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From ts@uwasa.fi Fri Feb 9 00:00:00 1996
Subject: FAQNEWS1.TXT contents
Copyright (c) 1993-1996 by Timo Salmi
All rights reserved
FAQNEWS1.TXT Frequently (and not so frequently) asked questions
relating to Usenet news with answers. Part 1/2. The items are in no
particular order.
You are free to quote brief passages from this file provided you
clearly indicate the source with a proper acknowledgment.
Comments and corrections are solicited. However, if you wish to ask
for individual consultation, please do not email your question to
me. Instead post your questions to a suitable Usenet newsgroup like
news:news.newusers.questions. It is much more efficient than asking
me by email. I'd like to help, but because of my many activities I
am very pressed for time. I prefer to pick the questions I answer on
the Usenet news. Thus I can answer publicly at one go if I happen to
have an answer. Besides, the newsgroups have a number of other
readers who might know a better or an alternative answer. Don't be
discouraged, though, if you get a reply like this from me. I am
always glad to hear from fellow Usenet news readers.
....................................................................
Prof. Timo Salmi Co-moderator of news:comp.archives.msdos.announce
Moderating at ftp:// & http://garbo.uwasa.fi archives 193.166.120.5
Department of Accounting and Business Finance ; University of Vaasa
ts@uwasa.fi http://uwasa.fi/~ts BBS 961-3170972; FIN-65101, Finland
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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 or postings?
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?
19) Why do you answer so tersely? It sometimes seems rude.
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From ts@uwasa.fi Fri Feb 9 00:00:01 1996
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,
and a few other practical tips.
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. Your
chances of getting good follow-ups or useful answers to the
questions, which you may have asked, are radically diminished.
But this 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 exceed the 80
column limit. In fact there can be multiple quotes. Hence a suitable
maximum right 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.
A2: There are some other useful guidelines to posting. If you read
the news.announce.newusers and news.answers newsgroups you'll soon
see that they give useful advice on various aspects of posting, like
1) Use a reasonable right margin just like I propounded above.
2) Don't quote excessively. I am sure that you have seen text
quoted innumerable times in the following manner.
> This is quoted text
Quote judiciously. For example, I most often skip the posting if the
quoted part fills the whole first page of the posting. Quote only
what is essential to make it possible for the reader to understand
what your posting is about. As a rule avoid quoting an entire
message (signatures and all). It is not judicious to quote, say, a
hundred lines of discussion just to input a single line of one's
own. Proper quoting is a skill. If you are going to quote, devote
some time to working the quote appropriately. Don't be lazy in this
respect.
A further tip adapted from mcr@holly.demon.co.uk (Mark Rogers).
Leave a blank line after the quoted text before you insert your own
because else your text and the quoted text will difficult to
distinguish from each other.
3) Avoid "me too" postings. People send many questions and requests
to the news. If you have a similar request as someone has posted, do
not post a "me too" follow-up. Many newsgroups have huge numbers of
readers. Think what would happen if even one per cent of the readers
of a newsgroup with for example 80000 readers would all post a "me
too". What a good original poster should do is to make a summary of
the answers if s/he gets his/her answer by email instead of the
answers being posted. (See the later item on asking for emailed
replies for some further thoughts.)
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From ts@uwasa.fi Fri Feb 9 00:00:02 1996
Subject: <none>
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
(the netiquette) 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 subjects only (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", "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.
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From ts@uwasa.fi Fri Feb 9 00:00:03 1996
Subject: Asking for emailed news replies
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
criticism of 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, even if one says please. If one is interested enough to
post to a newsgroup, one should also be prepared to follow up the
newsgroup. 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 newsgroup of
yours, but this time you are allowed to be of service to my exalted
person". What one should do, if following the newsgroup is genuinely
problematic (for cost, availability or other reasons), is at least
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 newsgroup is problematic for
you. Some helpful users might then decide to post the answers to the
newsgroup, and send a copy of their response by email to you. In
fact you might say something like "I would be grateful for an
emailed copy of the potential posted replies, since I have
difficulties in following this newsgroup because ...".
