CALL FOR VOTES: BIO-SRS/bionet.software.srs

[BIOSCI Administrator]

Voting is now open on the following proposal to create the mailing
list & newsgroup

BIO-SRS/bionet.software.srs

No changes were made to the charter after the discussion period.

*** NOTE *** We are often running several votes for other newsgroups,
so please be certain to follow the voting directions *carefully*!  If
you just send in a message saying "YES" or "NO" it will not be counted
if it is not clear which proposal you are responding to.

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Proposal to establish BIO-SRS/bionet.software.srs

Proposed USENET name:           bionet.software.srs

Proposed Mailing list name:     BIO-SRS

Proposed e-mail addresses:      bio-srs at net.bio.net
                                bio-srs at daresbury.ac.uk

Discussion Leaders:             Thure Etzold, EMBL Heidelberg
                                  etzold at embl-heidelberg.de
                                Reinhard Doelz, Biozentrum Basel
                                  doelz at comp.bioz.unibas.ch
Purpose: 
         Provide support and discussion for maintainers and users of 
         SRS-based software packages. This includes servers based on
         WorldWideWeb as well as local installations and the defini-
         tion of new database connections into the SRS database net-
         work via suitable tools as provided with the software.

Charter: 
         Announce, and  inform  on, new  achievements on information
         servers running the Sequence Retrieval System (SRS) engine. 
         This affects predominantly data and services in the biology
         and/or related  areas   which  can  be accessed  via  elec-
         tronic  networked   information  retrieval software (WWW or 
         specific client  software).  Announcements  from the author 
         (Thure Etzold) or other developers,  proposals  and discus-
         sions of customers, maintainers and developers with respect
         to new strategies and tools, as  well user and maintainer 
         support shall inform and invite to participate.
 
Status:  
         unmoderated, not restricted. 

Exclusion: 
         General  issues  on accompanying software problems shall be 
         placed  in  bionet.software  or  suitable software-specific 
         newsgroups  in the comp hierarchy. Established WWW, GOPHER,
         or  other services not dealing  with  the SRS or associated 
         software shall be discussed in other  newsgroups.  Specific  
         items on the non-biology related technical side of the ser-
         ver software are not intended to be discussed in length but 
         will be mentioned publically in case of need. The newsgroup  
         shall  not be used for large papers and discussions, as the 
         posting of the link to a suitable document or archive server 
         will be sufficient. 
 
FAQ: 
         Periodic (e.g., quarterly)  postings of a FAQ are intended. 

Background:
         The   Sequence  Retrieval  System (SRS) as created by Thure
         Etzold has been made available on the VMS platform initial-
         ly but is now also  running  on  many  flavours of the UNIX 
         operating  system. Its main advantage is the ability to in-
         terlink databases of extremely  heterogenous  origin.  Cur-
         rently, more than 35 databases can be browsed on seven ser-
         vers accessible via the WWW  protocol (as an entry, try the
         URL http://www.embl-heidelberg.de/srs/status.html). Besides
         local command line access, future  developments include the 
         networked environment with special  clients as well as com-
         mandline interface retrieval tools via the HASSLE system as
         created by Reinhard Doelz. 
  

Reference point server URL: 
         http://www.embl-heidelberg.de/srs/srsc

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Voting is now open on the proposal for BIO-SRS/bionet.software.srs and
will run through 24:00 hrs Pacific Time on 17 February 1995  Please
send your vote to either of the following addresses:

Address                               Location        Network
-------                               --------        -------
biovote at daresbury.ac.uk               U.K.            JANET
biovote at net.bio.net                   U.S.A.          Internet/BITNET

PLEASE BE SURE TO FOLLOW THE FORMAT BELOW - WE OFTEN RUN MORE THAN ONE
VOTE AT A TIME SO A SIMPLE "YES" OR "NO" MESSAGE WITHOUT THE NEWSGROUP
NAME MAY BE AMBIGUOUS.  Your vote should contain a single line:

YES on BIO-SRS

if you favor allowing the creation of this newsgroup or

NO on BIO-SRS

if you think that this proposal will adversely affect the
BIOSCI/bionet system.  While not intended to be an exhaustive list of
possible concerns (more specific concerns may have been raised during
the discussion period on BIOFORUM/bionet.general and interested
readers are referred to these), some general reasons for voting NO
might be if you are concerned about newsgroup proliferation and/or
believe that the proposed group will not be utilized, or if you think
that the proposed newsgroup would substantially duplicate or overlap
with the function of existing newsgroups.  If you are simply not
interested in participating in the newsgroup above, please don't cast
a NO vote, but instead just don't vote at all.

The newsgroup proposal must receive at least 80 YES votes to pass and
the number of YES votes must be greater than the number of NO votes by
at least 40.  Discussion of the newsgroup proposal is now closed and
we strongly discourage posting any messages in other forums about the
fact that a CALL FOR VOTES has been issued.

				Sincerely,

				Dave Kristofferson
				BIOSCI/bionet Manager

				biosci-help at net.bio.net