Lay/Expert Conflict - A Solution

[Aaron Delwiche]

Over the past several days, this group has been flooded by postings from
lay persons (like myself) who are interested in the Ebola virus.  

Many of the regular readers of this group -- trained experts in
virology -- have expressed discomfort at the flood of questions from
non-experts.  Some have even suggested creating a moderated newsgroup. 

Other expert readers have welcomed questions from lay readers and have
seized the opportunity for public education. 

Despite the flame wars, bionet.virology is serving an important purpose in
this time of public concern.  This medium has the potential to educate
members of the lay public while allowing interested experts to know whhat
the public is thinking and worrying about.  It will be tragic if experts
evacuate the forum because they cannot be heard through the noise. 

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 Delwiche
redwood at halcyon.com