I agree that there have been far too many commercial-oriented emails on the list. I appreciate the efforts of most manufacturers to withhold from advertising on this list (plus, of course, the efforts of Steve & Paul to filter those out). The list, which is an outstanding forum for exchange of information, has been occasionally used to identify substantially new products which can significantly impact on how we do experiments. I feel that the Molecular Probes email of 10/30 clearly does not fall into this category; the new product advertised was no more than a slight modification of the existing one. Such an email should be directed solely to the person requesting information; if that person then collates responses and puts it back on the list then so be it. But for manufacturers to directly respond in this way is counter-productive to the goals of this list. I would like to propose a 6-month moratorium on all emails that are no more than advertisements. Note that I write "would like to"--because I'm not sure that this is possible. I don't want to put any additional onus on Steve or Paul to filter out the borderline emails. While these may be easy to identify when they come from manufacturers, it could just as well be considered blatant advertising when they come from a user. Therefore, perhaps we can see if the commercial participants on this list could exercise self-restraint rather than requesting a formal censorship of advertising emails. Thus, if you are a manufacturer, and you are responding to somebody's request for information, do so privately to that person ONLY. It is up to the person requesting information to decide whether or not the information received in response to the query warrants a summary on the list. If you are not a manufacturer, and are responding to somebody's request for specific information, please consider whether your response (that identifies a specific product or manufacturer) is of general enough interest to warrant the list. If it does not, then simply send it privately to the person who requested information, and let them decide whether to post the summary of responses. In general, I urge people to err on the side of caution and send their information only to the person who requested it. Realize that if several people want the same information, they can always request it from the original poster! I have posted queries to the list; people have sent me emails asking me to forward to them the responses, which I did. This process can significantly cut down on emails that might be viewed as too commercial. mr
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