Lay/Expert Conflict - A Solution

[Julie]

In article <3pdlbh$dac at news1.halcyon.com>,
Aaron Delwiche <redwood at coho.halcyon.com> wrote:
>
>We need a solution that will allow regular readers to filter out 
>comments from lay persons.  One option would be to have ask all lay 
>persons to preface their postings with LAY (e.g. LAY - Does my cat have the 
>Ebola virus?).  
>
>A second (and I think better) option would be for expert regular readers
>to preface their posting with an appropriate acronym or label (e.g.
>EXPERT - Call for Papers -- 95 Ebola Conference). 
>
>What do people think of this suggestion? 

Aaron,

	I think that the suggestion is a step in the right direction,
but not practical for several reasons.  First of all, the regulars need
to catch people new to the group before they start posting without
realizing this is supposed to be a newsgroup for professionals.
Secondly, one problem is that many of the professional virologist
receive this group through some sort of gateway which feeds the posts
directly into their mailboxes as a mailing list.  They need to reduce
the number of incoming messages in the first place rather than merely
identifying them.

	Perhaps if someone who was a regular, professional reader of
this newsgroup made a post titled "READ ME FIRST - EBOLA OUTBREAK" or
something, and then explained that they were trying to reduce
unnecessary traffic for the reasons stated above, and let people know
there were several good Web pages, plus ongoing discussion in sci.med
which would be more appropriate for them to join, then perhaps the more
polite readers would refrain from posting.

	Also I don't know if people really want to identify themselves
by the words "Expert" or "Lay".  And before you know it, some joker
would be identifying him/herself as an "Expert Lay".  :)

Julie 
-- 
/-\/-\   Julie Grob                      Contributor, _Thora-zine 
\    /   Inst. for Beam Part. Dynamics   and _You Could Do Worse_ 
 \  /    University of Houston           Friday Night X-Phile 
  \/     Houston, TX                     The Girl With the Most Cake