In order to assist new users to become quickly and easily accepted into the Usenet newsgroups, a Netiquette Guide has been produced describing the informal "code of behaviour" that is generally recognised for newsgroup postings. It is recommended that new users read the Guide before posting to the newsgroups; more experienced users may also find the Guide useful. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- A New Users' Guide to Netiquette in Newsgroups ---------------------------------------------- Hello, new Voyager! Welcome to the weird and wonderful world of Usenet newsgroups. This brief document is intended to help you navigate this world as painlessly as possible, and to hasten your acceptance as part of the Usenet community. It is written primarily for Argonet subscribers using Argo's !Voyager software, but most of the points covered should also be useful to others who are new to the Internet. Before we Begin --------------- The first thing you should do, before anything else, is subscribe to the following newsgroups: news.announce.newusers argonet announce argonet.acorn.voyager The first of these will, over the course of time, provide you with a lot of useful information about Usenet (the "official" title for the vast collection of newsgroups that exist on the Internet, usually referred to as just News or Newsgroups), and give you details of the codes of behaviour that apply. The second, a moderated group, covers announcements relating to Argo and Argo software. The third is the forum for discussion of Argo- and Voyager-related matters. If you don't know how to subscribe to a newsgroup, read the Voyager manual. If you are still having difficulty, e-mail me at richt@argonet.co.uk, and I will be pleased to help. Why Netiquette? --------------- Usenet comprises a vast, world-wide network of newsgroups (some 15,000 plus, I believe), covering every area of interest you could wish for. Each newsgroup is set up by people with a common interest to exchange information on a particular topic. Each Newsgroup has a "charter" that defines the nature and scope of the topics to be discussed (see later for where these charters can be viewed). Other than the common interest, the subscribers to the group may have little else in common, and will have different views of the world and different codes of personal behaviour. Subscribers will range from the very young to the very old, and will come from many very different cultural backgrounds - a real melting-pot. Some newsgroups are moderated (see more about these later), with a voluntary moderator vetting and controlling what is posted to each group. The majority, however, are not moderated, so that in theory anyone can post whatever they like to them - there is no one to control them. To avoid complete anarchy, a kind of unwritten, voluntary code of behaviour has developed, just as there is a code of behaviour at, for example, a crowded party (but please don't view the newsgroups as social clubs, they are not) where you don't just barge in and say your piece in any of the many conversations. The code is not a rigid set of rules, but a set of conventions as to what is mutually agreed to be acceptable behaviour, and is based on common sense and consideration for others - in short, good manners! The main purpose of such rules is to ensure that when a subscriber downloads the contents of a newsgroup, most of what he or she downloads is relevant to him/her, i.e. mostly relevant content, not time- and money- wasting "noise" (net-speak for irrelevant rubbish). You step outside this code (often referred to as Netiquette) at your own risk. While you may think that there is nothing that can be done about a breach of the code, a bad transgression will result in complaints (usually *not* polite) from other members of the group, both within the group and by personal (sometimes *very* personal) e-mail - your mail box could be clogged for weeks. Some of the worst breaches (eg spams) can result in complaints to your Internet Service Provider (Argo) and in the loss of your Internet account. Look before you Leap -------------------- Before you start posting to a newsgroup, it is a good idea to spend several weeks (some authorities recommend up to six months) just reading what is posted there to get a feel for what is acceptable in the group. Incidentally, this advice holds equally good whether you are new to the Net, or are an experienced user subscribing to a new newsgroup. I know this is difficult - you suddenly have access to this new world of information, and you feel a strong urge to make your presence felt. Have patience - it will save you a lot of trouble. This will enable you to judge what topics are acceptable for discussion in the group and how rigidly the rules of Netiquette are applied, and will give you a chance to give something positive to the group when you do start to post. It will also give you a chance to avoid the first "crime" of newbies (a slightly derogatory description of new users), which is... Ask a Silly Question.... ------------------------ The most common mistake of new users (and the one most likely