Usenet 1993 July/InfoMagic USENET CD-ROM July 1993.ISO/answers/news-newusers-intro

Internet Message Format | 1993-06-29 | 14.6 KB

Path: senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!enterpoop.mit.edu!pad-thai.aktis.com!GZA.COM!jik
From: [e-mail] (Jonathan I. Kamens)
Newsgroups: news.newusers.questions,news.answers
Subject: Welcome to news.newusers.questions! (weekly posting)
Supersedes: <[e-mail]>
Followup-To: news.newusers.questions
Date: 30 Jun 1993 01:00:10 -0400
Organization: Geer Zolot Associates
Lines: 310
Approved: [e-mail]
Distribution: world
Expires: 21 Jul 1993 05:00:08 GMT
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
NNTP-Posting-Host: pad-thai.aktis.com
Summary: READ THIS BEFORE POSTING TO THIS NEWSGROUP
X-Version: $Id: news-newusers-intro,v 1.20 1993/06/09 15:43:35 jik Exp $
Xref: senator-bedfellow.mit.edu news.newusers.questions:15578 news.answers:9824

Archive-name: news-newusers-intro
Version: $Id: news-newusers-intro,v 1.20 1993/06/09 15:43:35 jik Exp $


  Welcome to the news.newusers.questions newsgroup!  According to the
"List of Active Newsgroups" posting in news.announce.newusers, the
purpose of this newsgroup is "Q & A for users new to the Usenet."  So
if you've got questions about the USENET, this is the place to post
them!


         Get to know news.announce.newusers.


  However, before you do that, there is another newsgroup with which
you should become acquainted.  The news.announce.newusers newsgroup
contains (once again according to the "List of Active Newsgroups"
posting) "Explanatory postings for new users."  Its purpose is to
provide a base set of information with which all participants in the
USENET should be familiar in order to make the USENET a better place
for all of us.

  If you have not already done so, you are strongly encouraged to read
the introductory postings in news.announce.newusers before posting any
messages to any newsgroup.  In particular, the following postings in
that newsgroup might be considered the "mandatory course" for new
users:

    A Primer on How to Work With the Usenet Community
    Answers to Frequently Asked Questions about Usenet
    Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette
    Hints on writing style for Usenet
    Rules for posting to Usenet
    What is Usenet?

Furthermore, you should be aware that the following articles exist in
the newsgroup so that you can use them for reference in the future
(you might want to glance at them now so you have a slight familiarity
with their contents):

    A Guide to Social Newsgroups and Mailing Lists
    Alternative Newsgroup Hierarchies, Part I
    Alternative Newsgroup Hierarchies, Part II
    How to Create a New Usenet Newsgroup
    How to Get Information about Networks
    Introduction to news.announce
    Introduction to the news.answers newsgroup
    List of Active Newsgroups, Part I
    List of Active Newsgroups, Part II
    List of Moderators for Usenet
    List of Periodic Informational Postings, Part 1/6
    List of Periodic Informational Postings, Part 2/6
    List of Periodic Informational Postings, Part 3/6
    List of Periodic Informational Postings, Part 4/6
    List of Periodic Informational Postings, Part 5/6
    List of Periodic Informational Postings, Part 6/6
    Publicly Accessible Mailing Lists, Part I
    Publicly Accessible Mailing Lists, Part II
    Publicly Accessible Mailing Lists, Part III
    Publicly Accessible Mailing Lists, Part IV
    Regional Newsgroup Hierarchies, Part I (*)
    Regional Newsgroup Hierarchies, Part II (*)
    Regional Newsgroup Hierarchies, Part III (*)
    USENET Software: History and Sources

 (*) Note that as of December 21, 1992, the "Regional Newsgroup
     Hierarchies" postings are unavailable.  However, their maintainer
     does plan to resume posting them at some point in the future,
     hence their inclusion in this list.

Finally, note that before posting in any newsgroup, you should read
the group for a while in order to become familiar with what is
acceptable in it and to make sure that you have seen and read the FAQ
posting(s) for the newsgroup, if there is/are any.

  The articles in news.announce.newusers are posted in such a way that
each version should stay around at each site until the new version is
posted.  However, some sites are configured incorrectly so that this
does not occur.  If the articles listed above do not appear in the
news.announce.newusers newsgroup at your site, you can get copies of
them using the instructions appended to the end of this message.


              Get to know news.answers.


