From ts@uwasa.fi Fri Feb 9 00:00:00 1996 Subject: FAQNEWS1.TXT contents Copyright (c) 1993-1996 by Timo Salmi All rights reserved FAQNEWS1.TXT Frequently (and not so frequently) asked questions relating to Usenet news with answers. Part 1/2. The items are in no particular order. You are free to quote brief passages from this file provided you clearly indicate the source with a proper acknowledgment. Comments and corrections are solicited. However, if you wish to ask for individual consultation, please do not email your question to me. Instead post your questions to a suitable Usenet newsgroup like news:news.newusers.questions. It is much more efficient than asking me by email. I'd like to help, but because of my many activities I am very pressed for time. I prefer to pick the questions I answer on the Usenet news. Thus I can answer publicly at one go if I happen to have an answer. Besides, the newsgroups have a number of other readers who might know a better or an alternative answer. Don't be discouraged, though, if you get a reply like this from me. I am always glad to hear from fellow Usenet news readers. .................................................................... Prof. Timo Salmi Co-moderator of news:comp.archives.msdos.announce Moderating at ftp:// & http://garbo.uwasa.fi archives 193.166.120.5 Department of Accounting and Business Finance ; University of Vaasa ts@uwasa.fi http://uwasa.fi/~ts BBS 961-3170972; FIN-65101, Finland -------------------------------------------------------------------- 1) Using a suitable right margin in the news and email. 2) What does "Subject: Re: none" mean in the news? 3) Why "Reply by email, I don't read this group" gets flamed? 4) What is an appropriate maximum length of a signature? 5) Is there a list of ftp sites (for certain kind of programs)? 6) How do I extract from comp.binaries.ibm.pc binary postings? 7) Should I offer to email this utility I have at my disposal? 8) Someone email me a .zip extractor (or something equally common) 9) How should I react to "a dying boy's last wish"? 10) How should I react to crackpot messages? 11) How should I react to abusive email or postings? 12) How do I submit my PC program to the binaries? 13) May I just go ahead and post binaries to discussion newsgroups? 14) What is cross-posting? How do I do it? 15) Where can I find the net rules (the "netiquette")? 16) I just posted to a wrong newsgroup. Should I explain it next? 17) Where to put test postings? 18) What is archie? 19) Why do you answer so tersely? It sometimes seems rude. -------------------------------------------------------------------- From ts@uwasa.fi Fri Feb 9 00:00:01 1996 Subject: Using a suitable right margin in the news and email. 1. ***** Q: Using a maximum of 72 column right margin in your news postings, and a few other practical tips. A: This first item on the list is not really a FAQ (Frequently Asked Question) but nevertheless something I would like to draw your attention to. Most users reading the news probably have a 80 column terminal program. Consider the implications. If you use too broad lines, the tails of the lines will be wrapped over to the next line (or be truncated depending on the reader's terminal program settings) making your text difficult or impossible to follow. Your chances of getting good follow-ups or useful answers to the questions, which you may have asked, are radically diminished. But this does not end there. If someone quotes your text with the usual news convention of preceding your text with ">" an overflow can follow even if your text does not originally exceed the 80 column limit. In fact there can be multiple quotes. Hence a suitable maximum right margin wrap in writing to the news is 72 columns. Note that this problem concerns your signature width as well. Even if quoting signatures is not a good idea, it is often done. Personally I have set my editor's wrap at column 69. The same goes for email. Incidentally, the wrap of this text is set at column 69. A2: There are some other useful guidelines to posting. If you read the news.announce.newusers and news.answers newsgroups you'll soon see that they give useful advice on various aspects of posting, like 1) Use a reasonable right margin just like I propounded above. 2) Don't quote excessively. I am sure that you have seen text quoted innumerable times in the following manner. > This is quoted text Quote judiciously. For example, I most often skip the posting if the quoted part fills the whole first page of the posting. Quote only what is essential to make it possible for the reader to understand what your posting is about. As a rule avoid quoting an entire message (signatures and all). It is not judicious to quote, say, a hundred lines of discussion just to input a single line of one's own. Proper quoting is a skill. If you are going to quote, devote some time to working the quote appropriately. Don't be lazy in this respect. A further tip adapted from mcr@holly.demon.co.uk (Mark Rogers). Leave a blank line after the quoted text before you insert your own because else your text and the quoted text will difficult to distinguish from each other. 