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- Path: senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!grapevine.lcs.mit.edu!bronze.lcs.mit.edu!not-for-mail
- From: buglady@bronze.lcs.mit.edu (Aliza R. Panitz)
- Newsgroups: news.announce.newusers,news.groups.questions,news.groups.reviews,news.groups,news.newusers.questions,alt.config,alt.answers,news.answers
- Subject: How to find the right place to post (FAQ)
- Supersedes: <post_faq_931409702@BRONZE.LCS.MIT.EDU>
- Followup-To: news.newusers.questions
- Date: 22 Jul 1999 00:55:07 -0400
- Organization: Net Geeks Anonymous
- Lines: 520
- Approved: grouprev+@pitt.edu (Jim Jewett), Mark-Moraes@deshaw.com
- Expires: 19 Aug 1999 04:55:02 GMT
- Message-ID: <post_faq_932619302@BRONZE.LCS.MIT.EDU>
- Reply-To: buglady@bronze.lcs.mit.edu (Aliza R. Panitz)
- NNTP-Posting-Host: bronze.lcs.mit.edu
- Summary: This article gives some general hints to help you find an
- appropriate place to post on a given topic, and gives pointers
- to some available resources. A few other new-user topics are
- also addressed, mostly through pointers to other FAQs.
- Keywords: newusers help newsgroups resources newbie news
- X-Also-Approved: news-answers-request@mit.edu
- Xref: senator-bedfellow.mit.edu news.announce.newusers:4207 news.groups.questions:31644 news.groups.reviews:260 news.groups:366330 news.newusers.questions:700597 alt.config:178662 alt.answers:43268 news.answers:162848
-
- URL: http://www.cs.ruu.nl/wais/html/na-dir/finding-groups/general.html
- Archive-name: finding-groups/general
- Last-Modified: 97/01/07
- Posting-Frequency: every 2 weeks.
-
- [The most recent version of this document is posted periodically in
- several newsgroups, including news.newusers.questions, news.groups, and
- news.announce.newusers. It can also obtained by anonymous FTP as
- ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/finding-groups/general. If
- you do not have access to anonymous FTP, you can retrieve it by
- sending email to mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu with the command "send
- usenet/news.answers/finding-groups/general" in the message.]
-
- There are thousands of Usenet newsgroups, and it is sometimes difficult
- to find the right newsgroup to ask a question or start a discussion.
- This document gives some general methods of finding the right newsgroup
- or mailing list for a topic.
-
- Resources for new Usenet users
- Things that should not be posted to Usenet
- Understanding the Usenet hierarchies
- Finding the right newsgroup
- Binaries (images, executables, sounds, etc.)
- Crossposting to multiple newsgroups
- Choosing a good Subject: header
- Finding FAQs and other Periodical Postings
- Finding public mailing lists
- Starting a new Usenet newsgroup
- About this post
- Appendix: Anonymous FTP
-
- Subject: Resources for new Usenet users
-
- If you are new to Usenet, you should take the time to read the posts in
- news.announce.newusers (n.a.n.) carefully -- if they are not available in
- your newsreader, they also available by mail server or anonymous FTP
- (see below) in rtfm.mit.edu:/pub/usenet/news.announce.newusers/*
-
- A few that are most likely to be immediately helpful are:
- 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
- Introduction_to_the_*.answers_newsgroups
- Rules_for_posting_to_Usenet
- What_is_Usenet?
- DRAFT_FAQ:_Advertising_on_Usenet:_How_To_Do_It,_How_Not_To_Do_It
-
- To get started, send e-mail to mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu with the following
- lines in the body of the message:
- help
- send usenet/news.announce.newusers/Introduction_to_the_*.answers_newsgroups
-
- The server will mail you information on how to retrieve the other archived
- postings mentioned in this article.
