From ts@uwasa.fi Sun 15 Mar 00:00:00 1992 Subject: FAQNEWS.TXT contents (All rights reserved) FAQNEWS.TXT Frequently (and not so frequently) asked questions relating to UseNet news with answers. Comments, corrections, and additions are solicited. ................................................................... Prof. Timo Salmi Moderating at garbo.uwasa.fi anonymous ftp archives 128.214.87.1 School of Business Studies, University of Vaasa, SF-65101, Finland Internet: ts@chyde.uwasa.fi Funet: gado::salmi Bitnet: salmi@finfun All rights reserved. -------------------------------------------------------------------- 1) Using a suitable right margin in the news and email. 2) What does "Subject: Re: none" mean in the news? 3) Why "Reply by email, I don't read this group" gets flamed? 4) What is an appropriate maximum length of a signature? 5) Is there a list of ftp sites (for certain kind of programs)? 6) How do I extract from comp.binaries.ibm.pc binary postings? 7) Should I offer to email this utility I have at my disposal? 8) Someone email me a .zip extractor (or something equally common) 9) How should I react to "a dying boy's last wish"? 10) How should I react to crackpot messages? 11) How should I react to abusive email? 12) How do I submit my PC program to the binaries? 13) May I just go ahead and post binaries to discussion newsgroups? 14) What is cross-posting? How do I do it? 15) Where can I find the net rules (the "netiquette")? 16) I just posted to a wrong newsgroup. Should I explain it next? 17) Where to put test postings? 18) What is archie (see item #5)? 19) Why do you answer so tersely? It sometimes seems rude. 20) Why don't you mark shareware/freeware/etc status to file lists? -------------------------------------------------------------------- From ts@uwasa.fi Sun 15 Mar 00:00:01 1992 Subject: Using a suitable right margin in the news and email. 1. ***** Q: Using a maximum of 72 column right margin in your news postings. A: This first item on the list is not really a FAQ (Frequently Asked Question) but nevertheless something I would like to draw your attention to. Most users reading the news probably have a 80 column terminal program. Consider the implications. If you use too broad lines, the tails of the lines will be wrapped over to the next line (or be truncated depending on the reader's terminal program settings) making your text difficult or impossible to follow. And it does not end there. If someone quotes your text with the usual news convention of preceding your text with > an overflow can follow even if your text does not originally overflow the 80 column limit. In fact there can be multiple quotes. Hence a suitable maximum reight margin wrap in writing to the news is 72 columns. Note that this problem concerns your signature width as well. Even if quoting signatures is not a good idea, it is often done. Personally I have set my editor's wrap at column 69. The same goes for email. Incidentally, the wrap of this text is set at column 69. -------------------------------------------------------------------- From ts@uwasa.fi Sun 15 Mar 00:00:01 1992 Subject: 2. ***** Q: What does "Subject: Re: none" mean in the news? A: It means that someone has posted a message without a subject header. This is an irrational thing to do. On top of that net rules don't exactly love it, consider the way in which many readers (I included) read the news. Because of the deluge of postings, readers first scan the headers (e.g. in rn use =) to decide if anything is worth a closer look. The most likely result is that postings with no subjects, or uninformative subjects (such as "Help urgently needed", "Information requested", "A question", "Read this", and so on) get summarily bypassed. Conclusion: If you post, use informative subject headers. That way your posting has a much better chance of being noticed by the potentially interested parties. It works to your own advantage. A2: What was said in the above also goes for email messages. Especially if you receive much email (like I do) you will soon notice how much easier it is to keep things organized if the email messages have descriptive subject headers. Often even any subject header is better than none. To give one example. Even if I am very pleased to get email stating "thank you for your help" I am usually left quite baffled. Getting and sending so much email myself I often have no idea what I am being thanked for. Putting in some kind of a reference (whether the email concerns thanks or some other situation) helps the receiver to place your email correctly. -------------------------------------------------------------------- From ts@uwasa.fi Sun 15 Mar 00:00:02 1992 Subject: Asking for emailed news replys 3. ***** Q: Why "(Please) reply by email, I don't usually read this group" (sometimes a demand rather than a question) gets flamed? A: First please note that what I say below is not intended as flame any individual poster, but as a general analysis of requests to email the replies because one does not read a newsgroup. The problem is that telling people to email because one does not follow a newsgroup basically is an impolite way of formulating such a request. If one is interested enough to post to a group, one should also be prepared to follow up the group. If one asks others for favors, it is only fair to be prepared to reciprocate. Intended or not, the attitude this (email-I-don't-read) decree easily conveys is "I don't usually care