Danny Amor's Online Library/Danny Amor's Online Library - Volume 1.iso/html/faqs/faq/news-answers/introduction

Text File | 1995-07-25 | 12.7 KB | 322 lines

Subject: Introduction to the *.answers newsgroups
Newsgroups: news.announce.newusers,news.answers,alt.answers,comp.answers,misc.answers,rec.answers,sci.answers,soc.answers,talk.answers
From: [e-mail] (the *.answers moderation team)
Date: 8 Nov 1994 23:27:53 GMT

Archive-name: news-answers/introduction
Version: $Id: Introduction,v 1.85 1994/10/01 21:11:25 pshuang Exp $


                 Introduction

  This is the monthly introductory article for the moderated newsgroups
alt.answers, de.answers, comp.answers, misc.answers, news.answers,
rec.answers, sci.answers, soc.answers, and talk.answers (hereafter
collectively referred to as "*.answers").  It explains the purpose of
the newsgroups, what kinds of articles should be submitted to them, how
to submit, how to participate in the mailing list for periodic posting
maintainers, and where to find archives of *.answers postings.

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


            What is news.answers?

  The news.answers newsgroup is a repository for periodic
informational postings (also called "Frequently Asked Questions"
postings, or "FAQs") from other newsgroups.

  Although it's difficult to say exactly what qualifies as an FAQ that
belongs in news.answers, the basic description is, "any posting which
answers common questions and is meant to be read by human beings."
Furthermore, FAQs cross-posted in news.answers should have meaningful
subject lines.  For example, an FAQ for rec.chess should have a
subject line saying something like "chess Frequently Asked Questions
(FAQ)," rather than just "Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)."

  For example, the comp.unix.questions "Frequently Asked Questions
about Unix - with Answers [Monthly posting]" and the
news.announce.newusers "Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on
Netiquette" belong in news.answers, as does the README file from
comp.mail.maps.  However, the comp.mail.maps map postings and the
readership statistics from news.lists do not.

  FAQ postings from any hierarchy that travels using "USENET
mechanisms" can be cross-posted to news.answers (i.e., news.answers is
not limited to postings from the comp, sci, misc, soc, talk, news and
rec hierarchies).  If an FAQ maintainer feels that his or her posting
is of interest only to people in its home hierarchy, then (s)he can
(try to) restrict the distribution of the FAQ using the Distribution
mechanism; if (s)he feels that it is of general interest, (s)he can
avoid any Distribution restrictions, in which case the FAQ might
receive a wider distribution than most postings in the hierarchy.
This is a pretty reasonable thing, considering that FAQs are often
considered the "distilled wisdom" of a newsgroup or group of
newsgroups, so a single FAQ from a hierarchy might be of wider
interest than the hierarchy as a whole.

  Where there is an ambiguity, we will decide whether or not a posting
belongs in the newsgroup.

  There are several reasons why this newsgroup exists.  They include:

* It is easier for site administrators to keep FAQs around for a long
  time if they are all cross-posted to one newsgroup.  Administrators
  can make the maximum expire time for news.answers very long, instead
  of making every newsgroup with FAQs in it have a long maximum expire
  time.

* It is easier for sites that archive FAQs to generate their archives,
  since they will need to watch just one newsgroup rather than
  scanning the entire news spool.

* It provides a "quick reference" for users, in several different
  respects.  Users who want to browse through the various FAQs that
  the USENET has to offer can do so in just one newsgroup.  Users who
  want to find an FAQ from a particular newsgroup but don't know its
  subject can search for that newsgroup in the headers of the articles
  in news.answers.

* Software for retrieving FAQs can also be simplified to use
  news.answers as the basis for FAQ searches.


           What are the other *.answers newsgroups?

  Each of the other *.answers newsgroups (alt.answers, de.answers,
comp.answers, misc.answers, rec.answers, sci.answers, soc.answers,
talk.answers) is meant to serve as a repository for FAQ postings that
are relevant to its hierarchy.  FAQs are cross-posted to these
*.answers newsgroups IN ADDITION, rather than instead of, to
news.answers.  For example, FAQs for newsgroups in the "rec" hierarchy
are cross-posted to both rec.answers and news.answers.  There
shouldn't be any postings in these *.answers newsgroups that don't
appear in news.answers as well.

