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gnu.emacs.help gnu.emacs.lisp.manual gnu.emacs.sources gnu.emacs.vm.bug gnu.emacs.vm.info gnu.emacs.vms Note that some of these obviously have something to do with Macintoshes while some obviously do not; nngrep is not a perfect system. If you want to get a list of ALL the newsgroups available on your host system, type nngrep -a |more or nngrep -a |pg and hit enter (which one to use depends on the Unix used on your host system; if one doesn't do anything, try the other). You don't absolutely need the |more or |pg, but if you don't include it, the list will keep scrolling, rather than pausing every 24 lines. If you are in nn, hitting a capital Y will bring up a similar list. Typing "nn newsgroup" for every newsgroup can get awfully tiring after awhile. When you use nn, your host system looks in a file called .newsrc. This is basically a list of every newsgroup on the host system along with notations on which groups and articles you have read (all maintained by the computer). You can also use this file to create a "reading list" that brings up each newsgroup to which you want to "subscribe." To try it out, type nn without any newsgroup name, and hit enter. Unfortunately, you will start out with a .newsrc file that has you "subscribed" to every single newsgroup on your host system! To delete a newsgroup from your reading list, type a capital U while its menu is on the screen. The computer will ask you if you're sure you want to "unsubscribe." If you then hit a Y, you'll be unsubscribed and put in the next group. With many host systems carrying thousands of newsgroups, this will take you forever. Fortunately, there are a couple of easier ways to do this. Both involve calling up your .newsrc file in a word or text processor. In a .newsrc file, each newsgroup takes up one line, consisting of the group's name, an exclamation point or a colon and a range of numbers. Newsgroups with a colon are ones to which you are subscribed; those followed by an exclamation point are "un-subscribed." To start with a clean slate, then, you have to change all those colons to exclamation points. If you know how to use emacs or vi, call up the .newsrc file (you might want to make a copy of .newsrc first, just in case), and use the search- and-replace function to make the change. If you're not comfortable with these text processor, you can download the .newsrc file, make the changes on your own computer and then upload the revised file. Before you download the file, however, you should do a couple of things. One is to type cp .newsrc temprc and hit enter. You will actually download this temprc file (note the name does not start with a period -- some computers, such as those using MS-DOS, do not allow file names starting with periods). After you download the file, open it in your favorite word processor and use its search-and-replace function to change the exclamation points to colons. Be careful not to change anything else! Save the document in ASCII or text format. Dial back into your host system. At the command line, type cp temprc temprc1 and hit enter. This new file will serve as your backup .newsrc file just in case something goes wrong. Upload the temprc file from your computer. This will overwrite the Unix system's old temprc file. Now type cp temprc .newsrc and hit enter. You now have a clean slate to start creating a reading list. The first time you go into a newsgroup, there could be dozens, even hundreds of articles. If you want to start from scratch, hit a capital J. This will mark all the articles in that newsgroup as "read," so that the next time you enter the conference, you will only see messages posted since the last time you were there. 3.3 nn COMMANDS To mark a specific article for reading, type the letter next to it (in lower case). To mark a specific article and all of its responses, type the letter and an asterisk, for example: a* To un-select an article, type the letter next to it (again, in lower case). C Cancels an article (around the world) that you wrote. Every article posted on Usenet has a unique ID number. Hitting a capital C sends out a new message that tells host systems that receive it to find earlier message and delete it. F To post a public response, or follow-up. If selected while still on a newsgroup "page", asks you which article to follow up. If selected while in a specific article, will follow up that article. In either case, you'll be asked if you want to include the original article in yours. Caution: puts you in whatever text editor is your default. N Goes to the next subscribed newsgroup with unread articles. P Goes to the previous subscribed newsgroup with unread articles. G news.group Goes to a specific newsgroup. Can be used to subscribe to new newsgroups. Hitting G brings up a sub-menu: u Goes to the group and shows only un-read articles. a Goes to the group and shows all articles, even ones you've already read. s Will show you only articles with a specific subject. n Will show you only articles from a specific person. M Mails a copy of the current article to somebody. You'll be asked for the recipient's e-mail address and whether you want to add any comments to the article before sending it off. As with F, puts you in the default editor. :post Post an article. You'll be asked for the name of the group. Q Quit, or exit, nn. U Un-subscribe from the current newsgroup. R Responds to an article via e-mail. space Hitting the space bar brings up the next page of articles. X If you have selected articles, this will show them to you and then take you to the next subscribed newsgroup with unread articles. If you don't have any selected articles, it marks all articles as read and takes you to the next unread subscribed newsgroup. =word Finds and marks all articles in the newsgroup with a specific word in the "subject:" line, for example: =modem Z Shows you selected articles immediately and then returns you to the current newsgroup. ? Brings up a help screen. < Goes to the previous page in the newsgroup. > Goes to the next page in the newsgroup. $ Goes to the last page in an article. ^ Goes to the first page in an article. 3.4 USING rn Some folks prefer this older newsreader. If you type rn news.announce.newusers at your host system's command line, you'll see something like this: ******** 21 unread articles in news.announce.newusers--read now? [ynq] If you hit your Y key, the first article will appear on your screen. If you want to see what articles are available first, though, hit your computer's = key and you'll get something like this: 152 Introduction to news.announce 153 A Primer on How to Work With the Usenet Community 154 What is Usenet? 