3) Avoid "me too" postings. People send many questions and requests to the news. If you have a similar request as someone has posted, do not post a "me too" follow-up. Many newsgroups have huge numbers of readers. Think what would happen if even one per cent of the readers of a newsgroup with for example 80000 readers would all post a "me too". What a good original poster should do is to make a summary of the answers if s/he gets his/her answer by email instead of the answers being posted. (See the later item on asking for emailed replies for some further thoughts.) -------------------------------------------------------------------- From ts@uwasa.fi Fri Feb 9 00:00:02 1996 Subject: 2. ***** Q: What does "Subject: Re: none" mean in the news? A: It means that someone has posted a message without a subject header. This is an irrational thing to do. On top of that net rules (the netiquette) don't exactly love it, consider the way in which many readers (I included) read the news. Because of the deluge of postings, readers first scan the subjects only (e.g. in rn use =) to decide if anything is worth a closer look. The most likely result is that postings with no subjects, or uninformative subjects (such as "Help", "Help urgently needed", "Information requested", "A question", "Read this", and so on) get summarily bypassed. Conclusion: If you post, use informative subject headers. That way your posting has a much better chance of being noticed by the potentially interested parties. It works to your own advantage. A2: What was said in the above also goes for email messages. Especially if you receive much email (like I do) you will soon notice how much easier it is to keep things organized if the email messages have descriptive subject headers. Often even any subject header is better than none. To give one example. Even if I am very pleased to get email stating "thank you for your help" I am usually left quite baffled. Getting and sending so much email myself I often have no idea what I am being thanked for. Putting in some kind of a reference (whether the email concerns thanks or some other situation) helps the receiver to place your email correctly. -------------------------------------------------------------------- From ts@uwasa.fi Fri Feb 9 00:00:03 1996 Subject: Asking for emailed news replies 3. ***** Q: Why "(Please) reply by email, I don't usually read this group" (sometimes a demand rather than a question) gets flamed? A: First please note that what I say below is not intended as criticism of any individual poster, but as a general analysis of requests to email the replies "because one does not read a newsgroup". The problem is that telling people to email because one does not follow a newsgroup basically is an impolite way of formulating such a request, even if one says please. If one is interested enough to post to a newsgroup, one should also be prepared to follow up the newsgroup. If one asks others for favors, it is only fair to be prepared to reciprocate. Intended or not, the attitude this (email-I-don't-read) decree easily conveys is "I don't usually care for this wimpy newsgroup of yours, but this time you are allowed to be of service to my exalted person". What one should do, if following the newsgroup is genuinely problematic (for cost, availability or other reasons), is at least to offer to make a summary of the replies. The liturgy often used for this is "Please reply by email. If there is sufficient interest, I'll summarize". (This alternative is often advocated also because it is expected to cut down the traffic). But make it genuine. Not just a lip service. You might even state why following a newsgroup is problematic for you. Some helpful users might then decide to post the answers to the newsgroup, and send a copy of their response by email to you. In fact you might say something like "I would be grateful for an emailed copy of the potential posted replies, since I have difficulties in following this newsgroup because ...". In general, the problem with asking only emailed replies is that unless one offers to summarize, or has an extremely specialized subject, the request will seem selfish. This is because other users may be interested in seeing the potentially useful replies. On the other hand if everyone posts an answer, the newsgroup will be swamped for awhile. This sometimes happens with common questions where almost everyone knows the answer. (An example: How does one bypass pressing Y for del *.* in MS-DOS elicited an enormous number of almost identical reply postings in February 1992 in one of the Usenet newsgroups). It is not always easy to strike a balance. -------------------------------------------------------------------- From ts@uwasa.fi Fri Feb 9 00:00:04 1996 Subject: Appropriate signature length 4. ***** Q: What is an appropriate maximum length of a signature? A: Net etiquette (the "netiquette") and practice dictate about four lines at a maximum. The purpose of a signature can be considered two-fold. It gives your email address, and also acts as a visual identifier. Often the signatures include some kind of witticism or aphorism. Even if they are often amusing, and some very clever indeed, they may annoy some users. But obviously they are here to stay. If you simply cannot overcome the desire to include one, at least make it brief. The brief ones are usually the best anyway. By the way, I don't personally use one. If I wish to try a pun, or include a witticism, I try to do it in the body of my message. (Ok, here is one pun to boggle BBS lovers. Users writing in fowl language will be twittered. Figure