to identify them as such) is to ask a question that has been asked many (many) times before. Probably the most common of such postings runs something like this: "Hi there! I'm new to all this. Where can I find a list of newsgroups?" This posting is seen at least once a week. If you are lucky, you will get a sensible reply (ftp to argonet - download the file "Active.zip" in the "Info" directory). Also, if you are lucky, you will receive *this* e-mail :-). The reaction of the group, however, will be (politely stated) "Oh God, another ignorant newbie". Before asking a question on a newsgroup, consult the other sources that are available to you. The first of these, if you are asking a question about software or hardware, is the appropriate manual (the answer to the above *is* in the rather inadequate Voyager manual). The second source is the list of FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions) posted for most groups on a regular basis. FAQs for the comp.sys.acorn.* hierarchy of newsgroups are posted fortnightly in comp.sys.acorn.announce, and a FAQ on Argonet/Voyager matters will shortly start appearing in argonet.announce. If you are impatient, then the comp.sys.acorn.* FAQs can be found on the Web at http://wn.planet.gen.nz/~banksie/Archives/FaqHTML.html. FAQs for all (?) newsgroups can be obtained by anonymous ftp from rtfm.mit.edu in the directory /pub/usenet/news.answers. I suggest you print hard copies for the groups you subscribe to (this makes them much easier to access). Questions of the type "where can I find program/file xyz" are also often covered in regular postings to the appropriate newsgroups (for example a list of Acorn-oriented ftp sites appears fortnightly in c.s.a.announce). "Where to find.." questions relating to the Web locations can be answered by conducting a search in one of the many search engines available (see the Yahoo Home Page, available as a link from the Voyager Home Page). Searches can be conducted using Yahoo itself, or one of the other search engines such as Lycos (see the bottom of the Yahoo Home Page) or Altavista (www.altavista.digital.com). As each search engine will give different results, it is a good idea to try two or three before resorting to the newsgroups. When you have consulted all these sources, *then* ask your question. Square Pegs in Round Holes -------------------------- If you have a new point to make, or a new question to ask, then it is important to chose the appropriate group to post to. Questions about cars, telephones or pictures of popular TV characters will receive short shrift in a group set up to discuss computer networking. If you have spent some time reading a newsgroup, then you should have a fairly good idea of what are, and what are not, appropriate topics for discussion. However, the distinction between what is, and what is not appropriate is often rather less obvious than in the examples given above, particularly to someone new to a newsgroup. If you are unsure, then it is a good idea to get hold of a copy of the original charter for the group, written when the group was set up, which will give details of the area of interest the group was set up to discuss. Copies of such charters are archived, and can be obtained by anonymous ftp from ftp.uu.net - follow the directory path /usenet/control/. This holds the charters of all groups formed in the last five or six years except, unfortunately, local and alt.* groups. If you do post an off-topic subject to a group, then you will soon be informed of the fact! Do not, as many do, post a question to a group you do not yourself read (even if only long enough to gather all the responses to your question). The often seen: "Please reply by e-mail as I don't read this group" will do more than most to annoy people. If you don't read the group, then you are not contributing anything, so why should people help you? You are also implying that answers to your question are of no interest to others in the group, which will usually not be the case. Here, There and Everywhere -------------------------- Cross-posting (not posting in anger, but posting to more than one group at the same time) happens all too frequently without adequate reason and should normally be avoided. Cross-postings on a "hot" thread (in case you haven't met the term before, a "thread" is a (often many-branched) chain of postings, each responding to the one before) can present the reader of several newsgroups with the same batch of articles time and time again. Responses to cross-postings will normally go to *all* the groups to which the original message was posted (although Voyager is set up so that a response to a cross-posted article will only go to the newsgroup you are responding in). If you do have a good reason to cross-post (for example a query relating to a combined software and hardware problem) then consider sending separate postings to the appropriate groups. This way, at least the responses will be confined to the relevant groups. If your reason for cross-posting is uncertainty as to which group is the most relevant, then try posting a single message to the