DP Tool Club 15/CD_ASCQ_15_070894.iso/vrac/queer194.zip/QUEER194.TXT

Text File | 1994-02-13 | 20KB | 476 lines

Archive-name: motss/qrd-faq
Last-modified: 31 Jan 1994

Unlike most FAQs, this list is not a collection of hearsay.

(A "+" indicates a new question, and a "*" indicates a change from
the last edition of this FAQ.  When you see a question number in
this list, you can probably use your newsreader to search the rest of this
article for that question number.)


 1. What is the QRD?
 2. How long has the QRD been around?
 3. Who operates and maintains the QRD?
 4. (*) How do I access it?
 5. How do I find something in it?
 6. (*) How frequently do people use it?
 7. What is a mirror, and why do I care?
 8. Sounds cool; how can I mirror the QRD?
 9. How often are the files updated, and what about accuracy?
10. How do I add something to it?
11. What file formats are allowed?


1. What is the QRD?
   The QRD (short for Queer Resources Directory) is an electronic library
with news clippings, political contact information, newsletters, essays,
images, and every other kind of information resource of interest to the
GLBO community.  Information is stored both for the use of casual network
users and serious researchers alike.
   There is one exception to the broad collection guidelines.  Although
the QRD recognizes the imporance of erotic artwork and writing to our
community, we do not archive that type of information.  Please look
elsewhere for those resources.


2. How long has the QRD been around?
   The QRD started in 1991 as an electronic archive for Queer Nation. It
has been hosted -- although not officially supported -- at both
cambridge.apple.com, and nifty.andrew.cmu.edu.  In 1993 the QRD moved to
vector.intercon.com, a privately owned and maintained system.  On
January 1, 1994, vector's name changed to vector.casti.com, although the QRD
did not have to move again.


3. Who operates and maintains the QRD?
   In the early days, the QRD could be maintained by a single individual:
Ron Buckmire, a graduate student at RPI.  He will graduate in June '94
with a Ph.D. in Mathematics.  Ron is still involved as the chief manager
of the QRD, but the explosive growth the QRD experienced in 1993 demanded
a larger staff.
   On April 9, 1993, the QRD headquarters moved from nifty.andrew.cmu.edu
to vector.casti.com due to some other (non-QRD related) problems which had
developed on nifty.  At that time, David Casti became the QRD system
administrator tasked with improving the access methods available for the
QRD and also providing general technical support.  David is currently
employed as a technical support engineer for InterCon Systems Corporation.
While Ron is in the "home stretch" of finishing his degree and has little
time to spend attending to the QRD, David has also assumed the role of
Acting Manager.
   September 1, 1993 was Thomas Holt Jr's first day as associate manager
for the QRD.  As Ron's school-related responsibilities had increased, a
new position was created and Tom was recruited mostly to handle the
maintenance of the QRD -- adding new files, monthly highlights files, etc.
Tom is a staff member at Indiana State University.
   As technology marched on, the QRD staff discussed the opportunities
hypertext provided for "information surfing", but no one had the time to
put together hypertext documents.  On October 5, Darci Chapman from
Nehalem River Software volunteered to create several hypertext files for
the QRD users, and on November 1, 1993 this new access method was opened
for business.
   On December 7, 1993, the QRD added its first liaison officer: Kevyn
Jacobs, the Electronic Organizer for Equality Kansas.  Kevyn's
responsibility is to act as a liaison to AOL and assist AOL users who want
access to QRD resources.
   January 3, 1994, saw the addition of Alan Hamilton to our staff as the
Bisexual Resource Center Administrator.  Alan is responsible for
maintaining and updating files of interest to our many bisexual users.
   The QRD staff can be reached at [e-mail].


 4. How do I access it?
    The QRD can be accessed via electronic mail, BBS, FTP, WAIS, gopher,
and WWW (lynx and Mosaic).  Details for each access method --

EMAIL:
   The Queer Resources Directory can now be accessed via email from any
   Internet-reaching system.  This means you can extract files from the QRD
   even if you only have a CompuServe, AOL, FidoNet, or mail-only Internet
   BBS connection.