this one out :-). (If I used a quote in my signature it would probably be "Sounds like a good idea, but let's use it nevertheless" or "Where there is a will, there is a won't" or more seriously "I might be here but my soul's gone bike riding". There are more in ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/ts/tspun16.zip.) At worst there are multi-line signatures with elaborate ascii drawings. They can be entertaining in a sense, but basically they are but bloated ego-trips, a waste of bandwidth, and severely frowned upon in the official Usenet net rules. One further thing. You can have your signature automatically included in unix mail systems. Put your signature in a file called .signature in your main directory. From Raymond Chen: "The permissions on the .signature file and its enclosing directory must be appropriately set. Ask your system administrator for details." For more on the .signature file permissions, see the information in ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/pd2/tspost16.zip, the item "Re: creating a signature". For more on signature questions see Britt Klein's excellent regular FAQ posting to the news.newusers.questions. A2: At least if your user id does not contain your name, apply a signature identifying who you are. I for one find it somewhat impolite to get emailed queries from users who do not even care to identify themselves. In fact the probability of getting a useful answer, or an answer at all, is severely decreased if you don't identify yourself. Use the same courtesy as you would in ordinary non-electronic communication. -------------------------------------------------------------------- From ts@uwasa.fi Fri Feb 9 00:00:05 1996 Subject: Lists of anonymous ftp sites 5. ***** Q: Is there a list of ftp sites (for certain kind of programs)? A: I have gathered (earlier in collaboration with Rhys Weatherley) a list of MS-DOS and astronomy FTP sites and their moderators. It is available from Garbo archives by anonymous FTP, WWW or mail server as ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/link/moder.zip. It has become quite popular. If readers have additions and/or corrections for that list, I would very much like to receive such information. Your help in maintenance would be very much appreciated. The help is needed to make the list as covering as possible, and to keep it up to date. There also is a generic /pc/doc-net/ftp-list.zip now by Perry Rovers. He took on the maintenance in December 1993 from Tom Czarnik who retired from from the maintenance in spring 1994 due to not having enough time to continue. Before Tom, the list was maintained by Jon Granrose. Perry has done a very good job with the list. A2: There is a system called archie at the McGill University in Canada. It keeps a list of where you can find programs archived. The idea is roughly the following. For example if you wish to know which anonymous ftp sites have tsbat47.zip, you may search archie database with: prog tsbat. To connect to archie use telnet quiche.cs.mcgill.ca and the userid archie. (Please note that the mcgill archie has long been off-line, and you may have to find another archie.) Then explore on from that point. Note that archie also accepts email requests of information. To use that option send email to archie@cs.mcgill.ca, use e.g. archie-request as your subject line, and put send help as your message. The snag with archie is that by necessity its information lags behind the situation of at least for the most active anonymous ftp sites. Another snag is that you have to know at least the stem of the filename you are looking for. The archie service is also available at several other sites. Note one problem. One does not know how comprehensive the data base at each alternative site is. Since the McGill archie server has quite a heavy load (and may be now out altogether), consider using an archie site near you. See ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/link/moder.zip for one list of the archie servers. * For the most up-to-date list, write to an Archie server and give it the command `servers'. Before using archie try getting "Updated Internet Services List" or at least see ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/link/moder.zip for the current archie servers, since for example the McGill University system was persistently broken at one time, and specifically asked not to be used. For a critical view (which I share) on archies see the item "Jul 21 Cave Newt (30) Archie is not useful (Actually: Re: ..." in ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/ts/tspost21.zip. A3: With the introduction of the World Wide Web there are now much better search engines available than archie. Some of them can be found through my WWW link page http://uwasa.fi/~ts/http/ -------------------------------------------------------------------- From ts@uwasa.fi Fri Feb 9 00:00:06 1996 Subject: How to extract files from c.b.i.p. 6. ***** Q: How do I extract from comp.binaries.ibm.pc and other binary postings? A: 1) One handy trick to download multi-part postings from the binaries to your Unix host is the following. Use rn (read news) to store the postings in ~/News/Comp.binaries.ibm.pc. It must be empty when you commence. Store in the correct order as indicated in the subject header n/N. Then apply automatic combining and uudecoding: combine Comp.binaries.ibm.pc You will end up with the .zip package on your Unix host. 2) If you don't already have the combine program, you can create it yourself. Write the following two lines to a file with any editor and name the file combine. #! /bin/sh cat $* | sed '/^END--/,/^BEGIN--/d' | uudecode Make this script executable by applying chmod u+x combine or chmod 700 combine For a more generalized combine get ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/unix/ts/ combine. 