fossil sales and administrivia

[rowe@lepomis.psych.upenn.edu (Mickey Rowe)]

Since we still seem to be supporting a healthy discussion about
interactions between "professional" and "commercial" paleontologists,
I'd like to ask the list what you think of something I've recently
added to the welcome message that goes out to new subscribers.  I've
had a bit of help with it (thanks again, Garry!), but I'd like some
sort of approval before I try to stop thinking about it.  The
following is a new paragraph from the welcome message:

  The list is not moderated, so its health depends upon the good
  nature of its participants.  This hasn't been much of a problem yet,
  but with the growth of the net, and particularly the advent of the
  USENET newsgroup sci.bio.paleontology, I expect it to become moreso.
  Please do not send any messages to the entire list for the first
  week or two after you've subscribed, so that you can get a feel for
  the current tone of the list.  Also, please do not ask for
  information about fossils for sale, and do not attempt to use the
  list to advertise fossils you wish to sell.  As stated above, this
  list was created to provide a forum for people sharing an interest
  in the SCIENTIFIC study of dinosaurs.  Because scientists and
  commercial fossil collectors/sellers sometimes work at
  cross-purposes, the sale of fossils is a sensitive issue.  We will
  always welcome debate on how best to foster collaboration between
  these two groups, but until and unless amicable relationships become
  the norm, we ask that you not use this forum for advertisement or
  shopping.

If you have any feelings pro or con about the sentiments expressed
there, please let me know.  Please respond to me directly unless your
intention is to generate further discussion on the list.

On an unrelated matter...  As you've probably noticed, we've received
some strange messages in the past couple of days informing us of UUCP
requests that have failed.  The short story is that machines between
here and a couple of subscribers have had problems receiving mail from
the list, and those machines have responded to the list to let it
know.  Ordinarily such messages are filtered out, but listproc isn't
perfect, and a modification I made last year allowed these messages to
slip through.  Listproc ordinarily rejects messages from addresses
that have a "uucp" in them.  Unfortunately, some of our subscribers
have such addresses, so for them I modified the software to accept
messages from those people.  That opened the hole that let at least 5
inappropriate messages sneak by during the past two days.  I've
attempted to apply another patch which will filter out such messages
without effecting those of you with "uucp" in your addresses.  I'm not
certain that I did it correctly, so I'd ask that if you send something
to the list you make sure that you receive a copy, and notify me if
you do not.

Thanks for your patience,

-- 
Mickey Rowe     (rowe@lepomis.psych.upenn.edu)