appropriate *.misc group, if one exists. One occasion where cross-posting *is* recommended is when you respond to a posting with a comment that is more relevant to a different group from the current one. The correct procedure in this case (in addition to changing the "Subject" heading) is to cross-post the article to the relevant group (add the name of the new group to the "Groups" field, separating group names with commas), and to add a "Follow-up" line to the article header (headers are the address, subject etc lines at the start of an article which are, unfortunately, filtered out by Voyager before you see them) which will automatically re-direct any response to *your* posting to the new group. Unfortunately, Voyager does not yet allow easy access to "Follow-up" functions, so file this one away for future reference until a Voyager version comes along with a "Set Follow-ups" option. When you *are* able to cross-post and set follow-ups, then add a line to the end of your posting which says "[Follow-ups set to (name of new group)]", so that people know what you are doing. Spamming (see later) is cross-posting taken to unwelcome extremes. Feel the Quality, not the Width ------------------------------- It is worth taking care how you present your postings to the world. Before posting to a newsgroup, whether an original posting or a response to someone else's, think through what you want to say before setting finger to keyboard. A clear, concise, well-argued posting is far more likely to be read than one which is long, rambling and incoherent. Read the rest of the thread *before* making your contribution - that pertinent or witty point you are burning to make has probably already been made four or five times already! While on this point, avoid the temptation to make a "Me Too" response - agreeing with someone else's point without adding anything of your own (49 lines of quote with "I agree" tacked on the end are a waste of everybody's time). The only time when this is justified is when there is an obvious need to indicate the level of support for a particular argument, and even this is better done by some sort of e-mail vote. Also to be avoided are those pithy one-liners that some people can't seem to resist, but which add nothing at all to the discussion. For example: Q. Does anyone know how to ......... A. Yes. OK, so it's a literal answer to a badly worded question, but it is helpful to nobody. Oh, and if you want to post a "joke", try and make sure it's funny - and beware: senses of humour vary widely out there! Finally, avoid the temptation to use insulting, offensive, abusive or immoderate language - you will only get someone else worked up (cue for flame war) and no-one will respect what you have to say. If someone criticises you, stop for a moment and consider whether (heaven forbid) the criticism might be valid - and respond accordingly. In summary, succinct, well thought-out postings, and good manners (tolerance, patience and the willingness to recognise others' points of view) will get you a reputation as someone worth listening to. Hey! Read Me!!! ---------------- The "Subject" line of a posting is more important than might first appear. It is what decides whether your posting will be read or not. Most people reading a newsgroup will be faced with many (perhaps thousands) of postings to read in a limited amount of time. Usually, they will scan the titles, read the ones that appear relevant to them and discard the rest. Your "Subject", then , should encapsulate what your posting is about. Be concise (many newsreaders will curtail long subject lines to display details of the author) and specific. Avoid non-specific titles such as "Help" (this appears time after time), which will not be widely read. *Always* include a title (items labelled will only be read by the curious with lots of time on their hands). Avoid the temptation to use attention grabbing titles such as "FREE CASH AVAILABLE!!!!!" and "SEX,SEX,SEX!!!!". The former usually indicates a Spam (see below), and neither will be widely read. Something you will find all to often is an item where the topic being discussed bears no relation at all to the "Subject" line. You will find it extremely annoying to open an item entitled "RPC Filer Bug", only to find yourself reading a posting about Canterbury Cathedral. This is particularly true for long-running threads, and results from a lot of people being too lazy to bother to change the "Subject" line when changing the topic of a thread. It is all too easy, when responding to a posting, to click on "Quote", type in a comment (off-topic), and click on "Post". What we *should* do, when we change topic is to change the "Subject" to reflect the change of direction. The correct form for doing this is to change the title to "New Subject (Was Old Subject)", for example "Canterbury Cathedral (Was Re: RPC Filer Bug)". It's a pity so few of us remember to do that! Note that changing the subject in this way still keeps it in the same thread. If you want to start a completely new thread (as you might wish to if you are going completely off-topic), then create a completely