In general, the problem with asking only 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 *.* in MS-DOS elicited an enormous number
of almost identical reply postings in February 1992 in one of the
Usenet newsgroups). It is not always easy to strike a balance.
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From ts@uwasa.fi Fri Feb 9 00:00:04 1996
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" or more seriously "I might be here but my soul's gone bike
riding". There are more in ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/ts/tspun16.zip.)
At worst there are multi-line 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."
For more on the .signature file permissions, see the information
in ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/pd2/tspost16.zip, the item "Re: creating
a signature".
For more on signature questions see Britt Klein's excellent
regular FAQ posting to the news.newusers.questions.
A2: At least if your user id does not contain your name, apply a
signature identifying who you are. I for one find it somewhat
impolite to get emailed queries from users who do not even care to
identify themselves. In fact the probability of getting a useful
answer, or an answer at all, is severely decreased if you don't
identify yourself. Use the same courtesy as you would in ordinary
non-electronic communication.
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From ts@uwasa.fi Fri Feb 9 00:00:05 1996
Subject: Lists of anonymous ftp sites
5. *****
Q: Is there a list of ftp sites (for certain kind of programs)?
A: I have gathered (earlier in collaboration with Rhys Weatherley)
a list of MS-DOS and astronomy FTP sites and their moderators. It is
available from Garbo archives by anonymous FTP, WWW or mail server
as ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/link/moder.zip. It has become quite
popular. 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. The help is needed to
make the list as covering as possible, and to keep it up to date.
There also is a generic /pc/doc-net/ftp-list.zip now by Perry
Rovers. He took on the maintenance in December 1993 from Tom Czarnik
who retired from from the maintenance in spring 1994 due to not
having enough time to continue. Before Tom, the list was maintained
by Jon Granrose. Perry has done a very good job with the list.
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 tsbat47.zip, you may search archie database
with: prog tsbat. To connect to archie use
telnet quiche.cs.mcgill.ca
and the userid archie. (Please note that the mcgill archie has long
been off-line, and you may have to find another 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 e.g. archie-request as your subject line,
and put send help as your message. The snag with archie is that by
necessity its information lags behind the situation of at least for
the most active anonymous ftp sites. Another snag is that you have
to know at least the stem of the filename you are looking for.
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.
Since the McGill archie server has quite a heavy load (and may be
now out altogether), consider using an archie site near you. See
ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/link/moder.zip for one list of the archie
servers.
* For the most up-to-date list, write to an Archie server and give
it the command `servers'.
Before using archie try getting "Updated Internet Services List" or
at least see ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/link/moder.zip for the current
archie servers, since for example the McGill University system was
persistently broken at one time, and specifically asked not to be
used.
For a critical view (which I share) on archies see the item
"Jul 21 Cave Newt (30) Archie is not useful (Actually: Re: ..."
in ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/ts/tspost21.zip.
A3: With the introduction of the World Wide Web there are now much
better search engines available than archie. Some of them can be
found through my WWW link page http://uwasa.fi/~ts/http/
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From ts@uwasa.fi Fri Feb 9 00:00:06 1996
Subject: How to extract files from c.b.i.p.
6. *****
Q: How do I extract from comp.binaries.ibm.pc and other binary
postings?
A: 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 .zip 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
For a more generalized combine get ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/unix/ts/
combine.
3) After you have the (.zip 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 PKUNZIP.EXE or UNZIP.EXE for PCs. If you are
not familiar with these steps or programs, and have problems,
contact a knowledgeable PC friend near you. (My PD2ANS.TXT
instructions file in this same package has some more information.)
4) This intermediate step is not mandatory, but for your
information. When you have the .zip package at your Unix host, you
can check it using unzip -t FileName assuming that you have the
unzip 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
---
There also is the more generic combine Bourne shell script available
as ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/unix/ts/combine.