-
- Another place you can look for helpful postings, or post general
- questions, is the group news.newusers.questions. Some of the useful
- articles regularly posted there are:
-
- Anonymous_FTP:_Frequently_Asked_Questions_(FAQ)_List
- FAQ:_How_to_find_people_s_E-mail_addresses
- FAQ:_International_E-mail_accessibility
- Internet_Services_Frequently_Asked_Questions_&_Answers_(FAQ)
- Welcome_to_news.newusers.questions!_(weekly_posting)
- rn_KILL_file_FAQ
-
- (Available at rtfm.mit.edu:/pub/usenet/news.newusers.questions/* )
-
- Subject: Things that should not be posted to Usenet
-
- 1) Requests for help with your local system or software
-
- When posting requests for help to Usenet, remember two things: people on
- your local system can probably help you better and faster, and people on
- the Net do not know what your local configuration and problems are. You
- should always try to access local help (the 'man' command on Unix systems,
- type 'man program' for help with a specific program, or 'man -k keyword'
- to find out what program to use), or sending mail to your system
- maintainers/consultants (try 'usenet', 'news', or 'postmaster' on most
- Unix systems), before sending your question out to hundreds of thousands
- of people using dozens of system types.
-
- (By the way, on many Unix systems, the Pnews command posts news articles.
- You could have found this out yourself by typing 'man -k post').
-
- On some systems, you may also have local newsgroups, which are good
- places to ask site-specific questions about systems and software.
- If you have an AOL, Prodigy, Compuserve, or NetCruiser account, then you
- should be able to get local online help about your system - it's part of
- what you are paying for.
-
- Usenet news is not centrally controlled or distributed. It trickles around
- from one machine to another, at varying speeds. The rate at which news
- gets to your system, and the order of the articles you see, are determined
- by the way your system and its neighbors handle news.
-
- 2) Commercial Advertisements
-
- The general rule of thumb is that you need to take the time to learn
- where your advertisement is appropriate before you post it. If you are
- not sure where your advertisement is appropriate, don't post it.
- Another good rule of thumb is that unless the group's charter or FAQ
- specifically mentions that some limited types of advertising are
- welcome, you should assume that no commercial postings are allowed.
-
- Most Usenet users strongly disapprove of business advertising in
- non-business-related groups. In particular, anything that looks like a
- pyramid scheme or chain letter will draw floods of critical e-mail to both
- you and your machine administrators. Posting about a few items for sale, or
- a job opening, in an appropriate newsgroup (such as misc.forsale.* or
- misc.jobs.*) is OK; posting an ad for your business to a hundred groups
- is not.
-
- See also the Usenet Advertising FAQs in news.announce.newusers
- and biz.marketplace.discussion
-
- For a more permanent commercial presence, you can create your own Web page,
- and announce its presence in comp.infosystems.www.announce, and on the
- What's New page in the NCSA home page.
-
- 3) Any article to a newsgroup you do not read
-
- If you do not read a newsgroup, you cannot know what the subject of the
- newsgroup is, what the standards of behavior are, what the frequently
- discussed topics are. Usenet does not exist to give you a free research
- tool. It is also considered incredibly rude to post a question to a
- newsgroup you do not read, and ask for replies in e-mail - by doing so,
- you are telling the people you want to answer your question that their
- issues are not important to you.
-
- 4) Surveys
-
- Many people post surveys to Usenet. Most of the time, these surveys
- are only designed to help the poster, for example by providing easy
- material for a class assignment. Other times, the 'survey' is really
- only a tool to gather a mailing list for advertisements. Even when the
- posters take the time to post the collected results on the groups where
- the survey was posted, the results are rarely of great interest. (In
- particular, the results are only true for the people who chose to answer
- the survey, and cannot be generalized to the population as a whole, or
- even to the Usenet population as a whole.)
-
- 5) Chain Letters
-
- Just don't.
-
- Subject: Understanding the Usenet newsgroup hierarchies
-
- Usenet newsgroups are arranged in a hierarchical structure. Related
- groups start with one or more identical components. For example, the
- many groups whose names start with rec.music are all about various
- facets of music, which is in itself one facet of recreation.