new posting. Spaghetti Quotes ---------------- Another result of the ease with which responses can be made to newsgroup postings, is the string of quotes, double quotes and triple quotes finishing up with a short comment at the end. Yes it is easy to click "Quote", add your comment and "Post", but it is also extremely bad manners. Thousands of people are downloading lines and lines of quoted material (most of which they have seen, probably many times, before) just to get at your little gem. Also, it is counterproductive - many readers will stop seeking your contribution after the first page of quotes (and if you should chance to include your comment in the *middle* of a string of quotes, it will be almost impossible to spot) - so you will just not get read. Imagine, if people just kept adding comments to the end of other people's postings, then the News would rapidly get clogged up with ever longer and longer postings. The general rule on quoting is this: If the amount of quoted material is more than that of your response, then cut the quoted material. Some news posters (Voyager included) enforce this rule by not allowing you to over-quote. The sensible rule on quoting is as follows: Make your quotes long enough to indicate to a new reader what you are commenting on, but no longer than is absolutely necessary to do that. This, of course, takes a little longer than just banging in your comment and posting. If you are lucky, you can select the appropriate text for your quote in the incoming news item, click on "Quote", click on the box marked "Selection", click on OK, add an attribution (see below), add your comment and post. If you are unlucky, and want to quote different sections from the incoming posting, then you will have to delete the inappropriate parts of the posting when composing your reply. When you do this, and remove part of a previous posting, then insert "[snip]" or "[snipped]" to indicate where you have made cuts. When snipping a posting for quoting purposes, take care not to change the original poster's meaning in the process. Taking individual comments out of context can be misleading. A further tip here - when you are quoting, add a blank line between the quote and your comment. It makes things *much* easier to read :-) Incidentally, *never* quote signatures in your response (unless, of course, your comment relates directly to a signature) - they have all been seen many times before, and add nothing to the content of your response. He said, then She said.... -------------------------- It is generally considered good manners, when quoting a previous posting, to start with a statement (attribution) of who made the comment you are quoting. Some news posters do this automatically, but with Voyager you will have to add this manually. A simple line at the start of your posting reading: "Joe Bloggs (j.bloggs@someisp.co.uk) wrote:" will suffice. You will find the details on the posting you are replying to, either in the header or in the signature. If possible, include both "real name" and e-mail address, although some news posters do not include a "real name" in the "From" line, and some posters do not tell you who they are in their signature, so a "real name" is not always possible. Oh, and try and get the attribution correct (difficult, sometimes, with spaghetti postings). If you get it wrong and say "Fred Jones (f.jones@whimpnet.co.uk) wrote:", the *best* you can expect is a posting from Fred Jones saying "No I didn't". In "multi-layer" quotes it is a good idea to ensure that each level of quoting is given its own (and correct) attribution. You will often see postings where the original poster's first quote has been completely snipped so that the quote starts with something that he was quoting, eg: Bill (bill.tru@xyz.co.uk) wrote: > > Rubbish. In fact Bill didn't write that at all - he was responding to someone who did, and might be rather annoyed at having the remark attributed to him. Hint: count the >>s! Hey! Keep your Voice Down!!! ----------------------------- News posters and readers (and the same applies to e-mail) have *no* facilities for underlining words, or otherwise emphasising what you want to say. Using CAPITAL LETTERS will provide that emphasis, but can prove hard on the eyes. Use of CAPITALS is viewed as SHOUTING, and should be avoided unless you REALLY WANT TO EMPHASISE A POINT! More gentle, and acceptable ways of adding emphasis are to use asterisks (*word*), underlines (_word_) or slashes/backslashes (\word/, /word\ etc). My Lines go on for Ever ----------------------- Most newsreaders are set up to a width of 80 columns. Any postings with line lengths longer than this will wrap around at the ends of the lines, making them very difficult to read. You might think that, given that the Voyager news compose window is set to 80 columns, you can just type away and ignore questions of line length. Unfortunately, this is not so. While an 80 column line will be OK (although not easy to read) in an original posting, as soon as somebody quotes you, a quote character (> ) will be added to the beginning of each of your lines. A second