I access USENET when my institution
: cannot, or will not despite *serious* efforts, come up with the higher direct
: institutional costs of Internet?"
: 
: 	Ugh.  The more one tries to think this through (instead of doing
: "productive tasks" 8-), the more complex it seems!
: 
: 	Perhaps, within the context of this discussion and its background, our
: own case history may have some instructional value.
: 
: 	I set up an email-subscription-to-NEWS-reader local gateway system,
: as Tony is advocating, years ago here, when we had become WANers in the
: [...]

Actually, Fote, I have been careful to point out all along that
mail2news gateways are not my idea and that the comp.news.* groups have
been discussing the issue for years.

The reason I have been advocating mail2news recently is that I was
surprised that no-one else suggested it as an alternative when email
subscribers complained about the volume of traffic on BIOSCI.  Given
the diversity of people participating in BIOSCI  it would be surprising
if nobody had noticed that news software supports feeding by mail ...

The virtue of using "tin" to read mail articles as news is the same as
using tin to read Usenet news: it is a good newsreader for novice and
expert alike.  In addition to this, I find it useful to make mailing
lists that do not have equivalent news groups available via tin because
it discourages (unnecessary) duplicate subscriptions and presents a
common user interface for mailing lists and news.

The relevance of "tin" to this thread is that is is very easy to read a
LISTSERV list the same way as any other mailing list locally as news.

.... but, you already know that ;-)

	Tony.
-- 
Dr. A.J.Travis,                       |  JANET: <ajt at uk.ac.sari.rri>
Rowett Research Institute,            |  other: <ajt at rri.sari.ac.uk>
Greenburn Road, Bucksburn,            |  phone: +44 (0)224 712751
Aberdeen, AB2 9SB. UK.                |    fax: +44 (0)224 715349