3) After you have the (.zip or whatever) package on your Unix host, the rest is what should be familiar routine. Transfer the package to your PC remembering to use the binary option in the transfer (this goes at least for Kermit and Zmodem). Then extract the files from the package by using PKUNZIP.EXE or UNZIP.EXE for PCs. If you are not familiar with these steps or programs, and have problems, contact a knowledgeable PC friend near you. (My PD2ANS.TXT instructions file in this same package has some more information.) 4) This intermediate step is not mandatory, but for your information. When you have the .zip package at your Unix host, you can check it using unzip -t FileName assuming that you have the unzip program at your Unix host. Naturally you can perform the same test at your PC. --- A note from Otto J. Makela (otto@jyu.fi) concerning item 2: A simpler version is: sed '/END--/,/BEGIN--/d' $* | uudecode --- There also is the more generic combine Bourne shell script available as ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/unix/ts/combine. A2: Alternatively, stand by until the periodic posting of the Usenet CBIP Starter's Kit in comp.binaries.ibm.pc. The kit (release 2.0 31-Jan-94) contained: 1) Instructions 2) Text source for UUDECODE 3) UNZIP 5.0p1, ZIP file extractor, in UUENCODE form The kit is also available as ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/doc-net/ cbipstar.txt -------------------------------------------------------------------- From ts@uwasa.fi Fri Feb 9 00:00:07 1996 Subject: Offering to email files 7. ***** Q: Should I offer to email this utility I have at my disposal? A: As a general answer I would say that the results of this kind of an offer often come as a nasty surprise to the person offering the service. Several unsuspecting users have had the problem of being completely inundated with the subsequent email requests, and may even have had to withdraw the offer. A much safer avenue is to tell where the utility is available. Or if it is not yet available anywhere on the net, first upload it to a suitable ftp site (don't forget to notify the moderator). Sometimes this means garbo.uwasa.fi archives. (If you wish to consider other sites, see the ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/link/moder.zip list of sites). But if you have gullibly made such an offer I suggest that you grit your teeth, and see things through. The least you should do is to make the information available where and how the utility can be obtained, if you have to go back on your word of emailing directly to the users. Now what to do in the case if you are a user who has seen some goodies offered, and the offer of emailing then withdrawn. Back to the old file lists. We have several at garbo.uwasa.fi archives. If you get the following files you have a good chance of finding what you are looking for: /pc/INDEX.ZIP, /pc/INDEXTS.ZIP, /windows/WINDEX.ZIP and /unix/UINDEX.ZIP. -------------------------------------------------------------------- From ts@uwasa.fi Fri Feb 9 00:00:08 1996 Subject: Pleas for extremely common programs 8. ***** Q: Someone email me a .zip extractor (or something equally common) A: This is not a flame but a friendly piece of advice for you, and others occasionally posting similar wishes concerning easily available shareware and PD programs. Better still than making an offhand request that may end up with several kind netters duplicating each others' efforts for your benefit by rushing to email your request to you, how about doing the work yourself and getting it from an ftp site, or a BBS near you. At our site the extractors can be found in the /pc/arcers directory. For .zip files use pkz204g.exe or unz512x3.exe. The wares are available by anonymous ftp from garbo.uwasa.fi, Vaasa, Finland, or by using our mail server (use the latter if, and only if you don't have anonymous ftp). If you are not familiar with anonymous ftp or mail servers, I will be happy to send prerecorded instructions on your emailed request. (If you don't get the instructions from me within a few days, it will mean that your email address cannot be reached by a simple email reply, and you wouldn't be able to utilize the mail server anyway. In this case contact your own system manager for a better mail path.) (If you already have /pc/ts/tsfaqn*.zip, the prerecorded instructions are what is in the PD2ANS.TXT file.) If you are in North America, first try a North American mail server to cut down the overseas traffic. Ditto for Oceania. First try an Oceanian site. If you don't know what directory to look at for the program you would like to have, first get the following garbo.uwasa.fi file lists: /pc/INDEX.ZIP /pc/INDEXTS.ZIP /windows/WINDEX.ZIP /unix/UINDEX.ZIP A2: When wanting to get a program you should also take a look at the weekly Frequently Asked Questions for comp.archives.msdos.d even if it has some overlap with this FAQ, which you are