Gigarom 4/Mac Giga-ROM 4.0 - 1993.toast/FILES/BBS/TABBY:FIDO/EchoListRules0493.sea/SF.RUL

Text File | 1993-03-17 | 5.4 KB | 112 lines | [TEXT/????]

          SF Echo Rules (revised: 07-Nov-91)

The Science Fiction conference (area tag "SF") is for the
discussion of literary works of science fiction and fantasy, SF
fandom and conventions, writing and publishing, and such other topics
as would take more work to suppress than to ignore.  Brief
digressions onto other topics are always welcome.  Please do not,
however, post fiction to the echo.  The echo is for discussion.

Media SF, particularly Star Trek, and comics, are better discussed in
SFFAN, TREK, COMICS, STTNG, WHO, or other echos.  This is not to imply
that they are less worthy than written SF, only that many people wish
to discuss one and not the others.  Those who wish to discuss several
may simply participate in several conferences.

This echo is for civilized, reasonably mature, discussion.  Personal
attacks and vilification will not be tolerated.

Please do not send complaints about rules violations through the
echo.  First, that's my job as moderator.  Second, if you MUST
enter your own complaint, please do so via netmail directly to the
person responsible.  That saves all the rest of us the time and money
to move your message all over the world.  (Remember that my message
may well have gone netmail directly to the offender, so the lack of
complaints in the echo doesn't show that I'm not doing anything.)

If you think I'm falling down on the job, and want to nudge me, send
me netmail rather than posting in the echo.  Think of sending me
netmail as sending a letter to your Congressman, and posting
complaints in the echo as taking out a full-page ad in the New York
Times to air your complaint.  Consider what each costs....

The SF conference is moderated by David Dyer-Bennet, sysop of
1:282/341 in Minneapolis.  The SF conference is carried on the
echomail backbone.

Sysops carrying SF are asked to make sure that the area description
makes it clear that the echo is for literary works, not media sf.  I
also suggest that these rules be kept conveniently available to new
users.

           Some Notes on the SF Conference

These are not rules.  They are, as it says in the heading, "notes".
They are information I think you should have, not rules you must
follow.  Some of them are suggestions for behavior.

Many times a discussion started in an echo will wander, until it is
clearly off-topic for this echo.  Try to keep this in mind, and avoid
it.

When you post a message, consider whether the original subject line
is really appropriate.  If not, change it.

It is usually possible to respond by "netmail" to the poster of a
message.  This sends the message directly to the poster only, not to
the whole echo.  This is desirable for messages not of interest to
all of us.  It costs money to move all these messages around, you
know.  (Ask your sysop how to do this on the particular board you
use.)

A philosophy of "Never attribute to malice what can adequately be
explained by a misguided sense of humor" should be employed when
reading messages in this echo (though that's no excuse for writing
malicious-sounding messages yourself).

"Fan" has a special meaning to many of us here; it refers to somebody
who participates in fannish activities, such as SF conventions,
fanzines, or whatever.  People who read and like SF without doing
those other things are referred to as "readers".  We realize we are
talking to a wider audience here, who don't all understand that
special usage, and we try to talk normal English, but sometimes we
slip; try to bear this in mind.

The term "sci-fi" has a long and bloody history.  It was created by
long-time fan Forrest J. Ackerman.  Most of the rest of organized
fandom hated it instantly.  Obviously, Forry has in many senses won,
since "sci-fi" is synonymous with science fiction to most of the
general public.  However, most of the SF community, that is, editors,
publishers, writers, and organized fandom, do not like the term.  To
many of us it symbolizes the derision heaped on us in our youths for
reading "that sci-fi stuff" (or "that Buck Rogers stuff").  Pointless
debates on this subject have raged through the SF echo many times;
people seem to think we're making this up.  We're not, it's quite
real.

"Topic Cops" (or "topicops") are those of us whose job it is to
police this echo.  That means me and any designated assistants (You
Know Who You Are!).  "Tappity-Tappity-Whack" is either the sound of
the dreaded tap-dancing knife-thrower, or else the sound of a
"bytestick".  A bytestick is what we topicops hit you with if you
cause too much trouble.

Quoting parts of the message to which you're replying is often useful
in establishing the context of your reply.  Many people will see your
reply 10 days or more after the original message, and quite likely
will not remember it in detail; a quote will help them recall the
thread of the discussion.

However, quoting should be kept to the minimum necessary to do that.

Quoting an entire long message just to agree with it is an annoying
waste of space.  Quoting the tagline, tearline, etc. are nearly
always a complete waste of space.  Quoting the entire message is
generally a waste.  Quoting entire paragraphs is often a waste; a
well-chosen sentence or two will usually do.

A number of people don't even bother to read messages where the first
screen consists entirely of quotes.

         -- David Dyer-Bennet, SF echo moderator, 1:282/341