for this wimpy group of yours, but this time you are allowed to be of service to my exalted person". What one should do, if following the group is genuinely problematic (for cost or other reasons), is to offer to make a summary of the replies. The liturgy often used for this is "Please reply by email. If there is sufficient interest, I'll summarize". (This alternative is often advocated also because it is expected to cut down the traffic). But make it genuine. Not just a lip service. You might even state why following a group is problematic for you, but this is up to you. The problem with asking emailed replies is that unless one offers to summarize, or has an extremely specialized subject, the request will seem selfish. This is because other users may be interested in seeing the potentially useful replies. On the other hand if everyone posts an answer, the newsgroup will be swamped for awhile. This sometimes happens with common questions where almost everyone knows the answer. (An example: How does one bypass pressing Y for del *.* elicited an enormous number of almost identical reply postings in February 1992). It is not always easy to strike a balance. -------------------------------------------------------------------- From ts@uwasa.fi Sun 15 Mar 00:00:03 1992 Subject: Appropriate signature length 4. ***** Q: What is an appropriate maximum length of a signature? A: Net etiquette (the "netiquette") and practice dictate about four lines at a maximum. The purpose of a signature can be considered two-fold. It gives your email address, and also acts as a visual identifier. Often the signatures include some kind of witticism or aphorism. Even if they are often amusing, and some very clever indeed, they may annoy some users. But obviously they are here to stay. If you simply cannot overcome the desire to include one, at least make it brief. The brief ones are usually the best anyway. By the way, I don't personally use one. If I wish to try a pun, or include a witticism, I try to do it in the body of my message. (Ok, here is one pun to boggle BBS lovers. Users writing in fowl language will be twittered. Figure this one out :-). (If I used a quote in my signature it would probably be "Sounds like a good idea, but let's use it nevertheless" or "Where there is a will, there is a won't". There are many more in /pc/ts/tspun10.zip.) At worst there are multiline signatures with elaborate ascii drawings. They can be entertaining in a sense, but basically they are but bloated ego-trips, a waste of bandwidth, and severely frowned upon in the official UseNet net rules. One further thing. You can have your signature automatically included in unix mail systems. Put your signature in a file called .signature in your main directory. From Raymond Chen: "The permissions on the .signature file and its enclosing directory must be appropriately set. Ask your system administrator for details." -------------------------------------------------------------------- From ts@uwasa.fi Sun 15 Mar 00:00:04 1992 Subject: Lists of anonymous ftp sites 5. ***** Q: Is there a list of ftp sites (for certain kind of programs)? A1: I have gathered a list of ftp sites and their moderators, who carry MsDos programs, in particular. It is available by anonymous FTP and mail server as garbo.uwasa.fi:/pc/pd2/moder.lst. If readers have additions and/or corrections for that list, I would very much like to receive such information. Your help in maintenance would be very much appreciated. Help is needed to make the list as covering as possible, and to keep it up to date. Also consider getting garbo.uwasa.fi:/pc/doc-net/ftpsites.lst. It was published periodically in the news by Jon Granrose (until the end of 1991), and is archived at garbo.uwasa.fi by the author's kind permission. If you want to get it directly from the news, see one of the following groups where it is cross-posted: comp.misc, comp.sources.wanted, alt.sources.wanted and news.answers. Furthermore, I have seen it mentioned (although I haven't checked this by trying it myself) that the up to date list is also available directly from pilot.njin.net directory /pub/ftp-lists. Since the beginning of 1992 the list was taken over by Tom Czarnik, aftp-list@netcom.com. There is also a third list maintained by Jon Noring noring@netcom.com called "List of Recommended PC (DOS) Archive Sites Accessible via Anonymous FTP". It is (was!?) published every now and then (at least) in comp.binaries.ibm.pc.archives. Also recommended, but in February 1992 I had not seen it for a few months. A2: There is a system called archie at the McGill University in Canada. It keeps a list of where you can find programs archived. The idea is roughly the following. For example if you wish to know which anonymous ftp sites have tsbat32.zip, you may search archie database with: prog tsbat. To connect to archie use telnet quiche.cs.mcgill.ca and the userid archie. Then explore on from that point. Note that archie also accepts email requests of information. To use that option send email to archie@cs.mcgill.ca, use eg archie-request as your subject line, and put send help as your message. The only snag with archie is that by necessity its information lags behind the situation of at least for the most active anonymous ftp sites. The archie service is also available at several other sites. Note one problem. One does not know how comprehensive the data base at each alternative site