From HARPER@finfun.bitnet Tue Mar 29 16:29:38 PST 1994
Article: 284 of bionet.general
Path: bionet!finfun.bitnet!HARPER
From: HARPER@finfun.bitnet ("Robert Harper ", Finland)
Newsgroups: bionet.general
Subject: Bar-room philosophy of BIONAUTS.
Message-ID: <9004271156.AA06470@genbank.bio.net>
Date: 27 Apr 90 07:34:00 GMT
Sender: daemon@genbank.BIO.NET
Lines: 24


If you attend a large conference then there are usually very
formal sessions where the speaker talks and the participants
listen, and if there is a question time, then the debate is of
a polite nature.

However the exchange of information is not confined to the
lecture room... and I should guess that the "bar-room chat" is
the place where the real science is discussed, and where you
can make contacts with people of the same interest. Science has
a public and a private face.

Most of the BIOSCI lists are formal and professional in nature,
and the content of the messages are informative. This is both
good and neccessary. They can be compared to the plenary
sessions at a major conference.

The BIONAUTS newsgroup aims at having a more informal style.
Call it the "biological bar-room". Here you can exchange names
and addresses, slip interesting lists under the table, ask
questions about contacts... etc.

Rob "bar-keeper" Harper.


[Note added by David Kristofferson: Since the founding of
 BIONAUTS/bionet.users.addresses, it appears that the clientle
 has sobered up a bit.  The group is used currently primarily as a means
 of discovering e-mail addresses when all other routes fail.  Please
 also refer to the biosci.FAQ in pub/BIOSCI/doc in the net.bio.net FTP
 area for info about the BIOSCI user address database.  Address data
 is in pub/BIOSCI/biosci-user.addresses.]