   To use this service, send electronic mail to [e-mail]

   The subject line of your message will be ignored.  Your message must begin
   with "open" on a line by itself and end with "quit" on a line by itself.
   Between those two delimiters, you may use the following commands:

   ls [pathname]      short listing of pathname.
                      Default pathname is current directory.

   dir [pathname]     long listing of pathname.
                      Default pathname is current directory.

   cd pathname        Change directory.

   get pathname       Get a file and email it back.

   You are strongly encouraged to use the following message on your first use
   of this service:

      open
      dir
      get ABOUT.VECTOR
      cd pub/QRD
      dir
      get 00README
      quit

   This script will cause the ftpmail program to send you 6 messages in
   response:

 1. An acknowledgement that your request was received and is queued
 2. A top-level directory of vector.casti.com's FTP area
 3. A short file about Vector
 4. A directory of the QRD
 5. The QRD Readme file
 6. A receipt that your request was successfully processed

   A few notes about this service:

   * Since any file you request will be emailed back to you, there is no
     need for concern about filename length.
   * Any file that ends in .Z is a binary file.  It will be delivered to
     you as a uuencoded file.  To make use of this file, you will have to
     uudecode it and then uncompress it.
   * If your mailer only supports small messages, you can use the command
 size #K
   where # is the largest size (in K) that your mailer supports.  Files larger
   than this limit will be fragmented into as many pieces as necessary before
   they are transferred.  For example, America Online has a maximum message
   size of 250K, so any AOL users would need to include the line
 size 250K
   if they were attempting to transfer large files via email.

   For more information about this service, send a message containing only
   "help" on a line by itself.


BBS:
   Because we realize there are many people who would use the QRD but don't
   have Internet access, there are computer BBS services which have agreed
   to mirror our archive for their users.

   They are:

   Central Park BBS  [phone]

   Outright                        [phone]
 Administered by: Chuck Litzell <[e-mail]>

   The Underground BBS  [phone]


FTP:
   To access the QRD by FTP you must issue these commands:

 ftp vector.casti.com
   OR
 ftp 149.52.1.130

   Log in as "anonymous" and at the password prompt, enter your email
   address -- make sure it has an @ sign, or you will be denied access.
   Then enter:

 cd /pub/QRD

   Then before you start, you should look at the README file.  The
   HIGHLIGHTS file is also useful to get a sense of what files are
   popular.  To get these files, issue the commands:

 get 00README
 get 0HIGHLIGHTS

   If your system needs to have filenames of another type you can change
   the name that the file you are getting will have on your local system by
   simply giving it.  So you would say:

 get 0QRD-BY-GOPHER qrdgopher.txt

   and then the file would appear on your local system as 'qrdgopher.txt'
   and not 0QRD-BY-GOPHER.

   You can look at these files by either leaving FTP by issuing "bye" or
   "quit" or "exit".  Or, from a UNIX box, you could suspend FTP by sending a
   "^Z" [control-Z] then looking at the files README and HIGHLIGHTS on your
   system and then re-starting FTP by issuing a "fg" command.

   Then you can "cd" to whereever you want and get the desired file from
   that directory.  Look at the GUIDE file to see the full directory
   structure of the QRD.

   If you would like to ADD materials to the QRD please leave them in the
   /pub/QRD/incoming directory.  You can also submit materials by email at
   [e-mail].

   The QRD is currently mirrored on five other Internet hosts:
 nifty.andrew.cmu.edu (128.2.35.7) /pub/QRD
 qrd.tcp.com (128.95.10.106) /pub/QRD
 northstar.otago.ac.nz (139.80.64.10) /pub/QRD
 ftp.uu.net (192.48.96.9) /doc/political/umich-poli/QRD
 red.css.itd.umich.edu (192.131.22.7) /pub/Politics/QRD

   You may find that one of these other hosts is faster for connections from
   your local machine.  In the case of our Australia and New Zealand users,
   the speed difference should be substantial.


WAIS:
   If you don't feel like wading through the 3000+ files in the QRD by
   gopher, email, and FTP, a searchable full-text database is available for
   use instead.  The database is automatically reindexed, starting at 02:30
   eastern time, every morning.

   For the novice user, the easiest way to access the WAIS database is via a
   gopher connection to vector.casti.com.  For information about how to do
   that, see the 0QRD-BY-GOPHER file.

