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This seems to have been rumbling on since "Joke Friday." After we were reprimanded for posting jokes I replied that we should consider what the function of the list is and saying that we should not discourage people from contributing even if some of the topics were frivolous. In response we were all referred by Brenda Weedon to the Acceptable Use Policies governing the list and told that there could be "no debate" on this issue. Having examined these I can find nothing we did either individually or collectively that contravened them. They appeared to be fairly standard things about not using the list for commercial purposes or posting offensive material or being a deliberate nuisance. The nearest we got was Richard's joke about bearded women, but since he posted an apology making it clear that he didn't intend to cause offence this wouldn't be a problem. What I didn't find was a clear statement as to the purpose of the listserv and I think it would help the debate if this could be posted. If it says "only for debating professional issues" we'll all know where we stand and then anyone who would like to investigate setting up a jokey, informal alternative could do so. What we have seems to be an uncomfortable compromise where we've been told that the occasional Friday afternoon joke is ok, yet when it happened we were all told it wasn't ok. The problem ocurred with a large number of people having an occasional Friday afternoon joke. Matt Stephenson and Simon McKeon's postings both commented on the tone of the listserv as being overly serious and Maria Sienkiewicz raised the issue that people could be put off from asking questions or making contributions in case they made themselves look stupid in front of their professional colleagues. There are clearly a significant number of people who are not comfortable with the current tone of the list so it would be useful if we could all be told where we stand and if a more informal tone would be appropriate or not. Jenny Moran %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%