reading now. It is also available as ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/pd2/camfaq.zip. -------------------------------------------------------------------- From ts@uwasa.fi Fri Feb 9 00:00:09 1996 Subject: Posted hoax petitions 9. ***** Q: How should I react to "a dying boy's last wish"? A: Don't fall into these traps. Some users get their kicks out of trying to play pranks on unsuspecting neophyte users on the net. These hoaxes most often take the form of pleas to send email messages or ordinary post cards (or even money in some blatant cases). "Dying boy's last wish", "Support a cause" or the somewhat different "Make money fast" pyramid scheme are among the most common. Note that the truth value of the original pleas is NOT the real issue here. (If you are interested in that aspect e.g. in the last-wish case, check the Guinness Book of World Records). Hall-marks of these plea-postings are that they are either repeats of age-old themes, or are completely fictitious. Another hall-mark of these pranks is that fulfilling the petitions would probably cause havoc on the net and/or the postal system at some address. (As for the pyramid schemes, beware! They are outright illegal in some countries, like the U.S.) These petitions can occur in innumerable forms. One that was at one time very popular in Finland is "write to your congress person about the impending registration of, and tax-levy on, all modem users". This always causes a stir, since such idiocy could well be conceivable in this country. The best reaction to these postings is simply to ignore them. At best the pleas are misplaced. The newsgroups should keep to their own subjects. Sending a flame would most probably be useless, since the poster's mail address may be forged, or even someone else's cracked userid. Better just to hope that some alert system manager gets wind of who the original prankster is, and takes appropriate action. What you shouldn't do under any circumstances is trying to cram the mailbox of the potential culprit. You'll just hurt the systems along the feed, and you may end up being a worse offender than the original nitwit. If you feel that you absolutely want to react in some way, perhaps the best alternative is to see if you can contact the postmaster or the system manager of the prankster's site, and discuss the problem with him/her. Another childish form of pranks on the net are the bogus newsgroups (e.g. alt.swedish.bork.bork.bork, alt.flame.pizza.greasy). The best course of action for an ordinary user is just to unsubscribe, and again hope that the alert system managers will put things right. For the couple of first times these prank newsgroups may seem funny, but after a while you'll see that they are so similar repeats of the same themes that they are just plain boring. (Note: By a bogus newsgroup I mean a newsgroup with no discussion in it, and which will be rejected by your newsreader. Sometimes there really are alt newsgroups with these elaborate names with genuine discussion in them. I am not referring to them, but to the empty bastardizations). It is naturally difficult to generalize the motives behind these practical jokes, but my understanding is that in many cases it is a question of a kind of a misplaced creativity rather than outright malice. It would be much better for everybody if this creativity were directed in a more productive manner. A2: Usenet has also come to know an unfortunate phenomenon that is called spamming in the Usenet parlance. It means sending the same off-topic advertisement (or a similar undesirable posting) to many newsgroups all over the net. The most notorious example so far is the Canter & Siegel "green card posting" where a couple of two U.S. based lawyers copied to some 5500 newsgroups their offer to send against payment public immigration lottery information. The counter reaction from the Usenet users was fierce. My general advice to you if you see a spam on the Usenet news is the following. Don't do anything about it. Just skip it. In particular, do NOT resort to mail bombing the culprit. You'll only end up hurting the feed and the host site more than the original offender. You can rest assured that there are enough of experienced users you will notify the sender's postmaster of the problem. I repeat, newcomers, do not react to Usenet spamming! -------------------------------------------------------------------- From ts@uwasa.fi Fri Feb 9 00:00:10 1996 Subject: Crackpot messages 10. ***** Q: How should I react to crackpot messages? A: Crackpot postings and email are very often religious or sexual in nature, but sometimes take other peculiar forms. These are in a way very sad cases, since they are likely to reflect bad personal problems or even mental disturbances. These cases need professional help, and the net is not the place to try it, nor is it a suitable media for serious treatment. Flames certainly won't help matters. We can only wish that the poster realizes his/her own state, and seeks proper help. What should an ordinary user do about such postings on the news. The best course of action is plain ignore them even if you would itch to respond. Put the subject (or the offender's address) in your news kill file. (If you are using rn to read your news, do not know how to use kill files, see ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/doc-net/ killfile.zip