BTK-MCA/metabolic-reg

[Una Smith]

I wrote:

>> John Wood's description of this mailing list sounds virtually identical
>> to many of the long-running discussions in bionet.info-theory.  I suggest
>> that the current subscribers join bionet.info-theory rather than creating
>> yet another newsgroup.

David Fell replied:

>Una Smith's proposition strikes me as [a fallacy]: information theory
>discusses these topics, therefore these topics are information theory.

Don't confuse a thing's name with what goes on in the name of that thing!

I did not say "information theory discusses" but the *people* in the
newsgroup bionet.info-theory often do discuss (or try to) biochemistry
and other aspects of cell function.  It is a rather theoretical group,
and I think it would benefit from the attention of more experimentalists.
Why shut ourselves off into the narrowest possible groups?  I'd like to
suggest that the metabolic regulations folks join bionet.info-theory,
which contrary to the past few weeks generally doesn't have that much
traffic.  A new group could be created at a later date, when and if it
becomes apparent that there is sufficient interest and participation to
support a separate group.

Usenet newsgroups, including the bionet ones, are distributed to thousands
of sites, and therefore are not efficient distribution mechanisms for 
groups that have very small readerships.  I think it is important to 
evaluate this cost when deciding how to vote about the creation of a new
group.
-- 

      Una Smith      Department of Biology       smith-una at yale.edu
                     Yale University
                     New Haven, CT  06511