saling, saling...

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

As I've already noted to a couple of you, I believe that I may have
over reacted to Henry Tobin's requests for information about the sale
of dinosaur eggs (sorry, Henry).  In any case, though, I'm glad that
Henry's question and my reaction have generated a lot of what appears
to me to be healthy discussion on the topic.

Most of the feedback I've received about the paragraph I've added to
the welcome message has been positive.  Thanks again to all of you
that wrote to me.  I'm about to change it again to direct people to
other mailing lists which may be more appropriate fora for discussing
fossil sales and trades.  The most relevant one is just being created
now; I'll include as an addendum to this message the entire
announcement of that new list's creation as said announcement appeared
on sci.bio.paleontology (for those of you that can't get it or can't
keep up--the volume there is higher than here!)  The other list is the
rocks-and-fossils mailing list.  We have previously been told that
that list was defunct, but so far as I know it is alive and well and
can be subscribed to by sending the message:

subscribe rocks-and-fossils

to:  majordomo@world.std.com

I might also like to make available some guidelines that will help
people who want to collect fossils "responsibly".  I can host such a
document here and ask any potential collectors/buyers/sellers to
retrieve it after they subscribe to this list.  What I'm saying is
that I'd like the discussion to continue, particularly surrounding Tom
Lipka's desire for us to find ways to help channel people away from
being or supporting his type 3b and type 4 "paleontologists", and
Bonnie Blackwell's questions about a code of ethics for fossil
collectors.  I'm also here asking for a volunteer (Tom? Bonnie? Dan
Phelps?) to come up with some sort of summary document.

I've just placed two recent posts from sci.bio.paleontology on this
machine.  One deals with the supreme court's decision about Sue last
October, and the other summarizes what the U.S. Bureau of Land
Management has to say about the collecting of fossils on its land.
The first post was submitted by Jeff Poling, the second by Ken
Carpenter.  To retrieve the first, send the one-line message:

help sue

to: listproc@lepomis.psych.upenn.edu

To retreive the second, send the message:

help blm-memo

to the same address as above.  If you want both, you can include both
"help" lines in one message, but you'll still receive the documents
individually.

Finally, I'd like to say again that if you deleted a message you wish
you'd saved, please write to me rather than the list.  And if someone
deviates from that recommended action and you want to send them a
copy, please send it to them, not the list.  

Thanks again for your patience!

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

------------- announcement of fossil-nuts mailing list ------------

  From: oyvindha@ifi.uio.no (Oyvind Hammer)
  Newsgroups: sci.bio.paleontology
  Subject: New mailing list for fossil collectors
  Date: 27 Jan 1995 14:09:37 +0100
  Organization: Dept. of Informatics, University of Oslo, Norway
  Message-ID: <3garah$99m@delling.ifi.uio.no>

  A new mailing list for amateur fossil collection has been set up.
  This list is *strictly* for information about fossil sites,
  preparation, classification, and interchange of specimens.

  General paleontology is referred to this newsgroup.  We are aware of
  the "rocks-and-fossils" list, but feel the need for a new, more
  specific list.

  Please don't use this list if you are not a real fossil nut!

  The address is fossil-nuts@notam.uio.no.

  To subscribe, send a mail to fossil-nuts-request@notam.uio.no (this
  will be read by me personally).

  Oyvind Hammer (oyvindha@notam.uio.no)
  University of Oslo
  Norway