To address the latest clamor about bringing some sort of order to the
chaos let me begin by saying I make NO claims to intellectual rights to
BEE-L.  This is not MY list, never has been, never will be.  The few
remaining charter members know that the list was originally proposed and
owned by the late Dr. Edward Southwick of the State University of New
York at Stony Brook.  I never met Ed personally or even electronically,
and I was surprised how I grieved at his passing.  The impact of these
electronic times amazes me.
 
In the days when Dr. Southwick was alive I merely lurked on BEE-L.  The
list's offerings far surpassed my skills as a beekeeper when it was
populated by Ed's peers.  The original charter and purpose of BEE-L as
he authored was:
*
*  BEE-L is for the discussion of research and information
*  concerning the biology of bees.  This includes honey bees
*  and other bees (and maybe even wasps).  We communicate about
*  sociobiology, behavior, ecology, adaptation/evolution,
*  genetics, taxonomy, physiology, pollination, and flower
*  nectar and pollen production of bees.
*
Obviously the list has changed from what was originally intended.
 
I ended up as the "Owner/Editor" of BEE-L by virtue of my interest as
a hobby beekeeper and my former position as systems manager at the State
University of New York at Albany.  As a subscriber to BEE-L I have been
a staunch defender of the open forum into which the list has evolved.
It certainly is NOT of the caliber it once was but it is still a
valuable tool for a lot of beekeepers and more than a handful of
researchers.
 
To deny that this list has denigrated from its former self is folly.
Petty exchanges of barbs between subscribers who can't get along do NOT
belong here.  Opinions about how nice the weather is in Timbuktu are out
of place.  As I posted yesterday, excessive quotes of previous material
costs subscribers money in downloads, costs subscribers time in reading
what they have already read, and costs the University at Albany real
money simply to store VOLUMES of rehashed material.  "Me too!" and
"Right On!" posts are a waste of public space and time.  If you want to
tell someone "Me too!" or "Right On!" then send fan mail to the person
with whom you agree and leave it off the list because it simply does not
belong here!  OPINIONS do not belong here, INFORMATION belongs here.
 
These are not the rules as dictated by Aaron Morris, BEE-L Owner/Editor,
these are the rules of nettiquite that are emerging in an heretofore
unexplored medium, the internet.  I am not lecturing, I am speaking from
the advantaged position of someone whose job it is to be as current in
electronic exchanges as I can be.  It was incorrect when I agreed
yesterday that this is a discussion group, it is not, it's a LISTSERV
list.  There is a very clear distinction between "discussion" or "news"
groups and LISTSERV lists.  In cyberspace "discussion" or "news" groups
differ from LISTSERV lists in that "discussion" or "news" groups can be
more correctly called "opinion" groups whereas LISTSERV lists are, or at
least were intended to be factual.  And again, these are not rules made
up by Aaron Morris, this is netiquette.
 
The reason BEE-L stopped being a "factual" forum and became an "opinion"
group is there has not been an active list moderator.  Now, a list
moderator is NOT the net police and a list moderator is NOT a censor.  A
list moderator is a gateway through which ALL activity on the list must
pass.  On moderated lists, all posts first go to the moderator for
review and approval or rejection and if approved, the material goes to
the list.
 
Hopefully a moderator will know what is fact and what is fiction
regarding the subject matter pertaining to the list he or she moderates
and will protect the list from falsehoods.  In this respect, BEE-L is
self moderating - most falsehoods are quickly challenged by the guard
bees.
 
Hopefully a list moderator will know the difference between fact and
opinion.  In this case BEE-L is "semi" moderated ergo some may say it's
exceedingly tolerant.  However it is not uncommon for some topics to be
challenged regarding their pertinence to bees (as in the call for
moderation).
 
A list moderator also has the power to reject or return to sender those
posts in which the noise to signal ratio is too high.  Noise to signal
ratio refers to the content of a post.  If a post contains 50 lines of
quoted material filed by "I Agree!" and a 10 line signature, there are
50 lines of noise, 1 line of me too, 10 lines of incriminating
identification and zero lines of useful information.  A good list
moderator would send that post back to the sender thanking them for
their article but regretfully declining to publish their useless crap.
 
An unmoderated list can do none of the above.  An unmoderated list
cannot enforce the rules of netiquette on subscribers.  On an
unmoderated list, subscribers can request of other subscribers to use
their better judgment regarding what they post, can request of other
subscribers to keep their content at least correct and on topic and
with a signal to noise ratio at an acceptable level, preferably a
decimal less than .5 (apologies to the mathematically challenged).
 
On an unmoderated list, subscribers can request of other subscribers
that everyone learn and adhere to the rule of netiquette - if you don't
know the rules, fire up a search engine with "netiquette" as the search
argument - you'll get over 17,000 hits!  If when you're done reading
all that you still feel the need to pollute BEE-L with your noise,
you'll still be welcome here.
 
Aaron Morris - still thinking we can all get along!