and /pc/pd2/tspost17.zip item "Re: A kill file example"). Following up the crackpot posting with condemning comments is self-defeating, because many of these ill perverts get a significant part of their kicks out of the attention they are able to stir up by their crackpot behavior. In a sick person's disturbed mind even strongly negative attention is often better than none. Don't oblige on the net, since it will only make matters worse. BTW, the most peculiar message I've ever received propounded "My rabbit's feathers are longer than your rabbit's". But this was a response to an argument from a notorious fellow Finn (who had a few years ago an unfortunate predilection to create controversy to draw attention to himself). In the case of religion, drawing the line is sometimes difficult. Some otherwise normal, well-meaning, sometimes even highly professional persons may feel a compulsion to profess their religious faith publicly, and even try to convert others. These persons should, however, remember that flaunting one's faith may offend others, who have different concepts of life. Another, and a more complicated question, are the suggestions of setting up crackpot newsgroups of the type of recent.alien.visitors or sci.paranormal, and others that have no connection with physical reality. If you want to respond to such suggestions in the news, at least take the discussion away from the ordinary newsgroups to news.groups where it is better placed. The news postings headers have a field called "Followup-To:". Use that and write news.groups in there. -------------------------------------------------------------------- From ts@uwasa.fi Fri Feb 9 00:00:11 1996 Subject: What to do about abusive messages 11. ***** Q: How should I react to abusive email or postings? A: There is one further category of problematic net behavior to point out, that is overly aggressive or abusive postings or email. These are often written in the heat of the moment, or under the influence. Or they may result from outright misunderstandings, because this is not an easy media for conveying subtleties. Also remember that Usenet is an international net, and not everyone is fluent in English. On top of that, there are cultural differences in expressing wishes and views. (For example, I've noticed that email from one cultural background tends to be abrupt, while another sometimes seems to be lacking in consideration in asking services from others, a third is prone to excessive courtesy and convolution, and so on). Or someone may have a completely different sense of humor from yours. Or someone may take friendly advice or guidance as a flame (an extremely common problem for an active FTP site moderator like yours truly). The reasons for angry postings can be many, and the only solid deduction that can be drawn from a single abusive posting is that someone has truly bad manners or a totally off-key day. The best way to react is either to reply politely, or not to reply at all. (There is no sense in responding in the same manner, and being just another jerk). Other, related problems can also occur. I'll give you an example concerning incompatible humor. I have a predilection for trying to come up with puns in English. This is not always appreciated. There was a discussion in the news.groups demanding why an infertility group had not passed in the news. I just couldn't resist the temptation, and remarked that perhaps it was because the idea was barren :-). One user obviously had real personal strife with infertility, and told me to shove the Smiley, you know where, in as many words. To give another example, here is a counter-xenophobic joke guaranteed to bring flames crashing in from some US users. "There was this American who was asked wasn't he ever annoyed by the fact that he didn't really have a language of his very own but had to speak English. The reply. If English was good enough for Jesus, it's certainly good enough for me." Seriously, though. Although it is fortunately very rare, sometimes one encounters netters from the US, who do not seem to be able quite to grasp the international nature of the Internet. This is perhaps because the U.S. scene alone is so extensive. Here is a story of a case of mutual misunderstanding turning out right. I sent a note to a user who posted test messages to a discussion newsgroup, and told him that he shouldn't, and pointed out that there are special newsgroups just for testing purposes. I got a very testy (pardon the pun) reply referring to my attitude as smart-ass. But we started discussing about it, and soon noticed that: 1) he had misread my intentions, 2) that my message was badly formulated and gave rise to the possibility of taking it just as an impolite flame. What happened was that we together worked out a better formulation for my prerecorded advice on test post (see item #17), and we both benefited from the process, and enjoyed it. If someone continues to post to the Usenet news in a language that offends you, perhaps the best action is simply not to read any postings from that person. Most newsreader programs have what is called a kill file, where you can specify which subjects or persons you wish to ignore. (See ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/doc-net/ killfile.zip and /pc/pd2/tspost17.zip item "Re: A kill file example".) Speaking more generally than just about offensive