This document and its companions were originally authored by J. Storrs Hall (a.k.a. JoSH, former sci.nanotech moderator), with contributions by others where noted, and have been edited by James Logajan and Amos Jeffries who takes final responsibility for their content. Previous versions of the sci.nanotech FAQs, along with many useful papers and links, may be found on the Foresight Org. web site.
According to the archives J. Storrs Hall (JoSH) posted the first "welcome" message to sci.nanotech on May 10, 1988. He served as moderator till June 8, 2000 when he decided to retire from moderating it, almost 12 years and 1 month. Leaving the group in the hands of James Logojan (JimL) until he in turn retired on 4 July 2001, having served past his stated 12 months.
JimL has left the group in the hands of a team of 3 co-moderators. These co-moderators have since faded out of active duty to be joined by John Novak as Primary Moderator in May 2005.
A paper by Eric Drexler (bogosity
on the papers directory) explains the somewhat vulnerable status of a subject that is at the same time highly abstract and technical, not yet a reality of physical practice, and yet which promises to bring so many revolutionary changes.
There are various means of getting the group archives. They are described on the Archives Page along with means of searching certain areas that have been indexed.
Postings to sci.nanotech should be technical, informational, or reasonably informed speculation (in that order of preference).
Specifically Banned Topics:
Cross-posting:
Post Format:
There are two exceptions having to do with formatting: If your posting has significantly more quoted ">>" lines than original material, or if it does not have a Subject: line, netnews software may arbitrarily discard it after it has left my control. I try to catch such posts and edit down quotes, or add subject lines, but I sometimes forget or fail to notice.
Special Posting Headers:
From time to time content is posted that is not strictly on topic as discussion of nanotechnology. These include technology updates, conference calls and the like. They will be posted with specialised keywords in their subject line.
Posting your on topic message:
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The group moderation team consists of:
All questions to the moderators may be sent to moderators@nanotech.dyndns.org with the subject header MODERATORS: sci.nanotech
, or otherwise clearly indicating that it is to the moderators not the group. Or may be posted directly to the moderator in question through their email address above.
From time to time one of the moderators may insert or append comments to postings. Such comments will appear within square brackets and be concluded by a moderators mark, these are shown by the moderators name above.
For example: [ This is a moderator comment. -JimL ]