   For those users who have WAIS tools already and are familiar with their
   use, the qrd.src file reads:

   (:source
     :version  3
     :ip-name "vector.casti.com"
     :tcp-port 210
     :database-name "/wais/qrd"
     :cost 0.00
     :cost-unit :free
     :maintainer "[e-mail]"
     )


GOPHER:
   If your site has a Gopher client on its system then you can just type

 gopher vector.casti.com

   and you will be directly connected to the machine that the Queer Resources
   Directory is on. Then just select "Queer Resources" and you will be in.

   If your system doesn't have a gopher client, but you know you're on the
   net, you can access the public gopher client on vector.  To access:

 1. telnet vector.casti.com
 2. login: gopher

   No password is required, and you'll be connected immediately to the top
   level of vector's gopher server.  Select "Queer Resources" and you're on
   your way to the QRD!

   This resource is scarce, so please avoid using it if you have gopher
   access from another site.

   If you're a gopher administrator, and you want to link to the QRD archive
   itself, use:

 Type=1
 Name=Queer Resource Directory
 Path=1/gaystuff/QRD
 Host=vector.casti.com
 Port=70

   And to link to the WAIS search engine, use:

 Type=7
 Name=Search the Queer Resource Directory via WAIS
 Path=waissrc:/gaystuff/qrd.src
 Host=vector.casti.com
 Port=70


WWW:
   The QRD has recently added hypertext to the many access methods already
   supported.  The Universal Record Locator for our home page is:

        ftp://vector.casti.com/pub/QRD/.html/QRD-home-page.html

   Simply point your WWW client (ie, lynx, Mosaic, or www) at that URL and
   you'll be connected to us immediately.

   Our New Zealand FTP mirror has recently added hypertext access to his
   server as well.  The Universal Record Locator for that server is:

        http://northstar.otago.ac.nz/QRD/.html/QRD-home-page.html


   The two most common character/curses based WWW clients are 'www' (big
   surprise) and 'lynx'. GUI based clients include tkWWW and Mosaic for
   the X Window System, MS Windows, and Mac.

   If you don't have a local WWW or Mosaic client but you do have access
   to telnet, don't despair. There are public 'www' accounts that you can
   telnet  to and access ascii based browers. Please note that while we
   have done out best to document the steps to be taken in order to load
   the QRD Home Page from these public sites, the information below could
   be out of date before we know it. You can help us out by sending us
   updates as you discover them. Send email to [e-mail]
   with corrections and/or pointers.

   The sites are:

        telnet www.njit.edu or telnet 128.235.163.2     (USA [NJ])
        telnet ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu or 129.237.1.30     (USA [KS])
        telnet www.lbl.gov or telnet 128.3.254.133      (USA [CA])
        telnet millbrook.lib.rmit.edu.au (Login: lynx)  (AUSSIE)
        telnet info.cern.ch or telnet 128.141.201.74    (SWISS)
        telnet vms.huji.ac.il or telnet 128.139.4.3     (ISRAEL)

   See below for more details on how to get to the QRD Home Page from the US
   sites.

   ==========
   The following requires a little work since most sites do not allow
   anonymous users to jump right a particular page. The overall approach
   is to 'get beyond' the local services/databases and access a global
   list or searching function and then find the Queer Resources Directory
   listed explicity.
   ==========
   University of Kansas:

        telnet ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu or telnet 129.237.1.30

   Login: www
   (no password, start up takes a little while)

   You will start up at the University of Kansas Home Page; follow these
   steps:

   1) Under "Information Sources About and For WWW", select "WWW Information
      By Subject" by using your arrow keys (or the tab key) and then hit
      return.

   2) On this page, enter a "/" (no quotes) to search for a string; at the
      search prompt, enter "Queer" (no quotes)

   3) Queer Resources Directory should now show up and can be selected. Press
      return and you will be at the QRD Home Page!
   ==========
   New Jersey Institute of Technology

        telnet www.njit.edu or telnet 128.235.163.2

   Login: www
   (no password)

   Select:

        19  (Other Info Systems)
         3  (By Service Type)
         3  (Master List of WEB Sites)
        25  (Other Subjects)
        89  (Politics and Economics/QRD)

   If the numbers are out of sync, go by the text provided above. You may
   have to use 'N' to scroll down the page to view the appropriate choices.
   ==========

 5. How do I find something in it?
    Hmmm...  This is a tough one, but a question we get quite a bit at
the QRD.  Unfortunately, our staff is not large enough to provide
research assistance, but here are some tips:

    * Read the HIGHLIGHTS file.  This is file contains a quick synopsys
of new and updated information that is of interest to most of our users.