is. -------------------------------------------------------------------- From ts@uwasa.fi Sun 15 Mar 00:00:05 1992 Subject: How to extract files from c.b.i.p. 6. ***** Q: How do I extract from comp.binaries.ibm.pc binary postings? A1: 1) One handy trick to download multi-part postings from the binaries to your Unix host is the following. Use rn (read news) to store the postings in ~/News/Comp.binaries.ibm.pc. It must be empty when you commence. Store in the correct order as indicated in the subject header n/N. Then apply automatic combining and uudecoding: combine Comp.binaries.ibm.pc You will end up with the .zoo package on your Unix host. 2) If you don't already have the combine program, you can create it yourself. Write the following two lines to a file with any editor and name the file combine. #! /bin/sh cat $* | sed '/^END/,/^BEGIN/d' | uudecode Make this script executable by applying chmod u+x combine or chmod 700 combine 3) After you have the (.zoo or whatever) package on your Unix host, the rest is what should be familiar routine. Transfer the package to your PC remembering to use the binary option in the transfer (this goes at least for Kermit and Zmodem). Then extract the files from the package by using ZOO or LOOZ for PCs. If you are not familiar with these steps, and have problems, contact a knowledgeable PC friend near you. (My PD2ANS.TXT instructions file has some more information.) 4) This intermediate step is not mandatory, but for your information. When you have the .zoo package at your Unix host, you can check it using zoo -test FileName assuming that you have the zoo program at your Unix host. Naturally you can perform the same test at your PC. --- A note from Otto J. Makela (otto@jyu.fi) concerning item 2: A simpler version is: sed '/END--/,/BEGIN--/d' $* | uudecode --- A2: Alternatively, stand by until the periodic posting of the UseNet CBIP Starter's Kit in comp.binaries.ibm.pc. The kit (release 1.7, 16-Apr-91) contained: 1) Instructions 2) BASIC source to create UUDECODE.COM 3) DEBUG script to create UUDECODE.COM 4) C source for UUDECODE 5) Documentation for UUDECODE 6) LOOZ 2.12, ZOO extractor, in uuencoded form -------------------------------------------------------------------- From ts@uwasa.fi Sun 15 Mar 00:00:06 1992 Subject: Offering to email files 7. ***** Q: Should I offer to email this utility I have at my disposal? A: As a general answer I would say that the results of this kind of an offer often come as a nasty surprise to the person offering the service. Several unsuspecting users have had the problem of being completely inundated with the subsequent email requests, and may even have had to withdraw the offer. A much safer avenue is to tell where the utility is available. Or if it is not yet available anywhere on the net, first upload it to a suitable ftp site (don't forget to notify the moderator). Most often this means SIMTEL20 and/or garbo.uwasa.fi archives. But if you have gullibly made such an offer I suggest that you grit your teeth, and see things through. The least you should do is to make the information available where and how the utility can be obtained, if you have to go back on your word of emailing directly to the users. Now what to do in the case if you are a user who has seen some goodies offered, and the offer of emailing then withdrawn. Back to the old file lists. We have several at garbo.uwasa.fi archives. If you get the following files you have a good chance of finding what you are looking for: /pc/INDEX (or /pc/INDEX.ZIP), /pc/ts/tsarc161.txt (or whichever is the current version number), /unix/INDEX, /pc/filelist/cbbs_dos.zip, and /pc/filelist/simibm.zip. -------------------------------------------------------------------- From ts@uwasa.fi Sun 15 Mar 00:00:07 1992 Subject: Pleas for extremely common programs 8. ***** Q: Someone email me a .zip extractor (or something equally common) A: This is not a flame but a friendly piece of advice for you, and others occasionally posting similar wishes concerning easily available shareware and PD programs. Better still than making an offhand request that may end up with several kind netters duplicating each others' efforts for your benefit by rushing to email your request to you, how about doing the work yourself and getting it from an ftp site, or a BBS near you. At our site the extractors can be found in the /pc/arcers directory. For .zip files use pkz110eu.exe. The wares are available by anonymous ftp from garbo.uwasa.fi, Vaasa, Finland, or by using our mail server (use the latter if, and only if you don't have anonymous ftp). If you are not familiar with anonymous ftp or mail servers, I will be happy to send prerecorded instructions on your emailed request. (If you don't get the instructions from me within a few days, it will mean that your email address cannot be reached by a simple email reply, and you wouldn't be able to utilize the mail server anyway. In this case contact your own system manager for a better mail path.) (If you already have /pc/ts/tsfaq##.zip, the prerecorded instructions are what is in the PD2ANS.TXT file.) If you are in North America, first try a North American mail server to cut down the overseas traffic. Ditto for Oceania. First try an Oceanian site. If you don't know what directory to look at for the program you would like to have, first get the following garbo.uwasa.fi file lists: /pc/INDEX (or /pc/INDEX.ZIP) /pc/ts/tsarc###.zip (### = a growing version number) /unix/INDEX -------------------------------------------------------------------- From ts@uwasa.fi Sun 15 Mar 00:00:08 1992 Subject: Posted hoax petitions 9. ***** Q: How should I react to "a dying boy's last wish"? A: Don't fall into these traps. Some users get their kicks out of trying to play pranks on unsuspecting neophyte users on the net. These hoaxes most often take the form of pleas to send email messages or ordinary post cards (or even money in some blatant cases). "Dying boy's last wish" and "support a cause" are among the most common. Note that the truth value of the original pleas is NOT the real issue here. (If you are interested in that aspect eg in the last-wish case, check the Guinness Book of World Records). Hall-marks of these plea-postings are that they are either repeats of age-old themes, or are completely fictitious. Another hall-mark of these pranks is that fulfilling the petitions would probably cause havoc on the net and/or the postal system at some address. These petitions can occur in innumerable forms. One that has been very popular in Finland is "write to your congress person about the impending registration of, and tax-levy on, all modem users". This always causes a stir, since such idiocy could well be conceivable in this country. The best reaction to these postings is simply to ignore them. At best the pleas are misplaced. The newsgroups should keep to their own subjects. Sending a flame would most probably be useless, since the poster's mail address may be forged, or even someone else's cracked userid. Better just to hope that some alert system manager gets wind of who the original prankster is, and takes appropriate action. What you shouldn't do under any circumstances is trying to cram the mailbox of the potential culprit. You'll just hurt the systems along feed, and you may end up being a worse offender than the original nitwit. If you feel that you absolutely want to react in some way, perhaps the best alternative is to see if you can contact the postmaster of the prankster's site, and discuss the problem with him/her. Another childish form of pranks on the net are the bogus newsgroups (eg alt.swedish.bork.bork.bork, alt.flame.pizza.greasy). The best course of action for an ordinary user is just to unsubscribe, and again hope that the alert system managers will put things right. For the couple of first times these prank newsgroups may seem funny, but after a while you'll see that they are so similar repeats of the same themes that they are just plain boring. (Note: By a bogus newsgroup I mean a newsgroup with no discussion in it, and which will be rejected by your newsreader. Sometimes there really are alt newsgroups with these elaborate names with discussion in them. I am not referring to them, but to the empty bastardizations). It is naturally difficult to generalize the motives behind these practical jokes, but my understanding is that in many cases it is a question of a kind of a misplaced creativity rather than outright malice. It would be much better for everybody if this creativity were directed in a more productive manner. -------------------------------------------------------------------- From ts@uwasa.fi Sun 15 Mar 00:00:09 1992 Subject: Crackpot messages 10. ***** Q: How should I react to crackpot messages? Crackpot postings and email are very often religious or sexual in nature, but sometimes take other peculiar forms. These are in a way very sad cases, since they are likely reflect bad personal problems or even mental disturbances. These cases need professional help, and the net is not the place to try it, nor is it a suitable media for serious treatment. Flames certainly won't help matters. We can only wish that the poster realizes his/her own state, and seeks proper help. What should an ordinary user do about such postings on the news. The best course of action is plain ignore them even if you would itch to respond. Put the subject (or the offender's address) in your news kill file. Following up the crackpot posting by condemning comments is self-defeating, because many of these ill perverts get a significant part of their kicks out of the attention they are able to stir up by their crackpot behavior. In a sick person's disturbed mind even strongly negative attention is often better than none. Don't oblige on the net since it will only make matters worse. BTW, the most peculiar message I've received so far propounded "My rabbit's feathers are longer than your rabbit's". But this was a response to an argument from a notorious fellow Finn (who has a predilection to create controversy to draw attention to himself). In the case of religion, drawing the line is sometimes difficult. Some otherwise normal, well-meaning, sometimes even highly professional persons may feel a compulsion to profess their religious faith publicly, and even try to convert others. These persons should, however, remember that flaunting one's faith may offend others, who have different concepts of life. Another, and a more complicated question, are the suggestions of setting up crackpot newsgroups of the type of recent.alien.visitors or sci.paranormal, and others that have no connection with physical reality. If you want to respond to such suggestions in the news, at least take the discussion away from the ordinary newsgroups to news.groups where it is better placed. The news postings headers have a field called "Followup-To:". Use that and write news.groups in there. -------------------------------------------------------------------- From