-
- Some of the hierarchies you probably have available are:
-
- comp: Computer hardware, software, systems, languages, and theories
- sci: Pure and applied sciences
- soc: Social issues, socializing, and various cultures
- talk: Discussion and debate of unresolved issues
- news: The Usenet news network and news software
- misc: Other topics, such as employment, children, and consumer issues
- rec: Recreational topics - sports, hobbies, music, games, etc.
- humanities: Literature, fine arts, and other humanities
- alt: An anarchic collection of serious and silly subjects
-
- Other widespread hierarchies your site may choose to carry include:
-
- bionet: Topics interesting to biologists
- bit: Redistributions of popular BitNet LISTSERV mailing lists
- biz: Business products and services
- clarinet: Online daily newspaper, from wire services (available for a fee)
- gnu: The GNU project of the Free Software Foundation
- hepnet: High-energy physics research
- info: A collection of serious gatewayed mailing lists
- k12: K-12 (primary and secondary) education
- relcom: Russian-language newsgroups
- vmsnet: Topics of interest to VAX/VMS users
-
- In addition, your site probably carries local groups, such as yourcountry.*,
- yourcity.*, yourorg.* (Some large sites choose to carry local news
- hierarchies from many places.)
-
- Subject: Finding the right newsgroup
-
- To find what groups are relevant for your subject, you might search through
- your local list of newsgroups (your .newsrc file on most Unix systems; use
- the command grep <pattern> .newsrc), to see which group names seem related.
- Then subscribe to those groups, and look at some of the recent traffic, to
- make sure that your question is suitable for the group. (For example,
- questions about Microsoft Windows belong in comp.os.ms-windows.*, not
- comp.windows.*)
-
- [The asterisk, '*', means multiple objects (here, groups) are referenced.]
-
- On some systems, your .newsrc file won't contain the names of newsgroups
- you haven't subscribed to. In that case, read the documentation for
- your newsreader to find out how to add newsgroups, and use the methods
- mentioned below to find out the names of groups that might be available
- on your system.
-
- On some systems, the 'newsgroups' command will show you a file containing
- a one-line description of the purpose of each newsgroup (the newsgroups
- file), or longer descriptions of the purpose and contents of each
- newsgroup (the newsgroup charters.) Ask your local news administrator
- if these or similar resources are available on your system.
-
- For widely-distributed newsgroups, you can also find the one-line
- descriptions in the following news.lists postings (also archived at
- rtfm.mit.edu:/pub/usenet/news.lists)
-
- List_of_Active_Newsgroups,_Part_I
- List_of_Active_Newsgroups,_Part_II
- Alternative_Newsgroup_Hierarchies,_Part_I
- Alternative_Newsgroup_Hierarchies,_Part_II
-
- The 'List' posts describe newsgroups in the comp, humanities, misc, news,
- rec, soc, sci, and talk hierarchies. (Often referred to as "The Big 8")
- (The humanities.* hierarchy was added in April 1995; you may still see
- references to "The Big 7" in some places.)
-
- The 'Alt' posts describe newsgroups in the alt, bionet, bit, biz, clarinet,
- gnu, hepnet, ieee, inet, info, k12, relcom, u3b, and vmsnet hierarchies.
- They will not describe groups that are available only in your region or
- institution.
-
- (These posts also available in garbo.uwasa.fi:/pc/doc-net/newsgrps.zip)
-
- Another way to find newsgroups where your topic is discussed is to use
- one of the Web Usenet search tools, such as http://www.dejanews.com/ or
- http://www.altavista.digital.com/ and enter a keyword search for your
- topic. As with all search engines, taking a few moments to learn how
- to compose an effective search will make the results much more useful.
-
- Once you have checked local resources, and the formal newsgroup
- descriptions, if you are still uncertain as to what groups are 'right'
- for your post, you can ask in news.groups.questions - this group is
- designed for people to ask what existing newsgroup is appropriate for
- a given topic or sub-topic of discussion.
-
- Very few sites carry all available newsgroups (there are thousands).
- Your local news administrator can help you access newsgroups that are not
- currently available, or explain why certain groups are not available at
- your site. If your site does not carry the newsgroup(s) where your post
- belongs, do NOT post it in other, inappropriate groups.