quote will add another > and so on. Just read some of the news items in your favourite newsgroup to see the results. Ideally, keep your line length to something like a maximum of 74 characters. Before you start complaining (as some do) that your news composer won't let you do this - pretend you are using a typewriter (back to the steam age) and press at around the 74 character mark (or even before). This will ensure that your postings are readable, even when quoted. While on the subject of lay-out, chop your postings into short paragraphs - large blocks of dense text are *very* difficult to read. Shady Characters ---------------- E-mail and Usenet, on the Internet, are set up as "text only" systems. Thus you should only use standard "text" characters in your postings. In practice this means ASCII character codes between 32 and 126, plus carriage return. In computer-speak "top-bit-set" characters (those with ASCII codes above 127), and some "control" characters (ASCII 0 to 31) are *not* allowed. Voyager is rather inconsistent here. E-mail will not allow you to enter "top-bit-set" characters, but the news composer will, and the news reader will read them (or at least *some* of them). Thus it is easy to get the impression that what you type is seen by everyone else in the same way as you see it. This is not so. Many people will be using news readers that will not translate ASCII characters above 126, and will display a character code (eg =A3), making nonsense of what you typed. Also, the translation of "top-bit-set" characters is not consistent from platform to platform, or from character set to character set, so what you type is not necessarily what someone else will see. The main culprits are the pound character, and the Tab "character". You should not use these (or any other "odd" characters - if in doubt load !Chars from your Apps directory; usable characters are those shown in lines two, three and four). Even Voyager will not read *all* "illegal" characters - you will often see =09 for Tab, and =A3 (someone else's pound sign - tends to inflate the price of anything they are trying to sell!). Oh, I nearly forgot, instead of the pound sign use ukp, pounds, L - all are regularly used as substitutes. Binary Blues ------------ Although the newsgroups and e-mail are strictly text-only, files containing "top-bit-set" characters *can* be sent by first encoding the file (using UUencode or Mime) so that it becomes a text file to be decoded at the other end. Indeed, some groups are set up purely for the purpose of posting such "binary" files - those groups normally have the words "binary" or "source" in the group title. However, it is *not* considered good manners to post such files to the normal, text-only groups. The reason for this is that such files (normally applications or picture or sound files) are usually big, and made larger by the encoding process. Such files will be downloaded by everyone reading the group, whether or not the file is relevant to them, and can add significantly to the time spent on-line. If you have a binary file that you wish to distribute, the correct procedure is to post a message to the newsgroup concerned telling everyone about it, and asking for e-mails from those who wish to receive it - the file is then distributed by e-mail. Note this is *not* the same thing as posting a message to a group saying that you have the file and are going to post it unless anybody objects - people will rarely complain until *after* the offending file has been posted. Bring Someone a Little Sunshine - Smile --------------------------------------- Being a text-only medium, Usenet (and e-mail) has the potential to cause serious misunderstanding because of the lack of any "tone" to the things you say, especially as most articles are written in conversational style rather than as formal letters. What you intended as a flippant comment, a joke, a tongue-in-cheek remark, can, (and all too often is) be taken as a serious insult by the recipient. Consider... "You must be mad......" "Been on the booze again, Harry?" Both could be taken as either a light-hearted joke, or a serious criticism. Smilies to the rescue :-) Smilies are character-based pictures (read them sideways to see what they mean) designed to indicate whether a comment was intended seriously or not. There are many variants, but the most common are: :-) happy, laughing, joking ;-) winking, don't take this seriously :-( unhappy :-? tongue in cheek to which you can add: 8-) glasses B-) shades {:-) toupee :-#) moustache Do use them to add tone and colour to your messages :-) What the Hell does THAT mean? ----------------------------- Not strictly Netiquette, but an attempt to help you avoid asking another silly question. You will notice a number of "acronyms" that appear in news postings, and may be wondering what some of them mean. Some of the common ones are given below. If you come across any others that you don't understand, then e-mail me and I will try and translate. AAMOF as a matter of fact AFAIK as far as I know BBFN bye bye for now BCNU be seeing you BTW by the way... CMIIW correct me if