responsiveness by several frequent extremist posters who were eventually booted from the list, there are now a few posting guidelines in place. This is reflected in the discussions on the list, where people are expected to be accountable for any assertions that are intended to represent more than one's personal opinion, a posting guideline that has cut back on much of the idle chatter that can populate other lists.
There is also a Raw-Food FAQ associated with the listgroup that covers the different types of raw-food diets, practices, terminology and abbreviations, and a few of the raw-food gurus and authors.
RAWLIFE: Devoted to the ideal of raw veganism, this list serves as more of a support group for those attempting to achieve the 100% raw promised land. Debate is not as much in evidence as is advice, pep talk, and personal triumph and travail. The Rawlife list is also more of a free-for-all zone and watering hole for many of the net's raw extremists--some would say more "pure" exponents of vegan raw-foodism. Interesting in its own right for those reasons, however, and also if one desires a more representative cross-section of raw vegan behaviors and practices.
VEG-RAW: Apparently defunct. (Email info to one of the site editors if you know of a change of status.) The Veg-Raw list was the first Internet email list on raw foods; it was launched in 1995. In 1997 the list was renamed Raw-Food and that list is still in operation today (above). After the creation of Raw-Food, a separate list named Veg-Raw was launched and it operated for several months. It is the second version of Veg-Raw that is now defunct. The archives of the original Veg-Raw list (from 1995 to the renaming in 1997) are included in the Raw-Food list archives (above; note that the Raw-Food archives cover the period 1995 to the present). The archives of the second version of Veg-Raw (i.e., after the 1997 split) are not available.
SCI-VEG: NOTE--This list began in March 1996 and was active through September 1999 but is now defunct. Unfortunately its very informative archives are no longer available on the web either, and the www.sci-veg.org site has also been taken down, at least for the time being. (If the archives ever return, we'll be happy to provide a link.) We're leaving our previous synopsis of the list up so those who happen to hear about the list can glean a bit of information about the context in which it operated, and its reason for existence, and eventual demise.
Sci-Veg was formed in response to the tendency for conversations about substantive issues to get hijacked on true-believer forums such as VEGAN-L. As the Internet has matured, the quality of discussion on listgroups netwide has unfortunately become more infantile in proportion to the teeming hordes and seemingly limitless supply of low-intelligence ne'er-do-wells coming online. This is especially true with lists on topics such as diet that can become almost religious issues with the participants involved. Some lists are moving to moderated formats in response, and Sci-Veg is an example of the difference a moderated list can make in stimulating more intelligent conversation rather than the emotional equivalent of a fart-fest.
If you're interested primarily in substantiating or defending a vegetarian diet with science, this is the forum for you. Also figuring heavily into the discussions are ethical/environmental issues, and social issues such as how to best present vegetarianism to a skeptical public.
Update concerning the list's demise: Owner and moderator Carl Phillips, Ph.D.'s big-picture vision for Sci-Veg was to bring together a core group of scientifically oriented and trained individuals in both academic and professional positions (and in this it was succeeding to a significant degree) in an attempt to help put the vegetarian movement on a more credible scientific basis with the wider nutritional community in general. (In this latter aim the list had a tremendous amount of work cut out for it, but was beginning to make some modest initial steps toward that end.) The demise of the list according to owner/moderator Carl Phillips, Ph.D. was the result of his eventual frustration with: ongoing political infighting in the vegetarian movement; entrenched resistance to the aim of cleaning up the junk-science-based information permeating much of the movement's promotional efforts; plus sustained personal attacks and interference in his private life from certain factions in the vegetarian community.
Finally, although Sci-Veg is gone, a few traces remain at the following off-site links:
Carl Phillips' resignation from popular vegetarian advocacy
Carl Phillips' parting advice for popular vegetarian advocacy
VEGAN-L: One of the net's earliest listgroups devoted to veganism, originally hosted on a system at Temple University, the list has since moved to another host. The list serves as an indicator of current opinions in the mainstream, conventional vegan movement. Previously the most influential vegan-oriented list, it now has a relatively small subscriber base. The current list postings and archive can be accessed (read and/or searched) without joining the list.
