Speaking for the newbies (or that segment of them who aren't asking you to do their homework/job/googling for them):
 
The trouble is, we don't know whether we can't find information(X) because:
"X" is not the term "knowbies" use for the concept,
or because:
information(X) is rare due to the concept being so awful that a knowbie would avoid it altogether,
or because:
information(X) is rare due to being too obvious to document,
or because:
information(X) is non-existent because "X" comprises some legitmate terms, used in a way that makes no sense, with a question mark at the end
or because:
X is a genuinely new question and information(X) would advance the body of knowledge for all of us.
 
In other words, we don't know what we don't know. If we did, we'd know whether our question should be sent to the newbies list or the knowbies list.
 
Maybe just ask us to post *everything* to the .tutor list and let the question bubble up to this list if it doesn't get answered there? Or ask us to post to the .tutor list until we've responded to someone else's post a few times (proven ourselves competent to judge our own competence)?
 
Ron
 

>>> James Stroud <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 12/7/2004 12:52:08 PM >>>

> Maybe a time for a new discussion group along that suggested
> by the Subject line ?


I would hesitate to change too much about this list. I spend about 1 hr. per
day (probably too much) perusing the technical explanations, musings, and
rants--and hoping to learn enough to reply with an answer sometimes.

As far as lists go, this is my favorite, and I've subscribed to lists in a
variety of fields. I'm afraid that scaring off newbies would remove some of
the charm of this list.


--
James Stroud, Ph.D.
UCLA-DOE Institute for Genomics and Proteomics
611 Charles E. Young Dr. S.
MBI 205, UCLA 951570
Los Angeles CA 90095-1570
http://www.jamesstroud.com/

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