I'm wrong CU see you DIIK damned if I know EOD end of discussion EOL end of lecture EOT end of thread (wishful thinking) FDROTFL falling down rolling on the floor laughing FOTCL falling off the chair laughing FWIW for what it's worth FYI for your information GOK God only knows IAC in any case IIRC if I remember correctly IMCO in my considered opinion IMO in my opinion IMHO in my *humble* opinion (you are free to doubt the humility ;-) ) IMNSHO in my not so humble opinion IOW in other words ISTR I seem to recall KISS keep it simple stupid LOL laughing out loud NBL not bloody likely NIMBY not in my backyard OBTW oh, by the way OTOH on the other hand POV point of view ROTFL rolling on the floor laughing RSN real soon now RTFM read the (expletive) manual TIA thanks in advance TIC tongue in cheek TPTB the powers that be TTBOMK to the best of my knowledge TTFN ta ta for now TTYL talk to you later TYVM thank you very much WRT with respect to YMMV your mileage may vary Hey! This is ME!! ------------------ Signatures cause as much bad feeling in the newsgroups as anything else. Your signature is added automatically to the bottom of every e-mail and news posting that you send, preceded by a standard sig separator (-- ) (two hyphens and a space). In passing, don't alter the separator - it is used by news posters to remove a signature when quoting. Your signature is yours to do what you will with. It is a reflection of your personality. You can use it to give details about yourself (it is courteous to include a name, so that we know who we are talking to, e-mail address, other contact addresses), a piece of ASCII art (in moderation), a favourite quotation, a political or philosophical statement, a disclaimer or nothing at all. Some tend to be minimalistic (no bad thing, although a name would be nice) in their signatures, while others are more flamboyant. The main problems that arise concern signature length. As signatures appear on *every* posting, they can take up a lot of room which translates as other people's time and money. Thus over-long signatures are *not* appreciated. The normally-quoted rule is that a signature should not exceed four lines, although five or six line signatures usually escape comment. Anything above this is definitely to be avoided! Sometimes sigs attract criticism for "offensive" content, or even for spelling or grammatical mistakes, but this is rare. Your current signature is probably the standard Argonet signature. You can change this by going into Preferences/User, and clicking on Edit Signature. But no twenty line ASCII masterpieces, please ;-) Oh, and consider that adding a full address or telephone number to your signature could invite unwelcome contacts :-( Testing. Testing.... -------------------- Before doing a "real" posting, you might want to see what your message, signature etc actually look like out there in the newsgroups. Or you may want to check that your software really works. If you want to do this, subscribe to one of the newsgroups specially set up for this purpose, for example misc.test or alt.test. You can play to your heart's content on these without anyone complaining :-) Don't send a test message to one of the "real" newsgroups - there are far too many "TEST" and "DON"T READ THIS" postings there already :-( Oy!! That was Private --------------------- Briefly - while it is OK to quote passages from other newsgroup postings (Usenet is a public arena), it is *NOT* OK to quote the contents of a private e-mail in a newsgroup posting. It is *very* bad manners, and probably a breach of Copyright as well :-( It is a bit like having your private correspondence published in the tabloid press. If you have a good reason to publish the contents of an e-mail, then obtain the permission of the author first. Oh, and tell the newsgroup that it has been obtained - the original author is not the only one who will complain! Allo, Allo! What's going on here then? --------------------------------------- The newsgroups and e-mail are just like any other written medium, and all the normal laws relating to copyright and libel (and pornography) apply. Just because this is the Internet does not mean you can say anything you like and get away with it. A libellous statement, for example, will attract the same response as it would if published in a newspaper or magazine. Even your "private" e-mails are not secure - they pass through many points between you and the recipient, and anyone with a little bit of knowledge can read them en route (a good reason for not sending credit card numbers by e-mail, or libellous accusations, or someone else's copyright material, or pornography). And no, you are *not* anonymous! So think carefully about what you post to the newsgroups, or send by e-mail. True, there are no Netcops out there, but the real variety *are* (and currently taking a strong interest in child pornography)! Spam, Spam, Spam and Spam -------------------------- If you really want to attract the wrath of the Usenet community, then propagate a "Spam". A Spam is a posting that goes to all, or a high proportion of newsgroups, usually advertising something for sale, or a "get rich quick" scheme of some kind. At the time of writing, a chain-letter type Spam is running on all the alt.