155 Answers to Frequently Asked Questions 156 Hints on writing style for Usenet 158 Alternative Newsgroup Hierarchies, Part I 159 Alternative Newsgroup Hierarchies, Part II 160 Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette 161 USENET Software: History and Sources 162 A Guide to Social Newsgroups and Mailing Lists 163 How to Get Information about Networks 164 How to Create a New Newsgroup 165 List of Active Newsgroups 166 List of Moderators 169 Publicly Accessible Mailing Lists, Part I 170 Publicly Accessible Mailing Lists, Part II 171 Publicly Accessible Mailing Lists, Part III 172 How to become a USENET site 173 List of Periodic Informational Postings, Part I 174 List of Periodic Informational Postings, Part II 175 List of Periodic Informational Postings, Part III End of article 158 (of 178)--what next? [npq] Notice how the messages are in numerical order this time, and don't tell you who sent them. Article 154 looks interesting. To read it, type in 154 and hit enter. You'll see something like this: Article 154 (20 more) in news.announce.newusers (moderated): From: spaf@cs.purdue.EDU (Gene Spafford) Newsgroups: news.announce.newusers,news.admin,news.answers Subject: What is Usenet? Date: 20 Sep 92 04:17:26 GMT Followup-To: news.newusers.questions Organization: Dept. of Computer Sciences, Purdue Univ. Lines: 353 Supersedes: <spaf-whatis_715578719@cs.purdue.edu> Archive-name: what-is-usenet/part1 Original from: chip@tct.com (Chip Salzenberg) Last-change: 19 July 1992 by spaf@cs.purdue.edu (Gene Spafford) The first thing to understand about Usenet is that it is widely misunderstood. Every day on Usenet, the "blind men and the elephant" phenomenon is evident, in spades. In my opinion, more flame wars arise because of a lack of understanding of the nature of Usenet than from any other source. And consider that such flame wars arise, of necessity, among people who are on Usenet. Imagine, then, how poorly understood Usenet must be by those outside! --MORE--(7%) This time, the header looks much more like the gobbledygook you get in e- mail messages. To keep reading, hit your space bar. If you hit your n key (lower case), you'll go to the next message in the numerical order. To escape rn, just keep hitting your q key (in lower case), until you get back to the command line. Now let's set up your reading list. Because rn uses the same .newsrc file as nn, you can use one of the search-and- replace methods described above. Or you can do this: Type rn and hit enter. When the first newsgroup comes up on your screen, hit your u key (in lower case). Hit it again, and again, and again. Or just keep it pressed down (if your computer starts beeping, let up for a couple of seconds). Eventually, you'll be told you're at the end of the newsgroups, and asked what you want to do next. Here's where you begin entering newsgroups. Type g newsgroup for example, g comp.sys.mac.announce) and hit enter. You'll be asked if you want to "subscribe." Hit your y key. Now you'll be asked where to put the newsgroup. If you want it up high in your reading list, type a number (1, for example, would put the list at the very top of your list); otherwise, hit a $ (yep). Then type g next newsgroup (for example, g comp.announce.newusers) and hit enter. Repeat until done. This process will also set up your reading list for nn, if you prefer that newsreader. But how do you know which newsgroups to subscribe? Typing a lowercase l and then hitting enter will show you a list of all available newsgroups. Again, since there could be more than 2,000 newsgroups on your system, this might not be something you want to do. Fortunately, you can search for groups with particular words in their names, using the l command. Typing l mac followed by enter, will bring up a list of newsgroups with those letters in them (and as in nn, you will also see groups dealing with emacs and the like, in addition to groups related to Macintosh computers). If you find what you want, but the list looks like it will keep going on for awhile, hit your q key until you get back to the normal rn prompts (normally, this will only be one or two q's). because of the vast amount of messages transmitted over Usenet, most systems carry messages for only a few days or weeks. So if there's a message you want to keep, you should either turn on your computer's screen capture or save it to a file which you can later download). To save a message as a file in rn, type s filename where "filename" is what you want to call the file. Hit enter. You'll be asked if you want to save it in "mailbox format." In most cases, you can answer with an n (which will strip off the header). The message will now be saved to a file in your News directory (which you can access by typing cd News and then hitting enter). Also, some newsgroups fill up particularly quickly -- go away for a couple of days and you'll come back to find hundreds of articles! One way to deal with that is to mark them as "read" so that they no longer appear on your screen. Within a newsgroup, type a lower-case c. You'l be asked if you're sure you want to mark the current messages as "read." assuming you are, hit y. 3.5 rn COMMANDS Different commands are available to you in rn depending on whether you are already in a newsgroup or reading a specific article. At any point, typing a lowercase h will bring up a list of available commands and some terse instructions for using them. Here are some of them: After you've just called up rn, or within a newsgroup: c Marks every article in a newsgroup as read (or "caught up") so that you don't have to see them again. The system will ask you if you are sure. Can be done either when asked if you want to read a particular newsgroup or once in the newsgroup. g Goes to a newsgroup, in this form: g news.group Use this both for going to groups to which you're already subscribed and subscribing to new groups. h Provides a list of available commands with terse instructions. l Gives a list of all available newsgroups. p Goes to the first previous subscribed newsgroup with un-read articles. q Quits, or exits, rn if you have not yet gone into a newsgroup. If you are in a newsgroup, it quits that one and brings you to the next subscribed newsgroup. Only within a newsgroup: = Gives a list of all available articles in the newsgroup. m Marks a specific article or series of articles as "un-read" again so that you can come back to them later. Typing 1700m and hitting enter would mark just that article as un-read. Typing 1700-1800m and hitting enter would mark all of those articles as un- read. space Brings up the next page of article listings. If already on the last page, displays the first article in the newsgroup. u Un-subscribe from the newsgroup. /text/ Searches through the newsgroup