  The news.answers newsgroup contains a collection of all (well, it's
*supposed* to contain all of them, but it's still missing quite a few)
of the periodic informational postings that appear on the USENET
(including, for example, this posting, as well as most or all of the
news.announce.newusers postings listed above).  You probably won't
want to sit down and read through every posting in news.answers from
beginning to end, especially since postings will be repeated
periodically and many of them will concern topics in which you have no
interest.  However, news.answers is a good place to "browse the wealth
of the USENET."  Since the periodic informational postings in the
various newsgroups tend to be the "distilled wisdom" of those
newsgroups, news.answers might be considered the distilled wisdom of
the USENET.  Glancing at the articles in it will give you a good idea
of the breadth of information embodied in the USENET.


       Get to know what other newsgroups are out there.


  There is no well-defined limit on what questions belong in this
newsgroup and what questions do not.  However, it is to your advantage
to know when there is a more appropriate newsgroup for you to post
particular questions in, because when you choose the appropriate
newsgroup, more people who can answer your question will see it.

  For example, if you have a question about a UNIX command and that
question is not related to the USENET or to accessing NetNews, it
would probably be more appropriate in comp.unix.questions than in
news.newusers.questions.  Furthermore, since many experienced UNIX
users read comp.unix.questions, you are more likely to get a useful
response if you post there.


      It's often a good idea to try to get help locally.


  Many questions that are asked by new USENET users concern details
about their particular site that no one else is going to know about.
Furthermore, new users often don't know what information to provide
when asking their questions, so several exchanges are necessary before
the people helping out have enough information to be able to give a
conclusive answer.  Finally, it's often easier to learn something when
you're a new user by having it shown to you, in person, while sitting
in front of a terminal.

  For this reason, it is often a good idea to try to get help locally
with your questions before you post them to news.newusers.questions
(or to any other newsgroup, for that matter).  After you've been
participating in the USENET for a while, you'll get an intuitive feel
for what questions really belong in postings, and what questions are
probably answerable by someone at your site.  If you don't feel you've
reached that point, it's probably a good idea to try to get answers to
pretty much ALL of your questions locally before posting.

  Note that "getting help locally" includes checking available local
documentation for whatever you are trying to do.  If you are having a
problem with the "rn" newsreader, for example, try looking for
information in the rn man page (type "man rn", and if it doesn't work
find someone who knows what's going on and ask them why "man rn"
doesn't display the rn man page).

  Remember that posting to the USENET uses resources.  You may not pay
for your posting, but other people are.  If you post a question that
people outside your site CAN'T answer, or that people inside your site
CAN answer with minimal effort, the resources consumed by your posting
were consumed needlessly.


   If you DO decide to ask a question in news.newusers.questions...


  If, after checking the postings in news.announce.newusers to see if
your question is answered there, and after looking to see if there is
a more appropriate group in which to post it, and after trying to get
help locally, you still think your question belongs in
news.newusers.questions, then go right ahead and post it.

  However, you should keep in mind when preparing your question that
the people who will be reading it and trying to help you are not
mind-readers.  We don't know what your site is like.  There are
thousands of sites on the USENET, and they're all just a little bit
different, so the more details you can provide when asking your
question, the more likely it is that people will be able to help you.

  Try to provide the following information when posting a question.
If you don't know the answers to some of these questions, then try to
find them out from someone at your site and save them so that you can
use them when posting questions in the future:

1. What kind of machine are you working on?  For example: Macintosh,
   VAX, DECstation, IBM PC, PC compatible (which one), Cray, RS/6000.
2. What operating system is it running?  For example: MacOS, MS-DOS,
   UNIX, VM/CMS, VMS.
3. What version of the operating system?  For example: MacOS 7.0,
   Ultrix 4.2 UNIX, BSD 4.3, etc.
4. What news reader (or whatever program you are having trouble with)
   are you using?  What command do you type to start up whatever
   program is giving you trouble?
5. What version of the program is it?
6. If you are trying to interpret some sort of error, what exactly did
   you type to provoke the error, what was the exact error, and how is
   the actual error different from what you expected to happen?  For
   example, if you're trying to figure out why a mail message bounced,
   what address did you send the mail to, and what error message came
   back in the bounced message?
7. What have you done to try to find the answer to your question
   before posting?  If you've tried different possible answers
   already, exactly what have you tried, and what was the result?
8. If you have checked the documentation and cannot understand the
   answer it gives to your question, then what exactly about the
   answer it gives don't you understand?  If there is documentation
   available and you haven't checked it, why not?

If you're not sure whether a particular piece of information will be
helpful, include it.  It can't hurt to provide extra information
(unless, of course, that information takes up several hundred lines of
text :-), and it may just be the key to the solution of your problem.