    * Use WAIS.  Since we've gone to the trouble to create a WAISindex for
the database, use it!  You can be sure that WAIS is up-to-date, as the
entire QRD index is scrapped and rebuilt every morning at about 2 a.m.
This technique is by far the most powerful tool when you are looking for
specific information in the QRD.

    * Use Gopher and Mosaic.  Where possible, the QRD staff has created
very descriptive handles to files in both gopher and Mosaic.  These
methods may provide more information than just the filename, and it will
be much easier to surf the archive, reading only the first screen or two
of a potentially interesting file before moving on.  WAIS database
searches are available via both gopher and Mosaic.


 6. (*) How frequently people use it?
    As 1993 has seen the QRD more than double in size, it only makes sense
that the number of accesses has also increased dramatically.  The QRD on
vector reported 70,000 hits in December 1993, and more than 100,000 in
January.  There are eight mirror sites for the QRD and while statistics
are not available from them, any reasonable estimate makes the QRD one of
the most frequently accessed libraries of its kind.  Mirror sites are
listed in each of the QRD-BY files, referenced in question 4.


 7. What is a mirror, and why do I care?
    A mirror is a site which keeps an up-to-date copy of another site's
files and makes those files available.  In many ways, it functions as a
backup which is updated daily or weekly -- usually automatically, but
sometimes manually.
    For most Internet users, there is little need or reason to use the
QRD's mirrors regularly.  Vector is on a highly stable segment of the
network with ample bandwidth for many, many simultaneous network
connections.  However, there are two cases when using a mirror makes sense:

    1. When vector.casti.com goes down.  Over the last 12 months,
vector has had full network access 95% of the time.  Of course, we all
know that the QRD will only be out-of-reach during that 5% of the time you
really need it -- knowing a mirror site will prevent you from losing that 5%.

    2. If you are on a network segment with restricted access or no access
to the rest of the commercial US Internet.  A prime example is many of our
QRD users in New Zealand who do not have access outside their own country.
Fortunately, there is now a mirror in that country which now serves the
needs of New Zealand, Austrialia and asia.


 8. Sounds cool; how can I mirror the QRD?
    If you have more than 35 megs of free disk space and want to run
either a public or private mirror of the QRD, there are a couple good
options.
    Using perl, the program "mirror" will check the QRD for changes and
only download the files you need to keep your site up to date.  It can be
found on various FTP sites and a version is available from vector in the
directory /pub/unix/mirror*
    If you can't do that for whatever reason, you can still download a
tarred copy of the QRD to your local site via FTP.  Be warned: FTP on
vector does not currently support automatically compressing tarfiles on
their way out, so you'll be downloading a VERY LARGE file.  If you want
to give that a try:

    1. Connect to vector
    2. cd /pub
    3. get QRD.tar


 9. How often are the files updated, and what about accuracy?
    With the exception of a few files which are also maintained by the
QRD staff (most notably the soc.motss FAQ and the LGBO list of email
lists), we can make no warranty for the timeliness or accuracy of the
information in the QRD.  Since we draw on the net.public at large for
most of our files, there is no way we could possibly verify each piece of
information in our archives.  Wherever possible, though, we include the
name and email address of the person who submitted the file and you can
of course contact that person for more information.
    If you find a file in the QRD which has out-of-date information,
please bring it to our attention.  As a general rule we will not remove
files from the QRD without ample reason, but in the case of obsolete data
we will do our best to keep that kind of misinformation to a minimum.


10. How do I add something to it?
    If you think you have something that would be of value to other GLBO
folk as resource material -- for example an essay you've written or a set of
fliers you've developed for a media campaign -- by all means, send the
files our way.  There are two convenient methods:
    1. Send email to [e-mail] with your submission.
    2. Via FTP, upload your file(s) to /pub/QRD/incoming.


11. What file formats are accepted?
    Most of the information in the QRD is ASCII text, and this is
definitely our preferred format.  ASCII can be easily indexed and
reindexed, moved from platform to platform, compressed, formatted, etc.
The only notable exception to this rule is the presence of a few GIF
files.  If you have questions or a special need for your submission, by
all means drop us a line and we'll work something out.




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