-
- Subject: Binaries (images, executables, sounds, etc.)
-
- There are many newsgroups dedicated to posting various sorts of binary
- files, such as images, computer software, etc. These are gathered under
- the alt.binaries.* and comp.binaries.* hierarchies. (There are also
- some local binaries hierarchies, such as de.alt.binaries.*) These
- groups are the only places where you should ever post a file that is not
- directly human-readable, such as pictures, software, or even Microsoft
- Word files (which are not readable unless you have a copy of Microsoft
- Word on your computer.)
-
- For more information, please refer to the FAQs in alt.binaries.pictures.d
-
- These groups were set up so that sites could easily choose whether or
- not to accept binary traffic, or perhaps to keep binary posts around for
- a different length of time than non-binaries. The average binary file
- is many times larger than the average non-binary post, and many sites
- and users do not want to devote resources to storing these files.
-
- Do not post anything other than plain text in non-binaries groups. If
- the group does not have the word 'binaries' in its name, do not post
- binaries there.
-
- Subject: Crossposting to multiple newsgroups
-
- Think very carefully before crossposting to more than one, or perhaps
- two, newsgroups. It is considered highly inappropriate to broadcast
- your message to a wide selection of newsgroups merely to have more people
- read it. Note also that many people automatically ignore articles posted
- to more than two or three groups. Follow the general rules of Netiquette
- (Usenet etiquette) described in the news.announce.newusers postings above.
-
- Often, even when an article is appropriate for multiple newsgroups, it
- is desirable to redirect all followup discussion into one particular
- newsgroup. You can do this by adding a Followup-To header line that
- lists the single newsgroup where further discussion will go. (You should
- also mention in the body of the article that you have redirected
- followups to that group, so that people interested in following the
- subject can find it.) For example:
-
- Newsgroups: rec.pets.cats,misc.consumers.house
- Followup-To: rec.pets.cats
- Subject: Need product to remove cat odor from carpets
-
- [Followups redirected to rec.pets.cats]
-
- Text of article
-
- Subject: Choosing a good Subject: header
-
- Many people scan the Subject lines of newsgroups, and choose to only
- read articles with a Subject line that is of interest to them. (This
- is the '=' command in rn - check the documentation of your newsreader
- to see if this ability is available to you.) If your Subject line does
- not contain useful information about the contents of your post, relatively
- few people will read it.
-
- For example, you are more likely to get useful replies with a subject of
- "PC-Write to WordPerfect file conversion" than with a subject of
- "Help!". (In particular, many people ignore any message with a Subject
- of "please read this" or similar pleas.) Subject lines that are longer
- than 40 characters will be truncated on many nonstandard systems, so make
- sure that your Subject is concise.
-
- Some newsgroups have a 'standard' for what information should be
- contained in the Subject line - for example, postings in
- misc.jobs.offered are expected to contain the job title and location in
- the Subject line, and postings in rec.games.board are expected to
- list the name of the specific game. It is always a good idea to scan
- the contents of a newsgroup to see if there is a common format in use.
-
- If you are following up to another post, make sure that the Subject is
- relevant to your post, too. If you change the topic away from the
- original one, you should probably change the Subject line, too.
-
- Subject: Finding FAQs and other Periodical Postings
-
- Once you decide what newsgroup(s) are relevant to your question, make
- sure that you're not asking questions that are frequently asked and
- answered. In addition to looking at recent traffic in the group,
- check whether your question is included in a FAQ (Frequently
- Asked/Answered Questions) list. Most FAQs are archived at rtfm.mit.edu,
- in directory /pub/usenet/your.group.name, if they're not available in
- your newsreader in the specific group or in *.answers. Many groups also
- have a periodic introductory post that describes the content and purpose
- of the newsgroup - if one exists, you should read it before posting.
-
- A listing of many of the periodical postings on Usenet can be found
- in news.lists or its archives, as
- List_of_Periodic_Informational_Postings,_Part_*_*
-
- (As of August 1996, this post is about 800K, in 20 parts. There are a
- LOT of periodic posts on Usenet.)
