Subject: Re: Why not start a usenet newsgroup now

From: Jan Labanowski <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 27 Apr 1994 15:59:34 -0400

Dear Compchems,

Dr. Mrigank" <[email-masked]> writes:
>Why do not one start this list also as USENET newsgroup. Like 
>sci.chemistry.computational
>s.c.c.amber
>and so on. To start with s.c.c and then expand. This can be done simultaneuosly
>if JL willing. 

Before it unfolds any further (I understand that Bionet will be having
a newsgroup on molecular modeling) let me tell you why I am so conservative.
And if you think that I am too conservative, the CCL will migrate to another
place, since I have no way of keeping you here by force {:-)}. And if you
unsubscribe, nobody will call you or beat you up {;-0}. Please, do not
forget that you can view CCL in a similar way as you do Usenet,
by using gopher. So if e-mail is too burdensome for you, you can always do:
     gopher www.ccl.net 73
       archived-messages
          94
            04
              27
and scan messages for the given day. And you do not need to be a subscriber
to post to [email-masked] (at least not now). And if you abuse it,
I will prevent you from posting (my infamous "black list").

First, it is technically trivial to interface mailing list with a Usenet
group. Why I am not doing it?

I read ocassionally several unmoderated Usenet groups. What I find is that
they are very noisy. I know that Computational Chemistry List is also
noisy, but I still hope that it is less noisy than many other unmoderated
groups I have seen. I still have a power to prevent people from posting,
if they abuse the list intentionally.

I am in the process of preparing a proposal for the support of CCL.
I have several things in mind:
  1) Splitting CCL into topics (but you will be able to subscribe to
     all topics if you want)
  2) Moderating, i.e., each message will be first reviewed before it is
     sent to the distribution. I want to provide a multicenter/multi-time-zone
     and anonymous moderation. This needs some software development.
     Why? Since I want to keep the interactive "touch and feel".
  3) Enhancing archives, their searching, their contents and access.
  4) Actively seek good material for the archives.
  5) Provide "chemist on duty" to answer trivial questions
and other things.
Only when I am done with it, I will provide access to CCL via Usenet.
You may say, why not today? The answer is, I do not have resources to do it.

I know that you have a lot of ideas how to improve the list. But please
fight the urge of flooding the list with the discussion about the list.
Please, send your ideas to me, and be sure that I will use them if and when
I can. I prefer that we keep talking about Computational Chemistry rather
than CCL. At some point I may ask you for your help and letters of support.

Your "coordinator"
Jan Labanowski
[email-masked]
-- 
Dr. Jan K. Labanowski, Senior Research/Supercomputer Scientist/Specialist, etc.
Ohio Supercomputer Center, 1224 Kinnear Rd, Columbus, OH 43212-1163
ph:(614)-292-9279,  FAX:(614)-292-7168,  E-mail: [email-masked]  [email-masked]