People were being nasty to one another over something (I can't remember
what), and it sparked this message from me: 

| I'd like to make a suggestion as to how we
| could avoid flame wars on anthro-l.  I feel that one of the reasons
| discussions sometimes get so nasty is because we know so little about
| one another *as people* that we often forget that there *are* people
| behind the messages.

| My sugestion is that the 20 or 30 regular contributors to the list
| write a short description (say <100 words) of themselves, and that these
| descriptions be collated and mailed once a month (or however often
| seems appropriate) to the list.  I'm happy to compile such a file if
| people want to mail me their life stories (or just post them to the list).
|
| I don't mean for people to produce a list of their research interests.
| I was thinking of a more personal description, perhaps even with a few
| bits of complete trivia - something to help us understand that there is
| a person behind all those words!  (I don't know about the rest of you,
| but I would find it hard to say anything personally nasty about someone
| who I knew kept an extensive collection of tropical fish, or who had an
| uncontrollable fondness for chocolate, however poorly I thought of
| their ideas.)

The autobiographies you see here are a result of this, which may explain
some things about them.

Danny Yee.

Biographies << anthro-l << Anthropology << Danny Yee