A2: Alternatively, stand by until the periodic posting of the
Usenet CBIP Starter's Kit in comp.binaries.ibm.pc. The kit (release
2.0 31-Jan-94) contained:
1) Instructions
2) Text source for UUDECODE
3) UNZIP 5.0p1, ZIP file extractor, in UUENCODE form
The kit is also available as ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/doc-net/
cbipstar.txt
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From ts@uwasa.fi Fri Feb 9 00:00:07 1996
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). Sometimes this means garbo.uwasa.fi
archives. (If you wish to consider other sites, see the
ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/link/moder.zip list of sites).
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.ZIP, /pc/INDEXTS.ZIP,
/windows/WINDEX.ZIP and /unix/UINDEX.ZIP.
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From ts@uwasa.fi Fri Feb 9 00:00:08 1996
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 pkz204g.exe or unz512x3.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/tsfaqn*.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.ZIP
/pc/INDEXTS.ZIP
/windows/WINDEX.ZIP
/unix/UINDEX.ZIP
A2: When wanting to get a program you should also take a look at
the weekly Frequently Asked Questions for comp.archives.msdos.d even
if it has some overlap with this FAQ, which you are reading now. It
is also available as ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/pd2/camfaq.zip.
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From ts@uwasa.fi Fri Feb 9 00:00:09 1996
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", "Support a cause" or the somewhat
different "Make money fast" pyramid scheme 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 e.g. 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. (As
for the pyramid schemes, beware! They are outright illegal in some
countries, like the U.S.)
These petitions can occur in innumerable forms. One that was at
one time 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 the 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 or the system manager of the prankster's
site, and discuss the problem with him/her.
Another childish form of pranks on the net are the bogus
newsgroups (e.g. 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 genuine
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.
A2: Usenet has also come to know an unfortunate phenomenon that is
called spamming in the Usenet parlance. It means sending the same
off-topic advertisement (or a similar undesirable posting) to many
newsgroups all over the net. The most notorious example so far is
the Canter & Siegel "green card posting" where a couple of two U.S.
based lawyers copied to some 5500 newsgroups their offer to send
against payment public immigration lottery information. The counter
reaction from the Usenet users was fierce.
My general advice to you if you see a spam on the Usenet news is
the following. Don't do anything about it. Just skip it. In
particular, do NOT resort to mail bombing the culprit. You'll only
end up hurting the feed and the host site more than the original
offender. You can rest assured that there are enough of experienced
users you will notify the sender's postmaster of the problem. I
repeat, newcomers, do not react to Usenet spamming!
--------------------------------------------------------------------
From ts@uwasa.fi Fri Feb 9 00:00:10 1996
Subject: Crackpot messages
10. *****
Q: How should I react to crackpot messages?
A: 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 to 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. (If you are using rn to read your news, do not know
how to use kill files, see ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/doc-net/
killfile.zip and /pc/pd2/tspost17.zip item "Re: A kill file
example"). Following up the crackpot posting with 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 ever received 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 had a few
years ago an unfortunate 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 Fri Feb 9 00:00:11 1996
Subject: What to do about abusive messages
11. *****
Q: How should I react to abusive email or postings?
A: 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, a third is prone to excessive courtesy and convolution,
and so on). Or someone may have a completely different sense of
humor from yours. Or someone may take friendly advice or guidance as
a flame (an extremely common problem for an active FTP site
moderator like yours truly). 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).
Other, related problems can also occur. I'll give you an example
concerning incompatible humor. I have a predilection for trying to
come up with puns in English. This is not always appreciated. 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. This is perhaps because the U.S. scene alone is so
extensive.
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. (See ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/doc-net/
killfile.zip and /pc/pd2/tspost17.zip item "Re: A kill file
example".)
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 primarily 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. Rather it may be counter-productive and can just
lead to what is called a flame-war.
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. This operation can, in fact, be automated
by an elm email filter. A system I can, and do employ myself if and
when necessary. If you wish to know more of this option, try on your
Unix system "man filter" or ask your local computer support person.
