Purpose of this news group.

[Gregory May]

	This posting is in response to the discussion that has been initiated 
regarding what sorts of things are appropriate to post on bionet.mycology.  
As the original "discussion leaders" for this group this seemed like a good 
opportunity to briefly review the history of the group and why it was set up 
in the first place.  This group came out of a discussion at the Fungal 
Genetics Conference in Asilomar in March of 1993.  The idea was for people 
with diverse interests in fungal genetics and mycology to have a forum for 
electronic interactions.  This would give people a place to easily reach a 
broad group of people to send such things as meeting announcements, 
recruiting information, scientific questions, etc..  Since its inception 
about 1 year ago, I would say the vast majority of the traffic in this 
newsgroup has related to "mushroom hunting" discussions.  To date this has 
not been an overwhelming load and, at least for those who subscribe using a 
newsreader, this is not a hindrance to the group.  However, we think a large 
increase in traffic related to mushroom recipes and the like would probably 
completely eliminate use by the people the newsgroup was originally set up 
to serve.  Thus, we support the idea of setting up a group on rec.mushrooms 
for such nonscientific pursuits.  Messages felt appropriate for both groups 
can always be posted to both.

	There remains a question of why so little of the traffic in bionet.mycology 
is related to the issues we felt the newsgroup should be set up to address.  
Does this come out of:  1) a lack of need for such a group?;  2) an 
uncertainty about what sorts of things should be discussed?;  3)  "shyness" 
about displaying ignorance?; or 4) some combination of all of these?  While 
many of these problems can not really be addressed, some can.  The present 
discussion seems like a good opportunity for people to say what sorts of 
things they would like to see discussed on bionet.mycology and what sorts of 
things could help each of us keep up with the field.  

	One suggestion that we would like to make is that this forum could be used 
to help keep up with the literature.  We propose that people post the Title, 
Abstract, and upcoming Publication Date for journal articles from their labs 
as soon as they are considered In Press and publication dates are known.  

	Certainly there are other things people would like to see on this board.  
Lets have some suggestions and try to get this bulletin board more active 
for its original purpose.

Tom Adams

Greg May

Leland Ellis