CALL FOR VOTES: CELEGANS/bionet.celegans

[David Kristofferson]

Voting is now open on the following proposal to create the mailing
list & newsgroup CELEGANS/bionet.celegans.  There were no changes made
to the original charter.  The discussion leader did not want to change
the name to bionet.organisms.celegans, so the USENET name in the
proposal remains bionet.celegans.

*** NOTE *** We are currently 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 CELEGANS/bionet.celegans

Proposed USENET name: bionet.celegans

Proposed Mailing list name: CELEGANS

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

Discussion Leader:          

William Morgan
College of Wooster, Dept. of Biology
Wooster, OH  44691
wmorgan at acs.wooster.edu

CELEGANS/bionet.celegans charter:

Since Sydney Brenner's pioneering work in the 1960's, research on the model
organism Caenorhabditis elegans and related nematodes has exploded.  This
rapid advancement has been aided in large part by the extensive cooperation
and open communication that has characterized the C. elegans research
community.   As the number of C.elegans researchers and laboratories
continues to mushroom, I would like to propose the formation of a new group
devoted to research on C. elegans and related nematodes.  This newsgroup
will help maintain the close ties between all C. elegans researchers and
will complement existing avenues of information dissemination, including
the biennial International C. elegans Meeting, the Worm Breeder's Gazette,
and ACEDB.   

Formation of this newsgroup will provide:

*** A source of quick help on specific methodological problems.

*** An additional forum for the discussion of ideas, problems and recent
developments on C. elegans and related nematodes.

*** A bulletin board for announcements pertinent to C. elegans researcher
(e.g., job positions).

*** An additional means for sharing strains, molecular reagents, etc.

*** Further opportunities for collaborative efforts between labs.

*** A depository of practical advice and other information.

The newsgroup is expected to run unmoderated and I am willing to act as the
current coordinator.

William Morgan (wmorgan at acs.wooster.edu
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Voting is now open on the proposal for CELEGANS/bionet.celegans and
will run through 24:00 hrs Pacific Time on 5 July 1994.  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 CELEGANS

if you favor allowing the creation of this newsgroup or

NO on CELEGANS

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.  Permission has been
granted to the discussion leader to redistribute this announcement to
other members of the C. elegans research community.

				Sincerely,

				Dave Kristofferson
				BIOSCI/bionet Manager

				biosci-help at net.bio.net