Another understandable, but problematic situation is when one
gets flamed for something one didn't say or do. This sometimes
happens e.g. 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. I do not mind, but the problem is that
the original poser of the question misses the potentially useful
reply. 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 even more than the average user.
Therefore I store the addresses of the intentionally offensive and
hostile individuals for future reference in order to be able to try
to steer clear of such troublesome individuals. It is thoroughly
frustrating that when one tries to help e.g. by giving information
on the usages of a newsgroup or a pointer to a FAQ (Frequently Asked
Questions), as a result one gets hostile feedback, or even worse a
message that has been devised with the sole intention of heaping
deliberate insults. For example, I have myself been targeted by a
mentally ill Canadian former SFU student, who desperately has been
trying to get at me with inane postings and abusive file uploads
whenever he manages to get a new, forged user-id. Fortunately, I
have the necessary skills to firewall him automatically, but such a
system originally takes some work to set up.
A2: There is a special, related category of net behavior which can
escalate into a real problem. You might encounter a user who is more
interested in picking up a fight with you rather than genuinely
discussing or even arguing about the actual subject. Typically,
nothing that you will say or do will satisfy such a troublemaker. It
is not a simple disagreement, which, of course, are common on the
Usenet news. Rather, he will be looking for any angle to attack you.
Be wary of this tell-tale sign. Any poster might be targeted, but an
active member of the newsgroup or/and in a known position is a
likely target.
What to do if you are targeted? Difficult to say, but the most
sensible thing is to totally withdraw from any further discussion if
the early warning signs show that such a risk might exist. Better
safe than sorry. There are so many users currently on the net that
one is compelled to avoid some the most troublesome cases by trying
to ignore them. The news kill files and email filters can be very
useful automated aids shutting them off.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
From ts@uwasa.fi Fri Feb 9 00:00:12 1996
Subject: How to submit a binary posting
12. *****
Q: How do I submit my PC program to the binaries?
A: The Usenet newsgroup comp.binaries.ibm.pc is a moderated
newsgroup for distributing shareware and PD MD-DOS programs in
uuencoded format. There is a periodic posting which answers all your
necessary questions about submitting. 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.txt "CBIP Submissions and Posting Policy".
However, during the 1995 the newsgroup was virtually dead, and
the situation is the same at the beginning of 1996.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
From ts@uwasa.fi Fri Feb 9 00:00:13 1996
Subject: Do not post binaries directly
13. *****
Q: May I just go ahead and post binaries to discussion newsgroups?
A: Let me offer some hopefully useful information about
distributing material as binary postings on the Usenet news.
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. I'd prefer not to waste the time with the
bickering. (All civilized views are naturally always welcome).
Also please note that it does not make a decisive difference
whether these posting in fact just contains sources and no
executables. The problems are similar whatever (binary posting or
something else) we decide call this method of distribution. The same
applies whether the binary posting is a short or a long one. This is
not just a simple question of "bandwidth" (a term some users are so
in love with :-).
I know and understand that most of who do this mean well, and
wish to contribute to the general usefulness of the Usenet 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 e.g. 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. Even if a single
binary posting need not be harmful in any way per se, the
danger of the snowballing effect must be kept in mind.
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 material to the garbo.uwasa.fi MS-DOS & Windows 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 ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/UPLOAD.INF and /pc/UPTEXT.INF.
A2: It is quite usual that some users facing this information tend
to counter with something along the lines "But that was a very
useful binary". This is missing the actual point. These postings
often include per se useful material. But this does _not_ exempt any
binary posting, however useful, from the problems listed above.
Furthermore, the "ban" on posting binaries to discussion newsgroups
is an established net code of conduct. It is not just my view, even
if I happen to concur. I am just providing the information for the
potential posters.
A3: Alan Brown dogbowl@dogbox.acme.gen.nz offered this additional
point. "Many sites are connected via uucp using 2400bps modems over
LD links. They generally don't take binaries groups because of the
cost involved in getting them and/or a lack of hard drive space.