ts@uwasa.fi Sun 15 Mar 00:00:10 1992 Subject: What to do about abusive messages 11. ***** Q: How should I react to abusive email or postings? There is one further category of problematic net behavior to point out, that is overly aggressive or abusive postings or email. These are often written in the heat of the moment, or under the influence. Or they may result from outright misunderstandings, because this is not an easy media for conveying subtleties. Also remember that UseNet is an international net, and not everyone is fluent in English. On top of that, there are cultural differences in expressing wishes and views. (For example, I've noticed that email from one cultural background tends to be abrupt, while another sometimes seems to be lacking in consideration in asking services from others). Or someone may have a completely different sense of humor from yours. The reasons for angry postings can be many, and the only solid deduction that can be drawn from a single abusive posting is that someone has truly bad manners or a totally off-key day. The best way to react is either to reply politely, or not to reply at all. (There is no sense in responding in the same manner, and being just another jerk). I'll give you an example concerning incompatible humor. I have a predilection for trying to come up with puns in English, and this is not always liked. There was a discussion in the news.groups demanding why an infertility group had not passed in the news. I just couldn't resist the temptation, and remarked that perhaps it was because the idea was barren :-). One user obviously had real personal strife with infertility, and told me to shove the Smiley, you know where, in as many words. To give another example, here is a counter-xenophobic joke guaranteed to bring flames crashing in from some US users. "There was this American who was asked wasn't he ever annoyed by the fact that he didn't really have a language of his very own but had to speak English. The reply. If English was good enough for Jesus, it's certainly good enough for me." Seriously, though. Although it is fortunately very rare, sometimes one encounters netters from the US, who do not seem to be able quite to grasp the international nature of the InterNet. Here is a story of a case of mutual misunderstanding turning out right. I sent a note to a user who posted test messages to a discussion newsgroup, and told him that he shouldn't, and pointed out that there are special newsgroups just for testing purposes. I got a very testy (pardon the pun) reply referring to my attitude as smart-ass. But we started discussing about it, and soon noticed that: 1) he had misread my intentions, 2) that my message was badly formulated and gave rise to the possibility of taking it just as an impolite flame. What happened was that we together worked out a better formulation for my prerecorded advice on test post (see item #17), and we both benefited from the process, and enjoyed it. If someone continues to post to the UseNet news in a language that offends you, perhaps the best action is simply not to read any postings from that person. Most newsreader programs have what is called a kill file, where you can specify which subjects or persons you wish to ignore. (And speaking more generally than just about offensive postings, I would like to put forward here that unless you are seriously involved with the maintenance of the relevant newsgroup, if you do not like someone's posting habits, you should seriously consider the option of using the kill file. Express your views by all means, but long-standing UseNet experience tells that attacking will not achieve anything). What to do if the abusive individual persists sending you one unwelcome message after another, or keeps on harassing you in some other way. Persisting cases are perhaps best tackled by just deleting _unread_ all the email and postings from that address. I apply this method myself, although fortunately I have needed this drastic option extremely seldom so far. Another understandable, but problematic situation is when one gets flamed for something one didn't say or do. This sometimes happens eg when one quotes in the news an offensive posting, and consequently someone confuses who said what. For example one of my perfectly neutral postings included a quote from a third person castigating American freedom in an obviously unfriendly fashion. In consequence I got a rather indignant message from a reader who mistook the quote as my opinion. We finally sorted it out to a friendly conclusion, but much unnecessary effort was involved. The more general lesson from the last item above is to be careful not to confuse the original poster, and the person who is replying to the posting. It unfortunately happens relatively often that when I answer a question in the news, someone emails a reply to the original question mistakenly to me, not to the original poster where the reply should be directed. And I have been guilty of a similar mistake myself a couple of times. As an archive site moderator getting much email, and having been quite active on the UseNet news I am exposed to the possibility of overly aggressive behavior perhaps even more than the average user. Therefore I store messages and the addresses of the intentionally offensive and hostile individuals for future reference in order to be able to try to steer clear of such hotheads. It is thoroughly frustrating that