-
- If you have access to the World Wide Web (using software such as Mosaic,
- Netscape, or Lynx), you can access the FAQs in HTML format at
- http://www.cs.ruu.nl/cgi-bin/faqwais
- or
- http://www.lib.ox.ac.uk/internet/news/
- These FAQs are easy to browse through.
-
- If you use gopher, one site for FAQs is gopher.win.tue.nl, port 70.
-
- Subject: Finding public mailing lists
-
- There are a great many public mailing lists, on a wide range of topics.
- Some of them cover specific topics that aren't often discussed on Usenet,
- while others duplicate the topics of one or more newsgroups. A listing
- of many of the public lists is in news.lists and archives, as
- Publicly Accessible Mailing Lists, Part */*
-
- (As of September 1996, this post is about 916K, in 19 parts. There are a
- LOT of mailing lists out there...)
-
- If you have Web access, one searchable database of mailing lists is at
-
- http://www.liszt.com/
-
- Subject: Starting a new Usenet newsgroup
-
- If you can't find a newsgroup or mailing list that holds discussion on a
- specific topic, it is probably a bad idea to start a new newsgroup for
- it. Most successful newsgroups are started to split off a sub-topic that
- is already being discussed on one or more other newsgroups. You might
- try posting an article on the appropriate *.misc newsgroup, and see if
- there are others who are interested in the subject.
-
- If you really think it is appropriate to start a new newsgroup, some
- general guidelines can be found in:
- news.announce.newgroups: How_to_Create_a_New_Usenet_Newsgroup
- news.groups: Usenet_Newsgroup_Creation_Companion
- alt.config: So_You_Want_to_Create_an_Alt_Newsgroup
-
- New newsgroups in the comp, humanities, misc, news, rec, sci, soc, and talk
- hierarchies are first proposed/discussed in news.groups. New newsgroups
- for the alt hierarchy should be first proposed/discussed in alt.config.
- Talk to someone local about starting new local newsgroups - send mail
- to your local news admin to find out where to start.
-
- It is recommended that you have several months experience with USENET and
- watching the democratic group creation process in action for other groups
- before you attempt to run your own proposal. In particular, read both
- news.announce.newgroups and news.groups to see the way proposals are
- presented and the sort of pitfalls you can stumble into. Also read
- alt.config if you think you want to start an alt newsgroup. Make sure
- you have read and fully understand the postings "How to Create a New
- Usenet Newsgroup" and "Usenet Newsgroup Creation Companion" in
- news.announce.newusers.
-
- If you want to start a mailing list, you should talk to your system
- administrator about what mailing list tools are supported for your
- environment. Depending on your environment and the needs of your list,
- there are a variety of methods available.
-
- Subject: About this post
-
- Following these suggestions will help not only to ensure that your
- post reaches its intended audience, but to make Usenet more useful
- for all of us.
-
- The following people have contributed to this article:
- jimj@eecs.umich.edu (Jim Jewett)
- msb@sq.com (Mark Brader)
- jlaiho@ichaos.nullnet.fi (Juha Laiho)
- bobmcc@tcs.com (Bob McCormick)
- schweppe@bumetb.bu.edu (Edmund Schweppe)
- ts@uwasa.fi (Prof. Timo Salmi)
- Mark-Moraes@deshaw.com (Mark Moraes)
- lieberma@cs.rpi.edu (Adam Lieberman)
- scotty@ancho.ucs.indiana.edu (Scott Southwick)
- joe@pi.se (G?ran Thisell)
- D.Morgan@bradford.ac.uk
- FLAVELL@cernvm.cern.ch (Alan J Flavell)
- GROBE@ins.infonet.net (Jonathan Grobe)
- Bill Wohler <wohler@newt.com>
- tlawson@email.develop.american.edu (Todd C. Lawson)
- achim@astel.com (Joachim Astel)
- many people who pointed me to http://www.liszt.com/
- <win your fifteen bytes of fame by helping to improve this article>
-
- Questions about the contents of this article, suggestions for improvement,
- and corrections should be sent to buglady@bronze.lcs.mit.edu
-
- Please don't ask me to mail you copies of the articles cited here. I'm
- trying to teach you to find things for yourself. If you can't find them
- on your news spool, get them through the Web, or by ftp, or by e-mail,
- then ask your local sysadmin or service provider for help.
