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  • Moderator's message

    Dear subscribers,

    A few administrative matters:

    1. Spams (off-topic junk mail) and chain letters
    ------------------------------------------------
    We still get those occasionally, but much less with the new
    LISTSERV software which rejects most of them. I still see them,
    though, they are sometimes funny.

    Please do not use Biomch-L (or any other mailing list) for chain
    letters. The nuclear protest may have been a good cause, but the
    Japanese originator of the message was flooded with complaints
    and reactions, and begged the world to stop distributing his
    message (see Biomch-L, July 17, 1995).

    2. Change of address and private mail
    -------------------------------------
    Please do not use Biomch-L to post your change of address or
    other 'private' mail, since this is not likely to be relevant for
    a majority of subscribers. Please take the trouble to send mail
    directly to those you want to notify. For 'private' mail, I
    appreciate that Biomch-L can be a last resort if you don't know
    someone's address, but there are good alternatives. Every
    university now has WWW or gopher servers, which provide E-mail
    directories. And there's also the Netfind service
    (telnet://bruno.cs.colorado.edu).

    3. 'subsribe'
    -------------
    This is the eternal problem on mailing lists, and not likely to
    go away. Try to ignore these; one of the moderators will always
    send the person some instructions for subscribing. In case you
    are wondering why we always see 'subscribe' misspelled; it's not
    because new subscribers can't spell. It's just that all the
    correctly spelled requests are recognized by LISTSERV, result in
    a polite error message, and not passed on to the whole world.

    So, once again, if you tell someone to subscribe to Biomch-L,
    please mention that subscription requests should go to
    LISTSERV@nic.surfnet.nl. Syntax: SUBSCRIBE BIOMCH-L firstname lastname.
    Do not send such requests to Biomch-L. Ever.

    4. Discussions & replies
    ------------------------
    Keep up the good work! We had a fascinating discussion on
    tethered swimming, which is not quite over yet (I think). I
    would welcome similar discussions on other topics. When
    participating in such discussions, you will learn that it's easy
    to become excited. This is good, but don't post before thinking
    (you look foolish afterwards) and don't use unfriendly language.
    To make your contribution more readable, it's good practice to
    quote essential parts of earlier postings (with mentioning the
    originator), but don't quote an entire posting as we've seen
    recently.

    For the more factual questions & answers, a private reply and
    public summary is still the best format.

    5. Advertising
    --------------
    Nobody enjoys receiving junk mail, and companies who advertise on
    Biomch-L are probably doing more harm than good for their
    business. Innovision recently had a posting which was on one
    hand informative, and on the other hand irritatingly commercial.
    It was bordering on unacceptable use of Biomch-L. Information
    from vendors is welcome, but please be subtle. It's hard to
    define what is unacceptable, but easy to recognize. Some clues:
    excessive use of capitals, spaces and exclamation marks (N E W
    !!!!), very long messages, very frequent messages, etc. All of
    this is not appreciated.

    If you want to announce your company's presence on the Internet,
    please contact me and I will include you in the Biomch-L Yellow
    Pages, and post the announcement. Unlike E-mail, the Web is
    perfect for advertising, because people only get information when
    they ask for it. Your Web page can be listed in the Yellow
    Pages, and also in the Biomechanics World Wide site:
    http://dragon.acadiau.ca/~pbaudin/biomch.html .

    6. Educational use of Biomch-L
    ------------------------------
    Today, more than 70 students from Kansas State University
    subscribed to Biomch-L. Welcome, all of you. This is the first
    time that Biomch-L has been used in teaching, and I'm not sure
    how that will affect us. I don't want to be accused of elitism,
    but clearly we don't want to be flooded by requests from students
    doing assignments. How many thousands of biomechanics students
    are there, worldwide? For the time being, I suggest we see what
    happens. If you have any suggestions, please forward them to me
    directly, and I will follow up on this in a future Biomch-L
    posting.

    Thank you for your attention, please contact me if you have
    questions or comments.

    -- Ton van den Bogert, Biomch-L co-moderator
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