when one tries to help eg by giving information on the charter of a newsgroup, as a result one gets back a message that has been devised with the sole intention of heaping deliberate insults. In December of 1991 I had such an unfortunate incident involving the comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d newsgroup. -------------------------------------------------------------------- From ts@uwasa.fi Sun 15 Mar 00:00:11 1992 Subject: How to submit a binary posting 12. ***** Q: How do I submit my PC program to the binaries? A: There is a periodic posting in comp.binaries.ibm.pc which answers all your necessary questions. If you don't want to wait for it to come round, you can download it from garbo.uwasa.fi as /pc/doc-net/submbin.arc. -------------------------------------------------------------------- From ts@uwasa.fi Sun 15 Mar 00:00:12 1992 Subject: Do not post binaries directly 13. ***** Q: May I just go ahead and post binaries to discussion newsgroups? A: First of all this should not be taken as a recrimination against any individual poster of binaries to a discussion newsgroup, but rather as a reminder to all of us of the potential problems involved. Because this information is at the same time intended to help the well-meaning posters of binaries, there are pointers at the end of this item on how to make your binary available in the proper way. If someone sees these things differently, ok, but please note that I would rather not get flaming, indignant arguments crashing in over this issue. (All civilized views are naturally always welcome). Also please note that it does not make a decisive difference whether these posting in fact just contain sources and no executables. The problems are similar whatever (binary posting or something else) we decide call this method of distribution. I know and understand that most of who do this mean well, and wish to contribute to the general usefulness of the news. We all appreciate that. Nevertheless, I would strongly advise against posting binaries to unmoderated discussion newsgroups. On top of that the net rules don't like it, let's look at this from a purely practical point of view. If other netters follow suit and start posting binaries to discussion newsgroups not meant for this purpose, there are several potential problems: 1) The traffic will soon explode, since it is bound to be more or less haphazard. This is bound to invoke action sooner or later from the systems along the feed and/or net administration. 2) There are no guarantees against trojans and other nasties. (This does not mean that the other methods are absolutely safe, but the likelihood is smaller by far.) 3) The probability of commercial material being posted over the net increases, with all the consequent repercussions. 4) The idea is very wasteful of net resources. Remember that there are over 80000 readers in eg comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d. Much better to put/get stuff into/from the orderly moderated groups, or use anonymous ftp, mail servers, or good BBSes. 5) Even should the binary posting be just a short minor one, it may easily snowball by invoking others. Now what to do if you have a useful binary you want to distribute. A much better avenue than posting it is telling where the utility is available. Or if it is not yet available anywhere on the net, first upload it to a suitable ftp site, or send it to the relevant moderator of the binary postings (provided there is a suitable binary group on the net). If you wish to have the instructions for submitting MsDos files to garbo.uwasa.fi archives I'll be happy to send you our upload instructions if you email me for them. Or if you wish to FTP the instructions directly, they are available as garbo.uwasa.fi:/pc/UPLOAD.INF. If you do not wish to face the inevitable delay in processing the files at an FTP site, or a moderated binaries group, you have the alternative of posting to alt.sources. That group has been set up to allow a non-restricted posting of binaries. There are many sites, though, that have decided not to subscribe to certain or any alt groups. -------------------------------------------------------------------- From ts@uwasa.fi Sun 15 Mar 00:00:13 1992 Subject: Instructions about cross-posting 14. ***** Q: What is cross-posting? How do I do it? A: As we all know, UseNet news have the newsgroups divided by the topic areas. If you want your message to appear in more than one newsgroup you can achieve this by cross-posting. If you look at the header in the news you will notice the item Newsgroups:. Put the names of the newsgroups in there separated by commas. Scan the headers of almost any newsgroup, and you are bound to see how it is done. The number one rule of cross-posting is that cross-posting should never be used indiscriminately. If you feel that it is necessary to cross-post, consider carefully your selection, and keep it down. Avoid cross-posting to groups that are branches of the same sub-hierarchy, that is don't cross-post to adjacent newsgroups. What goes for newsgroup selection in general, also applies to cross-posting. Never cross-post to newsgroups which do not coincide with your subject. There is one very important DON'T in cross-posting. Do not send the same message separately to different newsgroups. Always use the cross-posting facility of the news (Newsgroups:). If you repeat a message separately in different newsgroups, the readers will have to see your