Untitled document Information on the Listserves
BioNotice and BioServe: Questions and Answers
Q: What is BioNotice and what is BioServe?
A: Both BioNotice and BioServe are listserves for members of the APB. Once you have been accepted as a member of the APB, you were subscribed to both of the list serves (unless your application was missing an email address.) It is used as a communications tool among the members of the APB.
Q: What is the difference between BioNotice and BioServe? Who can post to BioNotice and BioServe?
A: Only the staff at the APB can post messages with BioNotice, every other messages sent to BioNotice will be rejected. It is usually used only by the Registrar or the Executive Director to send notices to the members. While any member, whether someone has been a 20 year R.P.Bio. to a student biologist who just joined last week can post messages to BioServe.
Q: Do I need to ask for permission to post anything to BioNotice or BioServe?
A: All messages sent to BioNotice will automatically say that they require approval, but they will be rejected because members are not allowed to post messages to BioNotice, as mentioned above. BioServe on the other hand is not moderated or “censored”, so except in some specific circumstances, most of the messages will not require approval.
Q: Under what circumstances does a message require approval?
A: There are several reasons why a message that you try to post might require approval.
1) (This is probably the most common one.) Your message is too large. There is a 40 kb limit on the size of message, so basically if you send an attachment, it will require approval.
2) It says that you are not a member (when you actually are a member). The most likely cause is if you are sending the posting from a different email address than the one listed on our database. (The database only has space for 1 email address, and we use that to confirm whether or not you are really a member so we cannot add 2nd or 3rd email addresses to the BioServe and BioNotice. Plus all those additional addresses will drive up the operating cost of the listserves.)
3) If you send the post to a lot of people at the same time or cc a long list, sometimes it will say that the message requires approval.
Q: So any member who follows the above guidelines can post anything to the BioServe?
A: Yes and no. Technically yes, but members are asked to try to only post things that are related to Biology. There have been complaints in the past when a member posts a joke or forwards other email (often by accident) to the BioServe.
Q: I am going on vacation and I have given my password to my email to someone that I trust. Can he or she post a job posting with my email address?
A: Technically the answer is yes, but you are still held responsible if someone posts inappropriate materials using your email address.
Q: Can non-members post things to BioServe?
A: No, you must be a member. Almost every day, there is someone trying to send spam to the BioServe and BioNotice. If non-members were allowed to post the listserves could potentially be flooded with spam (and most, if not all, of the spam is not biology related and/or are inappropriate.)
Q: How do I post something to BioServe?
A: You just send the message (with or without attachments) as an email to bioserve@ml.islandnet.com
Q: Why did it take so long for my posting to reach my email inbox.
A: Messages without attachments and are under 40 kb usually have little or no delay. If there is any delay, its probably a temporary one because of the server. Messages larger than 40 kb require approval, but that isn’t where the delay is most of the time. Basically the larger the attachment/post, the longer the delay in reaching members email inboxes. For example, a job posting with a really large attachment recently was approved in the morning around 10 am, but it did not show up in the email inboxes until about 2 pm.
Q: How do I reply to a message from BioServe?
A: If you just hit “reply” the message will be sent to the Registrar only, while if you hit “reply all”, it will be sent to everyone on BioServe listserve. If you wish to reply to the sender only, you should send it to the senders email address.
Q: How do I remove myself from BioServe?
A: You can remove yourself by visiting:
http://ml.islandnet.com/mailman/listinfo/bioserve and entering your email address in the appropriate textbox and then by clicking on “unsubscribe or edit options”. You can also change your setting so that you receive all the BioServe messages as a “daily digest” instead of several individual emails. There is also a link there to view the archive of past BioServe messages.
If you have any other questions that are not answered above, please contact the office at 250-383-3306 or officeadmin@apbbc.bc.ca.