on Wed, 1 Nov 1995, Marc Party wrote:
 
> Folks, I'll be signing off of the Bee discussion group as soon as I figure
> out how.  Can anyone out there please help me out with this?
>
> It has become too much for me.  My in box is cluttered with messages.  I
> know I have contributed my share in the past, but my initial enthusiasm has
> waned. ...
 
Hi,
 
As groups like bee-l and sci.agriculture.beekeeping get bigger it is
inevitable that people leave due to overload. Someone recently wrote
directly to me asking if there was a UK mailing list because bee-l and
sci.a.b were very USA oriented.
 
Maybe it's time we started considering splitting bee-l and/or sci.a.b
into context related subgroups.
 
Bee-l is supposed to be for "Discussion on Bee Biology". We have
tended to stray substantially from that into bee farming, honey
production, wax uses and so on. Maybe bee-l should be returned
to its original mandate and a new line for non-biology related
stuff should be started.  What think?
 
A better candidate still for splitting would be sci.a.b (except that
not everyone who gets bee-l can get newsgroups). I think that sci.a.b's
mandate is wider and maybe less biology oriented. An advantage with
newsgroups is also that one can more easily filter stuff automatically
for example, I always exclude postings with LOCAL in the subject line
because that _usually_ means USA somewhere. Similarly, I'd probably
filter our bears in the subject line -- not a problem we have in
England ;-).
 
I think that we could consider moving towards something like the
following, perhaps starting with the * ones.
 
sci.agriculture.beekeeping
    sci.a.b.biology         *
    sci.a.b.ecology
    sci.a.b.farming         *
    sci.a.b.help            *
    sci.a.b.hive-produce
    sci.a.b.honey
    sci.a.b.newbee          *
    sci.a.b.other-bees
    sci.a.b.pests
    sci.a.b.pollination
 
Incidently, that suggested starting point is intended only to reflect
what I think is a reasonable spread of interests, not some particular
interest of mine -- I personally would subscribe to most anyway. Maybe
others would view the mix differently -- maybe pests should be there?.
 
Best regards,
--
Gordon Scott   [log in to unmask]   Hampshire, England.
               [log in to unmask]
               Beekeeper; Kendo 3rd Dan; Sometime sailor.
The Basingstoke Beekeeper (newsletter) [log in to unmask]