-
- This article is copyrighted by its author, Aliza R. Panitz
- (buglady@bronze.lcs.mit.edu). It may be copied and redistributed, in
- its entirety, for free redistribution. In particular, you are encouraged
- to save this article and send it to people who post inappropriate
- material to your newsgroups. All other rights reserved.
-
- Subject: Appendix: Anonymous FTP
-
- Pretty much everything mentioned here is available by anonymous FTP.
- FAQ lists cross-posted to news.answers and rec.answers can be gotten
- from rtfm.mit.edu (18.181.0.24), under /pub/usenet/news.answers or
- under /pub/usenet/more.specific.group.name
-
- "anonymous FTP" is just a way for files to be stored where anyone on
- the Internet can retrieve them over the Net. For example, to retrieve
- the latest version of the FTP FAQ, do the following:
-
- > ftp rtfm.mit.edu /* connect to the site; a message follows */
- > anonymous /* type this when it asks for your name */
- > <your email address> /* type your address as the password */
- > cd /pub/usenet /* go to the directory you want to be in */
- > cd news.announce.newusers
- /* one level down (no slash). */
- > dir /* look at what's there */
- > get Anonymous_FTP:_Frequently_Asked_Questions_(FAQ)_List
- /* get the file; case-sensitive */
- > quit /* stop this mysterious thing */
-
- If your FTP program complains that it doesn't know where the site you
- want to use is, type the numerical address instead of the sitename:
-
- > ftp 18.181.0.24 /* connect with numerical address */
-
- If you don't have ftp access, send e-mail to mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu
- with the single word "help" in the body of the message.
-
- Getting binary files (executables, or any compressed files) is only
- slightly more difficult. You need to set binary mode inside FTP before
- you transfer the file.
-
- > binary /* set binary transfer mode */
- > ascii /* set back to text transfer mode */
-
- FAQs and other lists are generally ascii files; everything else is
- generally binary files. When in doubt, use binary transfers, since
- they will work for all files.
-
- Some common extensions on binary files in archive sites are:
-
- .Z Compressed; extract with uncompress
- .tar.Z Compressed 'tape archive'; uncompress then untar or tar -xvf
- .gz or .z Gnu gzip; use gunzip (prep.ai.mit.edu:/pub/gnu/gzip.*.tar)
- .tgz Gnu gzip of a tar archive; read the gzip man page.
- .sit (Mac) StufIt archive
- .zip (PC) Extract with Zip or Unzip
- .zoo (PC) Yet another archive/compress program
- .lzh (Unix and PC) Yet another...
- .arj (PC) and another...
- .lha (Amiga) Common archive format.
- .exe (PC) Self-extracting archives - just execute them.
- [Note: sometimes non-archived executables are stored.]
- .uue or .UUE Transfer as text file; use uudecode to convert to binary
- .hqx (Mac) BinHex format; transfer in text mode
-
- Generic help can be found in the FAQs of comp.binaries.<your_system_type> for
- how to transfer, extract, and virus-check binary files. (At rtfm.mit.edu)
-
- If you can't FTP from your site, use one of the following ftp-by-mail servers:
-
- ftpmail@decwrl.dec.com
- ftpmail@src.doc.ic.ac.uk
- ftpmail@cs.uow.edu.au
- ftpmail@grasp.insa-lyon.fr
-
- For complete instructions, send a message reading "help" to the server.
-
- Some FTP sites, such as ftp.cis.ksu.edu, have dedicated mailservers that
- will send you files only from that site; it causes less network load to
- use local FTP servers where they exist.
-
- If you don't know exactly what you're looking for, or exactly where it
- is, there are programs and servers that can help you. For more info,
- send e-mail to mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu with the body of the
- message reading:
- send usenet/news.answers/finding-sources
-
-