This open discussion network seeks a new home. It cannot continue at Indiana University as IU information technologists have recently re-focused on cyber-security, restricting their 30 year support of such scientist-published Internet works.
Bionet has provided open access, Internet news groups and discussion for many thousands of life scientists for 30 years (www.bio.net). BIOSCI/Bionet was started in conjunction with the GenBank project at Stanford University in the mid 1980s. It moved in late 1990s to the UK MRC Rosalind Franklin Centre, then in 2005 to Indiana University Biology department. A new supporting organization is sought to continue Bionet into its fourth decade. It maintains values as an open communication venue used and sponsored by bio-scientists, despite popular commercial venues, and cyber-crime/security that impinge on such. Discussion of Bionet's future can proceed on the list Bionet.general, email: [email protected], and any bioscience reader may join this discussion. Suggestions and comments may also be emailed to [email protected], please request anonymity if desired. There are continuing values in this communication forum, as there are costs, outlined in this report. Bionet includes 30 active discussion groups, with 15,000 subscribers, distributed by E-mail and Usenet. Topics include molecular biology methods, bioinformatics software and computational biology, general announcements and news, and several animals and plant communities including annelida, arabidopsis, fruitfly, maize, medicago, and zebrafish. A host organization that will maintain or expand this unique resource is sought. Suggestions include (1) an established biology-oriented center that already maintains public E-mail lists with the popular GNU-Mailman system used by Biosci; (2) open-access science communication credentials; (3) possible re-location to an Old World home, in Europe or Asia-Pacific, as Bionet receives continuing high use from these areas. The alternative of a new institutional home for Bionet will be up to group members, with options of commercial offerings like Google Groups, Twitter, FaceBook, and others. -- Don Gilbert E-mail: [email protected] or [email protected] See also https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.27523v1 _______________________________________________ Methods mailing list [email protected] http://www.bio.net/biomail/listinfo/methods