posting many times over, and will get annoyed. You have a good chance of justifiably ending up flamed. A2: Here are a couple of further tips when you have got the hang of cross posting. As you can see there is a "Followup-To:" field in the news header. Sometimes you might want to direct the replies only a to single newsgroup even if you have cross posted the original. The rationale here is to prevent the discussion from scattering to several newsgroups. Some users put the word poster in there to redirect the potential replies directly to them by email. The problem with this method is that even if it should work, it is not guaranteed to so so. Some system configurations and newsreaders do not handle this correctly. For example I get a bounce if I reply to such a posting. -------------------------------------------------------------------- From ts@uwasa.fi Sun 15 Mar 00:00:14 1992 Subject: Where are the net rules available 15. ***** Q: Where can I find the net rules (the "netiquette")? A1: The newsgroup news.announce.newusers has a set of useful periodic postings of net advice and rules. Sometimes one feels that reading these periodic postings would not hurt the old hands either. I heartily suggest taking a look. A2: From: elle@ellis.uchicago.edu (Ellen Keyne Seebacher) [Reproduced and edited with Ellen's kind permission] Newsgroups: news.newusers.questions Subject: Re: Looking for "netiquette" document Date: 9 Jan 91 23:00:53 GMT Organization: University of Chicago : >I'm looking for a copy of the document entitled "netiquette". : There is none by that exact title (though one contains the word). There _is_ a _series_ of articles referred to loosely as "netiquette" (net etiquette, of course); their individual titles are as follows: Introduction to news.announce List of Active Newsgroups Alternative Newsgroup Hierarchies Regional Newsgroup Hierarchies List of Moderators Publicly Accessible Mailing Lists List of Periodic Informational Postings How to Get Information about Networks Rules for posting to Usenet How to Create a New Newsgroup How to Create a New Trial Newsgroup A Primer on How to Work With the Usenet Community Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette Hints on writing style for Usenet Answers to Frequently Asked Questions USENET Software: History and Sources -------------------------------------------------------------------- From ts@uwasa.fi Sun 15 Mar 00:00:15 1992 Subject: What to do about a mislaid posting 16. ***** Q: I just posted to a wrong newsgroup. Should I explain it in a follow-up posting? A: No. Much better to cancel your posting. At least if you are using rn for reading news, you can cancel your posting by applying the command C on it. If you don't want to loose what you wrote, first save your message to a file with the s option if you are using rn. See rn help (h) for more details on the commands. This is much preferable to following up with an explanation. It is a good thing that you care where you post. It is frustrating to see postings that have nothing to do with the contents of the newsgroup. Some users are way too careless in this respect. (I must plead occasionally guilty myself). Posting to a wrong newgroup is not even rational, because the chances of getting a useful response are diminished. Nevertheless, a follow-up explanatory posting just doubles the mistake and draws unnecessary attention (if you cannot cancel what you posted). -------------------------------------------------------------------- From ts@uwasa.fi Sun 15 Mar 00:00:16 1992 Subject: Where to put test postings 17. ***** Q: Where to put test postings? A: Please don't take offence by this item. It is meant as a friendly piece of advice, not as a flame. Novice users, and sometimes even others, occasionally place these "A test, please ignore" messages in discussion newsgroups. Please don't do this. It is wasteful of the resources. These news reach tens of thousands of readers, so a very wide distribution is involved. Furthermore, many users find the test messages very annoying in the discussion newsgroups, and you have a good chance of getting some testy email. There is a much better solution for the testing. There are special test newsgroups just for this purpose, such as alt.test and misc.test. The misc.test is a good option, since there are several test echos along the feed. They will automatically send you email acknowledgements when your test posting reaches these sites. One more piece of advice on test posting. Don't start with a "world" distribution right away. First consider experimenting with "local", and think of expanding only after that, if this is still necessary. If you look at the header of a UseNet posting, you'll notice that it includes the a line for distribution. Be aware, however, that the distribution limitation is not guaranteed to work. At least I have had problems with this feature. If you are a system manager who has had to do the test this way for practical reasons, my apologies if this advisory note was not appropriate in the case of your test. -------------------------------------------------------------------- From ts@uwasa.fi Sun 15 Mar 00:00:17 1992 Subject: What is archie 18. ***** Q: What is archie? A: See answer A2 to question #5. -------------------------------------------------------------------- From ts@uwasa.fi Sun 15 Mar 00:00:18 1992 Subject: My replying habits in the news 19. ***** Q: Why do you answer so tersely? It sometimes seems rude. A: When one answers very many questions, as I have done on the net, one gradually starts getting rid of all the coating, for better or worse. This may convey an unintended impression of unfriendliness, which most certainly is not my purpose nor my attitude. A related matter is that I have often posted or emailed a pointer to the answer by referring to my Frequently Asked Questions collection, rather than the actual, full answer. There are several reasons for this conduct, which some users don't quite like. First of all, I feel that it is better to help people to learn how to find the answers, than simply feed them. (I'm supposed to be a professor underneath, am I not? :-). In the long run such know-how is much more beneficial for the users. (Recall the proverb about teaching a man to fish instead of giving him a fish). Also this method has a curbing effect of the same repeated questions ballooning and filling a newsgroup. Secondly, the pointed information is often much better and more accurate what one can provide on the fly. It is much more easy and thus more efficient to give a pointer rather than to try to remember, for example, the exact name and/or location of a utility that a user asks for. Although being very busy most of the time, I can usually afford the few moments it takes to write a pointer, but I simply cannot repeatedly afford the time to look for the same full answer, and then write it. It's hopefully better to give some information than none at all. Of course, there must be a sensible balance between pointers to answers and giving the full answers. On the other hand there is a problem to this method I use. Someone else may have a much better answer than I do. If s/he doesn't post it because of the pointer I've made to the FAQ, good answers are foregone by the users. -------------------------------------------------------------------- From ts@uwasa.fi Sun 15 Mar 00:00:19 1992 Subject: Mark shareware/freeware/etc status to file lists 20. ***** Q: Why don't you mark shareware/freeware/etc status to file lists? A: This is one of the suggestions on improving our FTP site that seems to recur. Feedback and ideas from users are always welcome. Please do not be put off by the fact that in this case the response has to be negative. Although the comments below will concern marking the shareware / freeware status, the comments are partly applicable to many other kind suggestions we get from our gentle users. But please do not prevent this from making suggestions and giving feedback. The suggestion to mark the shareware / freeware status to the files at archive sites is not realistic, not at least on garbo archives. Archive management takes a lot of effort even the way it is now. There is no way we can afford the effort to categorize even all the new incoming material, let alone what we already have. Try to categorize, say, a hundred packages you do not know in advance. I am sure you'll soon see how daunting the task is. And, if you feel that I exaggerate the amount of extra effort, offers of volunteer work are welcome. (The same answer is applicable for the kind suggestions about putting file sizes into our file indexes). There are offshoots of the question of the shareware / freeware on the archives. First, some users have been deploring the fact that they have to download the material before they can see whether it is free or not. Well, this is a fact of life, and I can only say that downloaders just have to adjust to this state of affairs. As a moderator of an FTP site, I am somewhat unhappy to see that users are occasionally somewhat caustic when commenting on the work they feel they have wasted. Here, I must suggest a reflection of the free nature of the FTP site services. A second offshoot of this discussion is the question whether the FTP sites should carry shareware material at all, because shareware is supposed to be against the non-commercial nature of the net. I won't enter into quibbling about manna from heaven vs facilities are always paid by someone. There has been ample debate on the principle during the existence of the news in many newsgroups. But FTP sites (and BBSes) carry shareware (and freeware) material. That's the way it is, and that's the way it'll probably stay. Who would sort out the different kind of programs, anyway, in actual practice. A third offshoot is the concept of shareware itself, and whether one is obliged to pay for it. This subject is outside the current problem, and besides it has been discussed ad nauseum in many UseNet newsgroups. I don't want to enter into that. My official position as a moderator is clear: "Duly observe the shareware rules". There is, however, one group of programs, relevant to this discussion, which I prefer not to have on garbo archives, that is the demo versions of fully commercial programs. Since the UseNet principle _and_ practice is an unambiguous no with respect to outright commercial programs. (It would be illegal to distribute them through the net for obvious reasons). Therefore I feel that there is no reason why we should be carrying part of the marketing costs of fully commercial producers of programs by carrying their demo versions, perhaps with a rare exception of demos of exceptional interest or usefulness. I have been accosted by producers of commercial products a few times, and my usual response has been a no for the reasons discussed above. -------------------------------------------------------------------- .