for articles with a specific word or phrase in the "subject:" line, from the current article to the end of the newsgroup. For example, /EFF/ would bring you to the first article with "EFF" in the "subject:" line. ?text? The same as /text/ except it searches in reverse order from the current article. Only within a specific article: e Some newsgroups consist of articles that are binary files, typically programs or graphics images. Hitting e will convert the ASCII characters within such an article into a file you can then download and use or view (assuming you have the proper computer and software). Many times, such files will be split into several articles; just keep calling up the articles and hitting e until done. You'll find the resulting file in your News subdirectory. C If you post an article and then decide it was a mistake, call it up on your host system and hit this. The message will soon begin disappearing on systems around the world. F Post a public response in the newsgroup to the current article. Includes a copy of her posting, which you can then edit down using your host system's text editor. f The same as above except it does not include a copy of the original message in yours. m Marks the current article as "un-read" so that you can come back to it later. You do not have to type the article number. Control-N Brings up the first response to the article. If there is no follow-up article, this returns you to the first unread article in the newsgroup). Control-P Goes to the message to which the current article is a reply. n Goes to the next unread article in the newsgroup. N Takes you to the next article in the newsgroup even if you've already read it. q Quits, or exits, the current article. Leaves you in the current newsgroup. R Reply, via e-mail only, to the author of the current article. Includes a copy of his message in yours. r The same as above, except it does not include a copy of his article. s file Copies the current article to a file in your News directory, where "file" is the name of the file you want to save it to. You'll be asked if you want to use "mailbox" format when saving. If you answer by hitting your N key, most of the header will not be saved. s|mail user Mails a copy of the article to somebody. For "user" substitute an e-mail address. Does not let you add comments to the message first, however. space Hitting the space bar shows the next page of the article, or, if at the end, goes to the next un-read article. 3.6 ESSENTIAL NEWSGROUPS With so much to choose from, everybody will likely have their own unique Usenet reading list. But there are a few newsgroups that are particularly of interest to newcomers. Among them: news.announce.newusers This group consists of a series of articles that explain various facets of Usenet. news.newusers.questions This is where you can ask questions (we'll see how in a bit) about how Usenet works. news.announce.newsgroups Look here for information about new or proposed newsgroups. news.answers Contains lists of "Frequently Asked Questions" (FAQs) and their answers from many different newsgroups. Learn how to fight jet lag in the FAQ from rec.travel.air; look up answers to common questions about Microsoft Windows in an FAQ from comp.os.ms-windows; etc. alt.internet.services Looking for something in particular on the Internet? Ask here. alt.infosystems.announce People adding new information services to the Internet will post details here. 3.7 SPEAKING UP "Threads" are an integral part of Usenet. When somebody posts a message, often somebody else will respond. Soon, a thread of conversation begins. Following these threads is relatively easy. In nn, related messages are grouped together. In rn, when you're done with a message, you can hit control-N to read the next related message, or followup. As you explore Usenet, it's probably a good idea to read discussions for awhile before you jump in. This way, you can get a feel for the particular newsgroup -- each has its own rhythms. Eventually, though, you'll want to speak up. There are two main ways to do this. You join an existing conversation, or you can start a whole new thread. If you want to join a discussion, you have to decide if you want to include portions of the message you are responding to in your message. The reason to do this is so people can see what you're responding to, just in case the original message has disappeared from their system (remember that most Usenet messages have a short life span on the average host system) or they can't find it. If you're using a Unix host system, joining an existing conversation is similar in both nn and rn: hit your F key when done with a given article in the thread. In rn, type a small f if you don't want to include portions of the message you're responding to; an uppercase F if you do. In nn, type a capital F. You'll then be asked if you want to include portions of the original message. And here's where you hit another Unix wall. When you hit your F key, your host system calls up its basic Unix text editor. If you're lucky, that'll be pico, a very easy system. More likely, however, you'll get dumped into emacs (or possibly vi), which you've already met in the chapter on e-mail. The single most important emacs command is control-x control-c This means, depress your control key and hit x. Then depress the control key and hit c. Memorize this. In fact, it's so important, it bears repeating: control-x control-c These keystrokes are how you get out of emacs. If they work well, you'll be asked if you want to send, edit, abort or list the message you were working on. If they don't work well (say you accidentally hit some other weird key combination that means something special to emacs) and nothing seems to happen, or you just get more weird-looking emacs prompts on the bottom of your screen, try hitting control-g. This should stop whatever emacs was trying to do (you should see the word "quit" on the bottom of your screen), after which you can hit control-x control-c. But if this still doesn't work, remember that you can always disconnect and dial back in! If you have told your newsreader you do want to include portions of the original message in yours, it will automatically put the entire thing at the top of your message. Use the arrow keys to move down to the lines you want to delete and hit control-K, which will delete one line at a time. You can then write your message. Remember that you have to hit enter before your cursor gets to the end of the line, because emacs does not have word wrapping. When done, hit control-X control-C. You'll be asked the question about sending, editing, aborting, etc. Chose one. If you hit Y, your host system will start the process to sending your message