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- Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.introduction
- Path: sparky!uunet!munnari.oz.au!bruce.cs.monash.edu.au!monu6!lindblat.cc.monash.edu.au!ins739l
- From: ins739l@lindblat.cc.monash.edu.au (William Fang)
- Subject: MONTHLY POSTING: Usage of comp.sys.amiga.* and Netiquette V0.1
- Message-ID: <1992Nov23.082041.22831@monu6.cc.monash.edu.au>
- Sender: news@monu6.cc.monash.edu.au (Usenet system)
- Organization: Monash University
- X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL6]
- Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1992 08:20:41 GMT
- Lines: 200
-
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-
- MONTHLY POSTING: Usage of comp.sys.amiga.* and Netiquette V0.1
-
- This article contains some generic information about the usage of the
- comp.sys.amiga.* newsgroups. It is posted by me every month in
- comp.sys.amiga.introduction.
-
- Pay attention to the version number of this article. It indicates what
- kind of changes are made to the contents compared to the previous
- posting.
-
- First number changed:
- Major changes and/or items added.
- Second number changed:
- Minor changes.
-
-
- If you have suggestions about this article, feel free to mail them to
- me so I can improve this document. You can reach me by e-mail:
- 10667547@eng2.eng.monash.edu.au <- file server account
- kroddos@yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au <_ Un*x account
-
-
- I'd like to thank the following people for their contributions:
-
- Steve Hayman(sahayman@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu) Comp. Science Department
- Who is the author of a similar article in comp.unix.questions
- that I used as the basis for this version.
-
- DISCLAIMER
- Use the information in this posting at your own risk and cost.
- All opinions expressed are mine, not necessarily those of my employer.
-
-
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-
- Introduction
-
- If you have not already read the overall Usenet introductory material
- posted to news.announce.newusers, please do. Much of this article overlaps
- with the common sense guidelines posted there.
-
-
- Should I post my question to the net?
-
- Often the answer is "No, you can get an answer a lot faster without posting
- a question.". Before you post, you should try -
-
- o Reading the manual for your system. Some day you may encounter the
- phrase "RTFM", which stands for "Read the fine manual" (except 'F'
- doesn't really stand for "Fine"). If you ask someone a question and
- they tell you to RTFM, it's an indication that you haven't done your
- homework.
-
- o Find a good introductory book on the Amiga. There are plenty of such
- books available, and you will save yourself a lot of trouble by having
- one handy and consulting it frequently.
-
- o Read the "MONTHLY POSTING: Frequently Asked Questions and Answers
- Vx.x" in comp.sys.amiga.introduction as well as the articles in the
- newsgroup you plan to post your question in. It might be that it is
- something asked before.
-
-
- Please remember that the comp.sys.amiga.* newsgroups are read by thousands
- of people around the world, and that posting a question to this group will
- cost a lot of time and money by the time your article is distributed to
- Japan, Australia, Europe (including the Soviet Union), Africa, Israel, and
- all corners of North America.
-
- Also, some people receive these newsgroups as part of a mailing list rather
- than a newsgroup. If you're one of these people, please don't send a
- "Remove me from this list" or "UNSUBSCRIBE" message to the wrong place.
- Take the time to figure out where you're getting this stuff from, and send
- your request to the mailing list maintainer, *not* to the list or newsgroup
- itself! Ask your local postmaster for help.
-
-
- To which newsgroup should I post my question?
-
- The choice of newsgroup is harder than you might expect. There are over ten
- newsgroups that deal with amiga related subjects. To find out which
- newsgroup is the best one to post your question in you can read an article
- in comp.sys.amiga.introduction called "MONTLY POSTING: Amiga newsgroups
- under comp.sys.amiga.* Vx.x" in which a list is given of all major amiga
- groups with an explanation of what kind of questions go there.
-
-
- What information should I include?
-
- It's hard to include all the relevant information. If you have a problem
- and are posting an article, please be sure to mention:
-
- o A descriptive subject line. Many people will decide whether to read
- your article solely on the basis of the subject line, so it should be
- a good statement of your problem.