Posting a binary to a discussion group directly costs them a
considerable amount of money and may cause their disks to overflow."
A4: When I post this (or similar information) as a followup to a
misplaced binary posting on the Usenet news, it often elicits what I
call "the bandwidth myth". It usually goes, somewhat aggressively,
like this. "Isn't your followup posting as much a waste of bandwidth
as the original posting?" This is a fallacy. The comparison is
mismatched. The comparison should be not only with the original,
misplaced posting but also with all the potential others it helps to
redirect to the proper channels. Besides, the purpose is to help
users to find their way, not to complain.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
From ts@uwasa.fi Fri Feb 9 00:00:14 1996
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.
I have heard that there are some newsreader programs that do not
allow editing the headers. I can only suggest contacting your system
manager or some other local guru about it. I have no further
information on this unusual dilemma since on most news programs
editing the headers is not a problem. Be careful, however, if you
edit the headers. Learn their exact requirements. If you make
mistakes, the posting may fail, and/or the followups to it by other
users may fail because of your editing errors. For example
Newsgroups: comp.lang.pascal.borland,comp.os.msdos.programmer,
would result in an error in following up because of the trailing
comma.
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. Please consider using this option whenever you
cross post.
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 do so. Some
system configurations and newsreaders do not handle this correctly.
For example I usually get a bounce if I reply to such a posting.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
From ts@uwasa.fi Fri Feb 9 00:00:15 1996
Subject: Where are the net rules available
15. *****
Q: Where can I find the net rules (the "netiquette")?
A: 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. I have stored some of this
information as ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/doc-net/usenews.zip. It
includes, among other things, the often requested information about
how to go about creating a new newsgroup (as explained in another
item of this FAQ).
Another newsgroup of interest in this connection is news.answers.
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 Fri Feb 9 00:00:16 1996
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: Not necessarily. Much better to cancel your posting. At least if
you are using rn for reading news, you can cancel your posting as
follows. Go to your posting, start reading it, then apply the
command C on it. In the tin newsreader the cancel command is D. If
you don't want to lose what you wrote, first save your message to a
file with the s option if you are using rn. See the newsreader's
help (h in rn) 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 newsgroup is not even rational, because the chances of getting
a useful response are diminished. Nevertheless, a follow-up
explanatory posting may just double the mistake and draw unnecessary
attention (if you cannot cancel what you posted).
--------------------------------------------------------------------
From ts@uwasa.fi Fri Feb 9 00:00:17 1996
Subject: Where to put test postings
17. *****
Q: Where to put test postings?
A: Let me try to give hopefully helpful information about how best
go about making test postings. Please don't take offense by this
item. It is solely meant as friendly guidance so that you can better
find your way on the net.
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 echoes along the feed. They will automatically send you
email acknowledgements when your test posting reaches these sites.
If you just wish to test posting without the automatic
acknowledgments to clutter your mailbox, check if your site has a
newsgroup simply called test. Thus don't necessarily start with a
newsgroup with a "world" distribution right away. First consider
experimenting with a "local" newsgroup, and think of expanding only
after that, if this still is necessary. If you look at the header of
a Usenet posting, you'll notice that it includes the a line for
distribution. Don't trust it. The distribution limitation is not
guaranteed to work. In global newsgroups a local distribution can
easily "leak" since not all configurations along the feed observe
this feature. Thus the distribution field in the header is best left
unchanged.
Another method. If you want to suppress the autoresponders along
the feed, include the word "ignore" in the "Subject:" header of our
articles posted to *.test.
Additional information to neophyte news users from Jim Wamsley
wamsley@dcsun1.stortek.com. "When testing your ability to post to
newsgroups, test first to your local.test newsgroup. This posting
should appear only on your news server. When you are satisfied that
you are comfortable with postings, you can try some of the many test
news groups on the network, such as alt.test and misc.test. However,
do not include local.test in these postings. When you include
local.test and another newsgroup, not only is your article posted on