across the Net. The nn and rn programs work differently when it comes to posting entirely new messages. In nn, type :post and hit enter in any newsgroup. You'll be asked which newsgroup to post a message to. Type in its name and hit enter. Then you'll be asked for "keywords." These are words you'd use to attract somebody scanning a newsgroup. Say you're selling your car. You might type the type of car here. Next comes a "summary" line, which is somewhat similar. Finally, you'll be asked for the message's "distribution." This is where you put how widely you want your message disseminated. Think about this one for a second. If you are selling your car, it makes little sense to send a message about it all over the world. But if you want to talk about the environment, it might make a lot of sense. Each host system has its own set of distribution classifications, but there's generally a local one (just for users of that system), one for the city, state or region it's in, another for the country (for example, usa), one for the continent (for Americans and Canadians, na) and finally, one for the entire world (usually: world). Which one to use? Generally, a couple of seconds' thought will help you decide. If you're selling your car, use your city or regional distribution -- people in Australia won't much care and may even get annoyed. If you want to discuss presidential politics, using a USA distribution makes more sense. If you want to talk about events in the Middle East, sending your message to the entire world is perfectly acceptable. One caveat: these rules are not absolute, some systems pick up messages from all over, regardless of the distribution you've set, so don't be surprised if, sooner or later, you get a response to a "local" message from several thousand miles away. Then you can type your message. If you've composed your message offline (generally a good idea if you and emacs don't get along), you can upload it now. You may see a lot of weird looking characters as it uploads into emacs, but those will disappear when you hit control-X and then control-C. Alternately: "save" the message (for example, by hitting m in rn), log out, compose your message offline, log back on and upload your message into a file on your host system. Then call up Usenet, find the article you "saved." Start a reply, and you'll be asked if you want to include a prepared message. Type in the name of the file you just created and hit enter. In rn, you have to wait until you get to the end of a newsgroup to hit F, which will bring up a message-composing system. Alternately, at your host system's command line, you can type Pnews and hit enter. You'll be prompted somewhat similarly to the nn system, except that you'll be given a list of possible distributions. If you chose "world," you'll get this message: This program posts news to thousands of machines throughout the entire civilized world. Your message will cost the net hundreds if not thousands of dollars to send everywhere. Please be sure you know what you are doing. Are you absolutely sure that you want to do this? [ny] Don't worry -- your message won't really cost the Net untold amounts, although, again, it's a good idea to think for a second whether your message really should go everywhere. If you want to respond to a given post through e-mail, instead of publicly, hit R in nn or r or R in rn. In rn, as with follow-up articles, the upper-case key includes the original message in yours. Most newsgroups are unmoderated, which means that every message you post will eventually wind up on every host system within the geographic region you specified that carries that newsgroup. Some newsgroups, however, are moderated, as you saw earlier with comp.risks. In these groups, messages are shipped to a single location where a moderator, acting much like a magazine editor, decides what actually gets posted. In some cases, groups are moderated like scholarly journals. In other cases, it's to try to cut down on the massive number of messages that might otherwise be posted. You'll notice that many articles in Usenet end with a fancy "signature" that often contains some witty saying, a clever drawing and, almost incidentally, the poster's name and e-mail address. You too can have your own "signature" automatically appended to everything you post. On your own computer, create a signature file. Try to keep it to four lines or less, lest you annoy others on the Net. Then, while connected to your host system, at the prompt, type cat>.signature and hit enter (note the period before the s). Upload your signature file into this using your communications software's ASCII upload protocol. When done, hit control-D, the Unix command for closing a file. Now, every time you post a message, this will be appended to it. There are a few caveats to posting. Usenet is no different from a Town Meeting or publication: you're not supposed to break the law, whether that's posting copyrighted material or engaging in illegal activities. It is also not a place to try to sell products (except in certain biz. and for-sale newsgroups). 3.8 CROSS-POSTING Sometimes, you'll have an issue you think should be discussed in more than one Usenet newsgroup. Rather than posting individual messages in each group, you can post the same message in several groups at once, through a process known as cross-posting. Say you want to start a discussion about the political ramifications of importing rare tropical fish from Brazil. People who read rec.aquaria might have something to say. So might people who read alt.politics.animals and talk.politics.misc. Cross-posting is easy. It also should mean that people on other systems who subscribe to several newsgroups will see your message only once, rather than several times -- news-reading software can cancel out the other copies once a person has read the message. When you get ready to post a message (whether through Pnews for rn or the :post command in nn), you'll be asked in which newsgroups. Type the names of the various groups, separated by a comma, but no space, for example: rec.aquaria,alt.politics.animals,talk.politics.misc and hit enter. After answering the other questions (geographic distribution, etc.), the message will be posted in the various groups (unless one of the groups is moderated, in which case the message goes to the moderator, who decides whether to make it public). It's considered bad form to post to an excessive number of newsgroups, or inappropriate newsgroups. Probably, you don't really have to post something in 20 different places. And while you may think your particular political issue is vitally important to the fate of the world, chances are the readers of rec.arts.comics will not, or at least not