  Obviously, since all postings in these newsgroups are cross-posted
to news.answers, postings in these newsgroups must conform to the same
guidelines as postings to news.answers.

  These *.answers newsgroups have a few additional purposes:

* Site administrators can select which hierarchies' FAQs their sites
  receive with greater granularity than just "receive everything in
  news.answers" or "receive nothing in news.answers."  They can
  receive FAQs for some newsgroups they don't receive, without
  receiving the FAQs for all newsgroups.

* Similarly, people who wish to archive some FAQs at their sites can
  choose which postings to archive with greater granularity.

* Users who wish to read the FAQs for certain hierarchies can read
  just those hierarchies' *.answers newsgroups, rather than having to
  read news.answers and skip over the postings they don't want to see.


              How does it work?

  An FAQ maintainer who wants an FAQ to appear in news.answers submits
it to the moderators, following the guidelines in the "*.answers
submission guidelines" posting for proper submission and format of the
FAQ's headers.

  The moderators may accept the posting as-is, ask the submitter to
make modifications, or reject it completely.  If modifications are
requested, the submitter makes the modifications and resubmits the
posting to news.answers.  Once an FAQ has been approved for *.answers,
the moderators will explain how to indicate in the header of the
message that it was approved by the *.answers moderators, and the
FAQ's maintainer can then post it directly to the group(s) him- or
herself thereafter.

  This needs to be emphasized: we will not actually post copies of
FAQs in *.answers.  Instead, our job is to approve FAQs (which are
then cross-posted by their maintainers to the *.answers) and to watch
the *.answers groups to make sure unauthorized postings do not appear
in them.  However, we will assist FAQ maintainers who would like us to
post their FAQs for them and/or who would like help in figuring out
how to properly go about posting a periodic FAQ.  (For example, the
"*.answers submission guidelines reference several software packages
available to simplify posting FAQ's, as well as the FAQ posting
service which we also maintain.)


     Is there a forum to discuss issues related to FAQs?

  If you are interested in discussion about the maintenance of USENET
periodic postings and related topics (e.g. automatic archival of such
postings), you may wish to join the "faq-maintainers" mailing list.
FAQ maintainers who post FAQs in *.answers are encouraged to join.

  If you are not interested in discussion, but you would still like to
receive announcements directed to FAQ maintainers, then you may wish
to join the "faq-maintainers-announce" list instead.  Note that
subscribers to faq-maintainers will automatically receive messages
sent to faq-maintainers-announce.

  To subscribe to or unsubscribe from one of these lists, send mail
with your request to [e-mail]. Your request
will be processed by a human being for now -- any understandable
format will work.


            Where are *.answers archived?

  All of the *.answers newsgroups are archived in the periodic posting
archive on rtfm.mit.edu [18.181.0.24, but please always reference the
hostname rtfm.mit.edu, as IP addresses and canonical names will change
in the future, but rtfm.mit.edu will remain correct].  Postings are
located in the anonymous ftp directories /pub/usenet/alt.answers,
/pub/usenet/comp.answers, etc., and are archived by "Archive-name".
Other subdirectories of /pub/usenet contain additional periodic
postings (listed in the List of Periodic Informational Postings, which
is periodically posted to news.lists and news.answers) that don't
appear in *.answers (as well as most of the *.answers postings), saved
by Subject line rather than by Archive-name.

  If you do not have anonymous ftp access, you can access the archives
by mail server as well.  Send an E-mail message to
[e-mail] with "help" and "index" in the body on
separate lines for more information.