                   Credits


  Comments about, suggestions about or corrections to this posting are
welcomed.  If you would like to ask me to change this posting in some
way, the method I appreciate most is for you to actually make the
desired modifications to a copy of the posting, and then to send me
the modified posting, or a context diff between my posted version and
your modified version (if you do the latter, make sure to include in
your mail the "Version:" line from my posted version).  Submitting
changes in this way makes dealing with them easier for me and helps to
avoid misunderstandings about what you are suggesting.

  The following people assisted in the creation of this article:

    Stan Brown <[e-mail]>
    [e-mail]
    Tony Mountifield <[e-mail]>
    Leanne Phillips <[e-mail]>
    Ellen Keyne Seebacher <[e-mail]>


--
The postings listed above are available via anonymous ftp from
rtfm.mit.edu (18.70.0.224) in the files:


/pub/usenet/news.answers/usenet-primer/part1
/pub/usenet/news.answers/usenet-faq/part1
/pub/usenet/news.answers/emily-postnews/part1
/pub/usenet/news.answers/usenet-writing-style/part1
/pub/usenet/news.answers/posting-rules/part1
/pub/usenet/news.answers/what-is-usenet/part1
/pub/usenet/news.answers/social-newsgroups/part1
/pub/usenet/news.answers/alt-hierarchies/part1
/pub/usenet/news.answers/alt-hierarchies/part2
/pub/usenet/news.answers/creating-newsgroups/part1
/pub/usenet/news.answers/network-info/part1
/pub/usenet/news.answers/news-announce-intro/part1
/pub/usenet/news.answers/news-answers/introduction
/pub/usenet/news.answers/active-newsgroups/part1
/pub/usenet/news.answers/active-newsgroups/part2
/pub/usenet/news.answers/moderator-list/part1
/pub/usenet/news.answers/periodic-postings/part1
/pub/usenet/news.answers/periodic-postings/part2
/pub/usenet/news.answers/periodic-postings/part3
/pub/usenet/news.answers/periodic-postings/part4
/pub/usenet/news.answers/periodic-postings/part5
/pub/usenet/news.answers/periodic-postings/part6
/pub/usenet/news.answers/mail/mailing-lists/part1
/pub/usenet/news.answers/mail/mailing-lists/part2
/pub/usenet/news.answers/mail/mailing-lists/part3
/pub/usenet/news.answers/mail/mailing-lists/part4
/pub/usenet/news.answers/regional-hierarchies/part1
/pub/usenet/news.answers/regional-hierarchies/part2
/pub/usenet/news.answers/regional-hierarchies/part3
/pub/usenet/news.answers/usenet-software/part1


They are also available from [e-mail] by
sending a mail message containing any or all of:


send usenet/news.answers/usenet-primer/part1
send usenet/news.answers/usenet-faq/part1
send usenet/news.answers/emily-postnews/part1
send usenet/news.answers/usenet-writing-style/part1
send usenet/news.answers/posting-rules/part1
send usenet/news.answers/what-is-usenet/part1
send usenet/news.answers/social-newsgroups/part1
send usenet/news.answers/alt-hierarchies/part1
send usenet/news.answers/alt-hierarchies/part2
send usenet/news.answers/creating-newsgroups/part1
send usenet/news.answers/network-info/part1
send usenet/news.answers/news-announce-intro/part1
send usenet/news.answers/news-answers/introduction
send usenet/news.answers/active-newsgroups/part1
send usenet/news.answers/active-newsgroups/part2
send usenet/news.answers/moderator-list/part1
send usenet/news.answers/periodic-postings/part1
send usenet/news.answers/periodic-postings/part2
send usenet/news.answers/periodic-postings/part3
send usenet/news.answers/periodic-postings/part4
send usenet/news.answers/periodic-postings/part5
send usenet/news.answers/periodic-postings/part6
send usenet/news.answers/mail/mailing-lists/part1
send usenet/news.answers/mail/mailing-lists/part2
send usenet/news.answers/mail/mailing-lists/part3
send usenet/news.answers/mail/mailing-lists/part4
send usenet/news.answers/regional-hierarchies/part1
send usenet/news.answers/regional-hierarchies/part2
send usenet/news.answers/regional-hierarchies/part3
send usenet/news.answers/usenet-software/part1


Send a message containing "help" to get general information about the
mail server.


You can get an up-to-date copy of this posting by getting the file
"/pub/usenet/news.answers/news-newusers-intro" or by sending the
command "send usenet/news.answers/news-newusers-intro".

--
Jonathan Kamens         Geer Zolot Associates           [e-mail]