important enough to impose on them. You'll get a lot of nasty e-mail messages demanding you restrict your messages to the "appropriate" newsgroups. Chapter 4: USENET II 4.1 FLAME, BLATHER AND SPEW Something about online communications seems to make some people particularly irritable. Perhaps it's the immediacy and semi-anonymity of it all. Whatever it is, there are whole classes of people you will soon think seem to exist to make you miserable. Rather than pausing and reflecting on a message as one might do with a letter received on paper, it's just so easy to hit your r or f key and tell somebody you don't really know what you really think of them. Even otherwise calm people sometimes find themselves turning into raving lunatics. When this happens, flames erupt. A flame is a particularly nasty, personal attack on somebody for something he or she has written. Periodically, an exchange of flames erupts into a flame war that begin to take up all the space in a given newsgroup (and sometimes several; flamers like cross-posting to let the world know how they feel). These can go on for weeks (sometimes they go on for years, in which case they become "holy wars," usually on such topics as the relative merits of Macintoshes and IBMs). Often, just when they're dying down, somebody new to the flame war reads all the messages, gets upset and issues an urgent plea that the flame war be taken to e- mail so everybody else can get back to whatever the newsgroup's business is. All this usually does, though, is start a brand new flame war, in which this poor person comes under attack for daring to question the First Amendment, prompting others to jump on the attackers for impugning this poor soul... You get the idea. Every so often, a discussion gets so out of hand that somebody predicts that either the government will catch on and shut the whole thing down or somebody will sue to close down the network, or maybe even the wrath of God will smote everybody involved. This brings what has become an inevitable rejoinder from others who realize that the network is, in fact, a resilient creature that will not die easily: "Imminent death of Usenet predicted. Film at 11.'' Flame wars can be tremendously fun to watch at first. They quickly grow boring, though. And wait until the first time you're attacked! Flamers are not the only net.characters to watch out for. Spewers assume that whatever they are particularly concerned about either really is of universal interest or should be rammed down the throats of people who don't seem to care -- as frequently as possible. You can usually tell a spewer's work by the number of articles he posts in a day on the same subject and the number of newsgroups to which he then sends these articles -- both can reach well into double digits. Often, these messages relate to various ethnic conflicts around the world. Frequently, there is no conceivable connection between the issue at hand and most of the newsgroups to which he posts. No matter. If you try to point this out in a response to one of these messages, you will be inundated with angry messages that either accuse you of being an insensitive racist/American/whatever or ignore your point entirely to bring up several hundred more lines of commentary on the perfidy of whoever it is the spewer thinks is out to destroy his people. Closely related to these folks are the Holocaust revisionists, who periodically inundate certain groups (such as soc.history) with long rants about how the Holocaust never really happened. Some people attempt to refute these people with facts, but others realize this only encourages them. Blatherers tend to be more benign. Their problem is that they just can't get to the point -- they can wring three or four screenfuls out of a thought that others might sum up in a sentence or two. A related condition is excessive quoting. People afflicted with this will include an entire message in their reply rather than excising the portions not relevant to whatever point they're trying to make. The worst quote a long message and then add a single line: "I agree!" or some such, often followed by a monster .signature (see section 4.5) There are a number of other Usenet denizens you'll soon come to recognize. Among them: Net.weenies. These are the kind of people who enjoy insulting others, the kind of people who post nasty messages in a sewing newsgroup just for the hell of it. Net.geeks. People to whom the Net is Life, who worry about what happens when they graduate and they lose their free, 24-hour access. Net.gods. The old-timers; the true titans of the Net and the keepers of its collective history. They were around when the Net consisted of a couple of computers tied together with baling wire. Lurkers. Actually, you can't tell these people are there, but they are. They're the folks who read a newsgroup but never post or respond. Wizards. People who know a particular Net-related topic inside and out. Unix wizards can perform amazing tricks with that operating system, for example. Net.saints. Always willing to help a newcomer, eager to share their knowledge with those not born with an innate ability to navigate the Net, they are not as rare as you might think. Post a question about something and you'll often be surprised how many responses you get. The last group brings us back to the Net's oral tradition. With few written guides, people had traditionally learned their way around the Net by asking somebody, whether at the terminal next to them or on the Net itself. That tradition continues: if you have a question, ask. Today, one of the places you can look for help is in the news.newusers.questions newsgroup, which, as its name suggests, is a place to learn more about Usenet. But be careful what you post. Some of the Usenet wizards there get cranky sometimes when they have to answer the same question over and over again. Oh, they'll eventually answer your question, but not before they tell you should have asked your host system administrator first or looked at the postings in news.announce.newusers. 