Regarding Iris Meier's recent message

[Jon Monroe]

David et al.,

Your question begs me (as Plant-ed moderator) to blur the line between
messages that hold true to the charter
(http://www.bio.net/charters/plant-ed) and those that advertise.  In
Iris' case she asked a qustion about how to reach interested people. 
I'm willing to do what Plant-ed readers want so if you have an opinion,
please respond to David's question:

"May we too advertise on Plant.Ed . Would anyone object?"

Jon Monroe


-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Regarding Iris Meier's recent message
Date: 29 Oct 2003 02:36:40 -0000
From: d.a.walker at sheffield.ac.uk (David Alan Walker)
Organization: BIOSCI/MRC Human Genome Mapping Project Resource Centre
To: plant-ed at net.bio.net
Newsgroups: bionet.plants.education


In Plant .Ed, Iris Meier recently brought our attention  to  a “new
online course”.  I don’t wish to divert attention from the course
itself, which sounds eminently worthy of support. However, she raised
another matter, dear to my own heart, when she said, with admirable
frankness, :-

“I can't teach it for free (which I would) because the provider of the
online teaching service has to live too, so I will offer it for a
marginal fee of $8”.

We all have “to live too”. Like everyone I know in our business I have
made most, of what I have to contribute, freely available to my
colleagues but there is a residue. If  as a scientist you write a book
and it is published by a major publisher you may get a royalty of 10% if
you are lucky. Publishers have to live. So do book sellers. Both have to
advertise. I have no complaint. But authors and independent publishers
have “to live too” So what if you and I wish to publish something out of
the normal run of things? Publishing ‘online’ is not a problem and look
at what BitPass <http://www.bitpass.com/> has now brought about. But how
to bring our wares to the attention of  potential readers?  Commercial
advertising is too costly to contemplate. May we too advertise on
Plant.Ed . Would anyone object?

Regards
David
>From David Walker, FRS., Emeritus Professor of Photosynthesis,
University of Sheffield, UK.
http://www.oxygraphics.co.uk/


----------------------------------------------------
 Jonathan D. Monroe                 
 Associate Professor and Interim Head
 Department of Biology, MSC 7801   
 James Madison University, Harrisonburg, VA 22807 
 office: 540-568-6649, fax: 540-568-3333  
 email: monroejd at jmu.edu 
 http://csm.jmu.edu/biology/monroejd/jmonroe.html 
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