I agree with George Bailey. I don't see why a conservation question--or its response--would be inappropriate on Museum-L. I think the complaint was misguided. There are conservators on Museum-L, and non-conservators associated with museums should have more than a nodding acquaintance with conservation treatments, so an occasional dose of information about the subject should be generally beneficial to all. Other complaints about allegedly "inappropriate" topics are posted to the list from time to time. A request for travel suggestions was debated recently, but I feel it's perfectly proper and logical for a museum professional to request information which may not be readily available from travel agents or in travel books--based on the personal experience of colleagues with similar needs. These are judgment calls on the sender's part. Sometimes we get so lazy and hypnotized in front of a computer that we try to use our e-mail pals as a general information resource and forget that a dictionary, other standard reference works, or the telephone are sometimes more efficient. As much as I hate to see requests for information that a person SHOULD be able to find elsewhere independently, it's easy to jump to conclusions and erroneously assume that a person is lazy, stupid, or inept, although there might be a good reason for the request which isn't immediately evident. So I counsel a little patience and a little slack. I suggest that complaints about the "appropriateness" of a message be sent privately. Posting complaints to everyone often exacerbates the problem, or spins it off into another tedious new thread. If YOU think it's so obvious that a topic is inappropriate, do you really need to point this out to EVERYone else? Some people are more comfortable conversing on the list and prefer not to get private e-mail--which they find threatening and confrontational--but the alternative is to risk being embarrassed or embarrassing someone else in full view of all subscribers. I took perverse pleasure myself in the response to the person requesting a museum's address, with its advice to call directory assistance and suggestion that such cluelessness does not portend a promising museum research career. But perhaps it would have been kinder to offer the advice to "try harder" in a private message. Public complaints increase everyone's mailbox burden. If you have a gripe about the "appropriateness" of a topic or want to deride the sender's syntax, spelling, or mental limitations, it might be better to do it privately. While it may make sense to post an inquiry to the list requesting specific information, a listserv REPLY might not be appropriate. Ask yourself before you reply, is this message useful to the whole list, or should it be sent solely to the requester? I recall the time Museum-L almost became Artichoke-L: someone requested information about artichokes, and a number of erudite botanists obliged, sending detailed, impressive scientific esoterica to everyone on the list. But the messages sounded suspiciously like they had been copied verbatim from textbooks; did we all need copies? I sent a private e-mail to the requester, asking why she couldn't get this information from an encyclopedia in a library, and she replied that her library was "closed" for the season and she was virtually isolated from the rest of the world except for listserv and e-mail access. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry (the former if she were pulling my leg, the latter if she truly was so deprived of resources), but it occurred to me that the real offenders, the true bandwidth hogs, were the lengthy public botanical ANSWERS, not the original question. These are suggested ways to lighten the electronic mailbox burden. Let's not try to censor questions because there is no universal agreement about the appropriateness of topics, but ANSWERS should be carefully considered: should they be dashed off to the whole list or would it be better to make the additional effort to send them privately? These are just opinions: you can argue privately, but I'm not sure an extended discussion of e-mail etiquette is "appropriate" to Museum-L; surely there's a specialized list on this popular topic! I wouldn't presume to suggest a "policy": these are merely personal opinions, musings, and requests. --David Haberstich P.S. I find complaints about spams more annoying than the spam--especially when quoted in its entirety. Spambusters, give it a rest.