4.2 KILLFILES: THE CURE FOR WHAT AILS YOU As you keep reading Usenet, you are going to run across topics or people that really drive you nuts -- or that you just get tired of seeing. Killfiles are just the thing for you. When you start your newsreader, it checks to see if you have any lists of words, phrases or names you don't want to see. If you do, then it blanks out any messages containing those words. Such as cascades. As you saw earlier, when you post a reply to a message and include parts of that message, the original lines show up with a > in front of them. Well, what if you reply to a reply? Then you get a >> in front of the line. And if you reply to that reply? You get >>>. Keep this up, and soon you get a triangle of >'s building up in your message. There are people who like building up these triangles, or cascades. They'll "respond" to your message by deleting everything you've said, leaving only the "In message 123435, you said:" part and the last line of your message, to which they add a nonsensical retort. On and on they go until the triangle has reached the right end of the page. Then they try to expand the triangle by deleting one > with each new line. Whoever gets to finish this mega-triangle wins. There is even a newsgroup just for such folks: alt.cascade. Unfortunately, cascaders would generally rather cascade in other newsgroups. Because it takes a lot of messages to build up a completed cascade, the targeted newsgroup soon fills up with these messages. Of course, if you complain, you'll be bombarded with messages about the First Amendment and artistic expression -- or worse, with another cascade. The only thing you can do is ignore them, by setting up a killfile. There are also certain newsgroups where killfiles will come in handy because of the way the newsgroups are organized. For example, readers of rec.arts.tv.soaps always use an acronym in their subject: line for the show they're writing about (AMC, for example, for "All My Children"). This way, people who only want to read about "One Life to Live" can blank out all the messages about "The Young and the Restless" and all the others (to keep people from accidentally screening out messages that might contain the letters "gh" in them, "General Hospital" viewers always use "gh:" in their subject lines). Both nn and rn let you create killfiles, but in different ways. To create a killfile in nn, go into the newsgroup with the offending messages and type a capital K. You'll see this at the bottom of your screen: AUTO (k)ill or (s)elect (CR => Kill subject 30 days) If you hit return, nn will ask you which article's subject you're tired of. Chose one and the article and any follow-ups will disappear, and you won't see them again for 30 days. If you type a lower-case k instead, you'll get this: AUTO KILL on (s)ubject or (n)ame (s) If you hit your S key or just enter, you'll see this: KILL Subject: (=/) Type in the name of the offending word or phrase and hit enter. You'll then be prompted: KILL in (g)roup 'eff.test' or in (a)ll groups (g) except that the name of the group you see will be the one you're actually in at the moment. Because cascaders and other annoying people often cross-post their messages to a wide range of newsgroups, you might consider hitting a instead of g. Next comes: Lifetime of entry in days (p)ermanent (30) The P key will screen out the offending articles forever, while hitting enter will do it for 30 days. You can also type in a number of days for the blocking. Creating killfiles in rn works differently -- its default killfile generator only works for messages in specific groups, rather than globally for your entire newsgroup list. To create a global killfile, you'll have to write one yourself. To create a killfile in rn, go into the newsgroup where the offending messages are and type in its number so you get it on your screen. Type a capital K. From now on, any message with that subject line will disappear before you read the group. You should probably choose a reply, rather than the original message, so that you will get all of the followups (the original message won't have a "Re: " in its subject line). The next time you call up that newsgroup, rn will tell you it's killing messages. When it's done, hit the space bar to go back into reading mode. To create a "global" kill file that will automatically wipe out articles in all groups you read, start rn and type control-K. This will start your whatever text editor you have as your default on your host system and create a file (called KILL, in your News subdirectory). On the first line, you'll type in the word, phrase or name you don't want to see, followed by commands that tell rn whether to search an entire message for the word or name and then what to do when it finds it. Each line must be in this form /pattern/modifier:j "Pattern" is the word or phrase you want rn to look for. It's case- insensitive: both "test" and "Test" will be knocked out. The modifier tells rn whether to limit its search to message headers (which can be useful when the object is to never see messages from a particular person): a: Looks through an entire message h: Looks just at the header You can leave out the modifier command, in which case rn will look only at the subject line of messages. The "j" at the end tells rn to screen out all articles with the offending word. So if you never want to see the word "foo" in any header, ever again, type this: /foo/h:j This is particularly useful for getting rid of articles from people who post in more than one newsgroup, such as cascaders, since an article's newsgroup name is always in the header. If you just want to block messages with a subject line about cascades, you could try: /foo/:j To kill anything that is a followup to any article, use this pattern: /Subject: *Re:/:j When done writing lines for each phrase to screen, exit the text editor as you normally would, and you'll be put back in rn. One word of caution: go easy on the global killfile. An extensive global killfile, or one that makes frequent use of the a: modifier can dramatically slow down rn, since the system will now have to look at every single word in every single message in all the newsgroups you want to read. If there's a particular person whose posts you never want to see again, first find his or her address (which will be in the "from:" line of his postings) and then write a line in your killfile like this: /From: *name@address\.all/h:j 4.3 SOME USENET HINTS Case counts in Unix -- most of the time. Many Unix commands, including many of those used for reading Usenet articles, are case sensitive. Hit a d when you meant a D and either nothing will happen, or something completely different from what you expected will happen. So watch that case! In nn, you can get help most of the time by typing a question mark (the exception is when you are writing your own message, because then you are inside the text-processing program). In rn, type a lower-case h at any prompt to get some online help. When you're searching for a particular newsgroup, whether through the l command in rn or with nngrep for nn, you sometimes may have to try several keywords. For example, there is a newsgroup dedicated to the Grateful Dead, but you'd never find it if you tried, say, l grateful dead, because the name is rec.music.gdead. In general, try the smallest possible part of the word or discussion you're looking for, for example, use "trek" to find newsgroups about "Star Trek." If one word doesn't produce anything, try another. 