  Other news.answers/FAQ archives (which carry some or all of the FAQs
in the rtfm.mit.edu archive), sorted by country, are:

Belgium
-------

  gopher                cc1.kuleuven.ac.be port 70
  anonymous FTP         cc1.kuleuven.ac.be:/anonymous.202
  mail-server           [e-mail]  get avail faqs

Canada
------

  gopher        jupiter.sun.csd.unb.ca port 70

Finland
-------

  anonymous ftp        ftp.funet.fi/pub/doc/rtfm

France
------

  anonymous FTP         ftp.univ-lyon1.fr:/pub/faq
              ftp.univ-lyon1.fr:/pub/faq-by-newsgroup
            ftp.pasteur.fr:/pub/FAQ
  gopher        gopher.insa-lyon.fr, port 70
  mail server        [e-mail]

Germany
-------

  anonymous ftp        ftp.Germany.EU.net:/pub/newsarchive/news.answers
            ftp.informatik.uni-muenchen.de:/pub/comp/usenet/news.answers
            ftp.uni-paderborn.de:/doc/FAQ
            ftp.saar.de:/pub/usenet/news.answers (local access only)
  gopher        gopher.Germany.EU.net, port 70.
              gopher.uni-paderborn.de
  mail server        [e-mail]
            [e-mail]
            [e-mail]
  World Wide Web    http://www.Germany.EU.net:80/
  FSP            ftp.Germany.EU.net, port 2001
  gopher index        gopher://gopher.Germany.EU.net:70/1.archive
            gopher://gopher.uni-paderborn.de:70/0/Service/FTP

Korea
-----

  anonymous ftp        hwarang.postech.ac.kr:/pub/usenet/news.answers

Mexico
------
  anonymous ftp        mtecv2.mty.itesm.mx:/pub/usenet/news.answers

The Netherlands
---------------

  anonymous ftp        ftp.cs.ruu.nl:/pub/NEWS.ANSWERS
  gopher        gopher.win.tue.nl, port 70
  mail server        [e-mail]

Sweden
------

  anonymous ftp        ftp.sunet.se:/pub/usenet

Switzerland
-----------

  anonymous ftp        ftp.switch.ch:/info_service/usenet/periodic-postings
  anonymous UUCP    chx400:ftp/info_service/Usenet/periodic-postings
  mail server        [e-mail]
  telnet        nic.switch.ch, log in as "info"

Taiwan
------

  anonymous ftp        ftp.edu.tw:/USENET/FAQ
  mail server        [e-mail]

United Kingdon
--------------

  anonymous ftp         src.doc.ic.ac.uk:/usenet/news-faqs/
  FSP                   src.doc.ic.ac.uk port 21
  gopher                src.doc.ic.ac.uk port 70.
  mail server           [e-mail]
  telnet                src.doc.ic.ac.uk login as sources
  World Wide Web        http://src.doc.ic.ac.uk/usenet/news-faqs/

United States
-------------

  anonymous ftp        ftp.uu.net:/usenet
  World Wide Web    http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu:80/hypertext/faq/usenet/top.html

  If you decide to archive *.answers and make them available to people
for anonymous ftp, mail archive server or something else, please let
us know so we can mention your archive in this posting.

  Note that the ability to access the posting archives on rtfm.mit.edu
via the WAIS protocol has been disabled indefinitely due to load
problems on the machine.

  Thanks to the following people for running the various FAQ archives
mentioned above:

  Martin Berli <[e-mail]>
  Torsten Blum <[e-mail]>
  Frederic Chauveau <[e-mail]>
  Ingo Dressler <[e-mail]>
  Thomas A. Fine <[e-mail]>
  J. Anthony Fitzgerald <[e-mail]>
  Armin Gruner <[e-mail]>
  Hank P. Penning <[e-mail]>
  Juan G Ruiz Pinto <[e-mail]>
  James R. Revell, Jr. <[e-mail]>
  Thomas Thissen <[e-mail]>
  Herman Van Uytven <[e-mail]>
  Arjan de Vet <[e-mail]>
  <[e-mail]>

--
        [e-mail] (Ping Huang)
        [e-mail] (Jonathan I. Kamens)
        [e-mail] (Thomas Koenig)
        [e-mail] (Aliza R. Panitz)

            -- the *.answers moderation team