Turnbull China Bikeride/Turnbull China Bikeride - Disc 1.iso/ARGONET/ARGO/INFO/NETGUIDE.TXT

Text File | 1996-03-03 | 39KB | 792 lines

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
[e-mail], 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
<none> 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 ([e-mail]) 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
([e-mail]) 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 ([e-mail]) 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 <Return> 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 [e-mail],
send a complaint, with a copy of the spam, to [e-mail].

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
[e-mail]
------------------------------------------------------------------------