4.4 THE BRAIN-TUMOR BOY, THE MODEM TAX AND THE CHAIN LETTER Like the rest of the world, Usenet has its share of urban legends and questionable activities. There are three in particular that plague the network. Spend more than, oh, 15 minutes within Usenet and you're sure to run into the Brain Tumor Boy, the plot by the evil FCC to tax your modem and Dave Rhode's miracle cure for poverty. For the record, here's the story on all of them: There once was a seven-year-old boy in England named Craig Shergold who was diagnosed with a seemingly incurable brain tumor. As he lay dying, he wished only to have friends send him postcards. The local newspapers got a hold of the tear-jerking story. Soon, the boy's wish had changed: he now wanted to get into the Guinness Book of World Records for the largest postcard collection. Word spread around the world. People by the millions sent him postcards. Miraculously, the boy lived. An American billionaire even flew him to the U.S. for surgery to remove what remained of the tumor. And his wish succeeded beyond his wildest dreams -- he made the Guinness Book of World Records. But with Craig now well into his teens, his dream has turned into a nightmare for the post office in the small town outside London where he lives. Like Craig himself, his request for cards just refuses to die, inundating the post office with millions of cards every year. Just when it seems like the flow is slowing, along comes somebody else who starts up a whole new slew of requests for people to send Craig post cards (or greeting cards or business cards -- Craig letters have truly taken on a life of their own and begun to mutate). Even Dear Abby has been powerless to make it stop! What does any of this have to do with the Net? The Craig letter seems to pop up on Usenet as often as it does on cork boards at major corporations. No matter how many times somebody like Gene Spafford posts periodic messages to ignore them or spend your money on something more sensible (a donation to the local Red Cross, say), somebody manages to post a letter asking readers to send cards to poor little Craig. Don't send any cards to the Federal Communications Commission, either. In 1987, the FCC considered removing a tax break it had granted CompuServe and other large commercial computer networks for use of the national phone system. The FCC quickly reconsidered after alarmed users of bulletin-board systems bombarded it with complaints about this "modem tax." Now, every couple of months, somebody posts an "urgent" message warning Net users that the FCC is about to impose a modem tax. This is NOT true. The way you can tell if you're dealing with the hoax story is simple: it ALWAYS mentions an incident in which a talk-show host on KGO radio in San Francisco becomes outraged on the air when he reads a story about the tax in the New York Times. Another way to tell it's not true is that it never mentions a specific FCC docket number or closing date for comments. Save that letter to your congressman for something else. Sooner or later, you're going to run into a message titled "Make Money Fast." It's your basic chain letter. The Usenet version is always about some guy named Dave Rhodes who was on the verge of death, or something, when he discovered a perfectly legal way to make tons of money -- by posting a chain letter on computer systems around the world. Yeah, right. 4.5 BIG SIG There are .sigs and there are .sigs. Many people put only bare-bones information in their .sig files -- their names and e-mail addresses, perhaps their phone numbers. Others add a quotation they think is funny or profound and a disclaimer that their views are not those of their employer. Still others add some ASCII-art graphics. And then there are those who go totally berserk, posting huge creations with multiple quotes, hideous ASCII "barfics" and more e-mail addresses than anybody could humanly need. College freshmen unleashed on the Net seem to excel at these. You can see the best of the worst in the alt.fan.warlord newsgroup, which exists solely to critique .sigs that go too far, such as: ___________________________________________________________________________ |#########################################################################| |#| |#| |#| ***** * * ***** * * ***** ***** ***** |#| |#| * * * * ** ** * * * * |#| |#| * ****** *** * * * *** * ** ***** ***** |#| |#| * * * * * * * * * * * |#| |#| * * * ***** * * ***** ***** * * |#| |#| |#| |#| **** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** |#| |#| * ** * * * * * * * * |#| |#| **** * * ** ***** * * ** * * * |#| |#| * ** * * * ** * * * * * * * |#| |#| **** ***** ***** ** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** |#| |#| |#| |#| T-H-E M-E-G-A B-I-G .S-I-G C-O-M-P-A-N-Y |#| |#| ~-----------------------------~ |#| |#| "Annoying people with huge net.signatures for over 20 years..." |#| |#| |#| |#|---------------------------------------------------------------------|#| |#| "The difference between a net.idiot and a bucket of shit is that at |#| |#| least a bucket can be emptied. Let me further illustrate my point |#| |#| by comparing these charts here. (pulls out charts) Here we have a |#| |#| user who not only flames people who don't agree with his narrow- |#| |#| minded drivel, but he has this huge signature that takes up many |#| |#| pages with useless quotes. This also makes reading his frequented |#| |#| newsgroups a torture akin to having at 300 baud modem on a VAX. I |#| |#| might also add that his contribution to society rivals only toxic |#| |#| dump sites." |#| |#| -- Robert A. Dumpstik, Jr |#| |#| President of The Mega Big Sig Company |#| |#| September 13th, 1990 at 4:15pm |#| |#| During his speech at the "Net.abusers |#| |#| Society Luncheon" during the |#| |#| "1990 Net.idiots Annual Convention" |#| |#|_____________________________________________________________________|#| |#| |#| |#| Thomas Babbit, III: 5th Assistant to the Vice President of Sales |#| |#| __ |#| |#| ========== ______ Digital Widget Manufacturing Co. |#| |#| \\ / 1147 Complex Incorporated Drive |#| |#| )-======= Suite 215 |#| |#| Nostromo, VA 22550-1147 |#| |#| #NC-17 Enterpoop Ship :) Phone # 804-844-2525 |#| |#| ---------------- Fax # 804-411-1115 |#| |#| "Shut up, Wesley!" Online Service # 804-411-1100 |#| |#| -- Me at 300-2400, and now 9600 baud! |#| |#| PUNet: tbabb!digwig!nostromo |#| |#| Home address: InterNet: dvader@imperial.emp.com |#| |#| Thomas Babbit, III Prodigy: Still awaiting author- |#| |#| 104 Luzyer Way ization |#| |#| Sulaco, VA 22545 "Manufacturing educational widget |#| |#| Phone # 804-555-1524 design