-
- NOT GOOD GOOD
-
- "Help" "How do I restore a corrupted floppy disk?"
- "DPaint question" "DPaint III can't save file on Hard-Disk"
-
- o What computer you are using, with what add on's,
- and what specific version of the operating system it uses.
-
- For example,
- - Amiga 1000, ALF 30MBytes HardDisk (ST-225+OMTI RLL),
- Kickstart V1.3, Workbench V1.3, after running SetPatch.
-
- o If possible, the *exact* text of any error message you may have
- encountered.
-
- WRONG
- "I can't save file"
-
-
- RIGHT
- "When I click "Save as..." in DPaint III, and type HD0:german-a".pic in the
- file line of the SAVE requester,
- I get:
- Can't save file, illegal character in filename.
- What does this mean? It isn't in the UserManual. This is using an AMIGA
- 2000 with Kickstart V1.3 and Workbench V1.0"
-
- General tips if you post.
-
- It's a good idea to post unrelated questions in separate articles, so that
- people can keep different discussions separate. It's also a *very* good
- idea to include a line or two like this:
-
- "Please e-mail your answers to me and I'll summarize what I get
- and post the results to comp.sys.amiga.graphics" using the title:
- "SUMMARY: DPaint III can't save file on Hard-Disk"
-
- This prevents many identical responses from different users to the same
- question from clogging up the newsgroup. And make sure you really summarize
- what you get - don't just concatenate all the mail you've received, be
- selective!
-
-
- Should I cross post my article?
-
- You might find that you want to post an article that doesn't really belong
- in just one newsgroup but in several. Try to find out which group is the
- best (Eg. Use the article MONTHLY POSTING: Amiga newsgroups under
- comp.sys.amiga.* Vx.x posted in comp.sys.amiga.introduction.) and post in
- this group.
- If you can't decide cross post the article in the appropriate groups and
- edit the Followup-To: line to the best group. If there is no best group
- make comp.sys.amiga.misc the Followup-To: group.
- Please don't cross post your FOR-SALE articles in
- comp.sys.amiga.marketplace to both misc.forsale and misc.forsale.computers.
- Only use misc.forsale.computers and only then, when you think you'll
- increase the chance of selling by posting here too.
-
- Should I post an answer to a question?
-
- It's very tempting to post an answer to a question you read on the net,
- especially when you think "Aha, finally - a question I can answer!"
- Consider though that when a simple question is asked, such as the sort
- about to be answered below, many other people around the world already know
- the answer and may be posting their own reply. In order to avoid dozens of
- replies to simple questions, please wait a day or so and see if anyone else
- has already answered the question. If you have something special to
- contribute, please do so, but make sure you're not duplicating something
- someone else has already done.
-
- You should feel free to reply to any question by e-mail. Even if the user
- gets 200 responses to his question, at least the load on the rest of the
- net is minimized.
-
-
- Something about .signature's!
-
- You have without doubt noticed that almost everybody uses the last lines of
- an article for some personal information. This part of an article is called
- a signature. (The file that many mail and news programs take by default to
- add at the end of a message is called .signature.) This signature is mainly
- used to state your name and information like the company you work for, the
- e-mail adress you can be reached by etc.
- Some people add a funny/famous quote also.
-
- Please don't get over-creative. Signature's with complete ascii drawings,
- useless information and other nonsense aren't appreciated and take up
- band-width unnecessary. Try to keep it short, you should be able to keep
- your signature 4 or 5 lines.
-
-
- What about those people
- who continue to ask stupid or frequently asked questions
- in spite of the Frequently Asked Questions & Answers document?
-
- Just send them a polite e-mail message, possibly referring them to this
- document. [MONTHLY POSTING: Frequently Asked Questions and Answers Vx.x in
- comp.sys.amiga.introduction.] There is no need to flame them on the net -
- it's busy enough as it is.
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