* newsgroups, much to everyone's displeasure. The consequences of running a Spam make it not worth the effort. Your mail box will be filled with possibly thousands of complaints. Your Service Provider will also be inundated with complaints and will either rap you over the knuckles (first offence) or discontinue your account. To *complain* about a Spam, send an e-mail to "postmaster" at the spammers "domain". For example, if the spam originates from J.Bloggs@thatplace.com, send a complaint, with a copy of the spam, to postmaster@thatplace.com. And no, I'm *not* going to tell you how to propagate a Spam :-( Keep the Home Fires Burning --------------------------- So, now you have the main rules. Read the newsgroups, and you will see them being broken all the time, but the golden rule is, as always, don't do as I do, do as I say ;-) Keep to the rules, as far as possible, and you will soon be accepted as a valued member of the community. But, you will still get into trouble. You will make an innocent comment, which someone will take violent, irrational and abusive exception to. Or *you* will take violent exception to someone else's comments (beware, there are "Trolls" out there making contentious or offensive statements just to see who they can draw into a flame war). Or someone will be extremely offensive about you, and you will react emotionally (those Trolls again). So, what do you do? You can don your asbestos underwear and your paranoia and wade in with all guns blazing. Others will join in, on both sides, and hey ho, another flame war. Keeps the adrenalin flowing, the heart pumping and the brain at Pentium temperatures. And by the time all the arguments come round for the twentieth time, it all gets incredibly boring. The best response to an insult or an offensive comment is to ignore it completely. If you really must, then respond, calmly and unemotionally, by e-mail, and don't respond to any return e-mails. The argument will soon die without fuel to keep it going. If you appear to have offended someone (however innocently), and the complaint has substance, then swallow your pride and apologise. If the complaint has no substance, ignore it. Patience, tolerance, and a determination not to be provoked can pay dividends in these situations. Oh, and if there is a flame war running, and you feel like acting as a pacifier, think twice before intervening. The chances are that all the participants will turn on you as a new target, adding more fuel to the flames. Moderated Groups ---------------- As mentioned earlier, some newsgroups are moderated. Moderated groups work slightly differently from unmoderated groups - your posting is diverted and e-mailed to the moderator who will decide whether or not it is appropriate and will then take care of the posting. All this is generally transparent to you. Lists of newsgroups will normally indicate which groups are moderated, and each posting in a moderated group will end with an indication that it is moderated, with details of who the moderator is, addresses to post to etc. See comp.sys.acorn.announce for an example of a moderated group. For the most part, *responses* to postings in moderated groups should *not* go back to the group itself. The statement at the end of each posting will indicate where such responses should be sent, and generally the moderator will add a "Follow-up" line to the header of the posting itself to ensure that responses are correctly redirected. Unfortunately, Voyager does *not* correctly respond to "Follow-ups" currently (this will be fixed in future versions), and tries to respond directly to the moderated group. This will result in a rather annoyed e-mail from the group moderator telling you where you *can* send your response. For the moment, then, the current recommendation for responding to postings in moderated newsgroups is to read the section at the end of the posting to which you are responding to determine the correct place to send your response, and to create a completely new posting to send to that group. And Finally... -------------- I repeat, read the newsgroups for a while before jumping in. There are some very skilled operators out there - learn from them. Get to know who the individuals are, decide which you respect, and why, and watch their behaviour closely. Also get to recognise the types of behaviour that annoy *you*, and avoid them. Rules of behaviour will vary from newsgroup to newsgroup, so don't assume that what you have learned in one can be applied to another. And remember, we all make mistakes - it's learning from them that really counts. Welcome to the Usenet community - enjoy it. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Version 4.0 2-3-96 (c) Richard Travers, 1996. This guide may be freely copied and distributed provided no alterations are made to its content and this paragraph is included. Any comments should be made by e-mail to richt@argonet.co.uk ------------------------------------------------------------------------