for over 3 years..." |#| |#|=====================================================================|#| |#| |#| |#| Introducing: |#| |#| ______ |#| |#| The |\ /| / |#| |#| | \/ | / |#| |#| | | / |#| |#| | | / |#| |#| | | ETELHED /_____ ONE |#| |#|'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'`'|#| |#| 50Megs Online! The k00l BBS for rad teens! Lots of games and many |#| |#| bases for kul topix! Call now and be validated to the Metelhed Zone|#| |#| -- 804-555-8500 -- |#| |#|\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\V/////////////////////////////////////|#| |#| "This is the end, my friend..." -- The Doors |#| |#########################################################################| --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hit "b" to continue Hahahha... fooled u! 4.6 THE FIRST AMENDMENT AS LOCAL ORDINANCE Usenet's international reach raises interesting legal questions that have yet to be fully resolved. Can a discussion or posting that is legal in one country be transmitted to a country where it is against the law? Does the posting even become illegal when it reaches the border? And what if that country is the only path to a third country where the message is legal as well? Several foreign colleges and other institutions have cut off feeds of certain newsgroups where Americans post what is, in the U.S., perfectly legal discussions of drugs or alternative sexual practices. Even in the U.S., some universities have discontinued certain newsgroups their administrators find offensive, again, usually in the alt. hierarchy. An interesting example of this sort of question happened in 1993, when a Canadian court issued a gag order on Canadian reporters covering a particularly controversial murder case. Americans, not bound by the gag order, began posting accounts of the trial -- which any Canadian with a Net account could promptly read. 4.7 USENET HISTORY In the late 1970s, Unix developers came up with a new feature: a system to allow Unix computers to exchange data over phone lines. In 1979, two graduate students at Duke University in North Carolina, Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis, came up with the idea of using this system, known as UUCP (for Unix-to-Unix CoPy), to distribute information of interest to people in the Unix community. Along with Steve Bellovin, a graduate student at the University of North Carolina and Steve Daniel, they wrote conferencing software and linked together computers at Duke and UNC. Word quickly spread and by 1981, a graduate student at Berkeley, Mark Horton and a nearby high school student, Matt Glickman, had released a new version that added more features and was able to handle larger volumes of postings -- the original North Carolina program was meant for only a few articles in a newsgroup each day. Today, this system, now called Usenet, connects tens of thousands of sites around the world, from mainframes to Amigas. With more than 3,000 newsgroups and untold thousands of readers, it is perhaps the world's largest computer network. 4.8 WHEN THINGS GO WRONG * When you start up rn, you get a "warning" that "bogus newsgroups" are present. Within a couple of minutes, you'll be asked whether to keep these or delete them. Delete them. Bogus newsgroups are newsgroups that your system administrator or somebody else has determined are no longer needed. * While in a newsgroup in rn, you get a message: "skipping unavailable article." This is usually an article that somebody posted and then decided to cancel. * You upload a text file to your Unix host system for use in a Usenet message or e-mail, and when you or your recipient reads the file, every line ends with a ^M. This happens because Unix handles line endings differently than MS- DOS or Macintosh computers. Most Unix systems have programs to convert incoming files from other computers. To use it, upload your file and then, at your command line, type dos2unix filename filename or mac2unix filename filename depending on which kind of computer you are using and where filename is the name of the file you've just uploaded. A similar program can prepare text files for downloading to your computer, for example: unix2dos filename filename or unix2mac filename filename will ensure that a text file you are about to get will not come out looking odd on your computer. 4.9 FYI Leanne Phillips periodically posts a list of frequently asked questions (and answers) about use of the rn killfile function in the news.newusers.questions and news.answers newsgroups on Usenet. Bill Wohler posts a guide to using the nn newsreader in the news.answers and news.software newsgroups. Look in the news.announce.newusers and news.groups newsgroups on Usenet for "A Guide to Social Newsgroups and Mailing Lists,'' which gives brief summaries of the various soc. newsgroups. "Managing UUCP and Usenet,' by Tim O'Reilly and Grace Todino (O'Reilly & Associates, 1992) is a good guide for setting up your own Usenet system. Chapter 5: MAILING LISTS AND BITNET 5.1 INTERNET MAILING LISTS Usenet is not the only forum on the Net. Scores of "mailing lists" represent another way to interact with other Net users. Unlike Usenet messages, which are stored in one central location on your host system's computer, mailing-list messages are delivered right to your e-mail box. You have to ask for permission to join a mailing list -- although in many cases that means only sending a message to a particular computer, which then automatically adds you to the list. Unlike Usenet, where your message is distributed to the world, on a mailing list, you send your messages to a central moderator, who either re-mails it to the other people on the list or uses it to compile a periodic "digest" mailed to subscribers. Given the number of newsgroups, why would anybody bother with a mailing list? Even on Usenet, there are some topics that just might not generate enough interest for a newsgroup; for example, the Queen list, which is all about the late Freddie Mercury's band. And because a moderator decides who can participate, a mailing list can offer a degree of freedom to speak one's mind (or not worry about net.weenies) that is not necessarily possible on Usenet. Several groups offer anonymous postings -- only the moderator knows the real names of people who contribute. Examples include 12Step, where people enrolled in such programs as Alcoholics Anonymous can discuss their experiences, and sappho, a list limited to gay and bisexual women. You can find mailing addresses and descriptions of these lists in the news.announce.newusers newsgroup with the subject of "Publicly Accessible Mailing Lists." Mailing lists now number in the hundreds, so this posting is divided into three parts. **FIX THIS