postings, I would like to put forward here that unless you are seriously involved with the maintenance of the relevant newsgroup, if you do not like someone's posting habits, you should primarily consider the option of using the kill file. Express your views by all means, but long-standing Usenet experience tells that attacking will not achieve anything. Rather it may be counter-productive and can just lead to what is called a flame-war. What to do if the abusive individual persists sending you one unwelcome message after another, or keeps on harassing you in some other way. Persisting cases are perhaps best tackled by just deleting _unread_ all the email and postings from that address. I apply this method myself. This operation can, in fact, be automated by an elm email filter. A system I can, and do employ myself if and when necessary. If you wish to know more of this option, try on your Unix system "man filter" or ask your local computer support person. Another understandable, but problematic situation is when one gets flamed for something one didn't say or do. This sometimes happens e.g. when one quotes in the news an offensive posting, and consequently someone confuses who said what. For example one of my perfectly neutral postings included a quote from a third person castigating American freedom in an obviously unfriendly fashion. In consequence I got a rather indignant message from a reader who mistook the quote as my opinion. We finally sorted it out to a friendly conclusion, but much unnecessary effort was involved. The more general lesson from the last item above is to be careful not to confuse the original poster, and the person who is replying to the posting. It unfortunately happens relatively often that when I answer a question in the news, someone emails a reply to the original question mistakenly to me, not to the original poster where the reply should be directed. I do not mind, but the problem is that the original poser of the question misses the potentially useful reply. And I have been guilty of a similar mistake myself a couple of times. As an archive site moderator getting much email, and having been quite active on the Usenet news I am exposed to the possibility of overly aggressive behavior even more than the average user. Therefore I store the addresses of the intentionally offensive and hostile individuals for future reference in order to be able to try to steer clear of such troublesome individuals. It is thoroughly frustrating that when one tries to help e.g. by giving information on the usages of a newsgroup or a pointer to a FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions), as a result one gets hostile feedback, or even worse a message that has been devised with the sole intention of heaping deliberate insults. For example, I have myself been targeted by a mentally ill Canadian former SFU student, who desperately has been trying to get at me with inane postings and abusive file uploads whenever he manages to get a new, forged user-id. Fortunately, I have the necessary skills to firewall him automatically, but such a system originally takes some work to set up. A2: There is a special, related category of net behavior which can escalate into a real problem. You might encounter a user who is more interested in picking up a fight with you rather than genuinely discussing or even arguing about the actual subject. Typically, nothing that you will say or do will satisfy such a troublemaker. It is not a simple disagreement, which, of course, are common on the Usenet news. Rather, he will be looking for any angle to attack you. Be wary of this tell-tale sign. Any poster might be targeted, but an active member of the newsgroup or/and in a known position is a likely target. What to do if you are targeted? Difficult to say, but the most sensible thing is to totally withdraw from any further discussion if the early warning signs show that such a risk might exist. Better safe than sorry. There are so many users currently on the net that one is compelled to avoid some the most troublesome cases by trying to ignore them. The news kill files and email filters can be very useful automated aids shutting them off. -------------------------------------------------------------------- From ts@uwasa.fi Fri Feb 9 00:00:12 1996 Subject: How to submit a binary posting 12. ***** Q: How do I submit my PC program to the binaries? A: The Usenet newsgroup comp.binaries.ibm.pc is a moderated newsgroup for distributing shareware and PD MD-DOS programs in uuencoded format. There is a periodic posting which answers all your necessary questions about submitting. If you don't want to wait for it to come round, you can download it from garbo.uwasa.fi as /pc/doc-net/submbin.txt "CBIP Submissions and Posting Policy". However, during the 1995 the newsgroup was virtually dead, and the situation is the same at the beginning of 1996. -------------------------------------------------------------------- From ts@uwasa.fi Fri Feb 9 00:00:13 1996 Subject: Do not post binaries directly 13. ***** Q: May I just go ahead and post binaries to discussion newsgroups? A: Let me offer some hopefully useful information about distributing material as binary postings on the Usenet news. First of all this should not be taken as a recrimination against any individual poster of binaries to a discussion newsgroup, but rather as a reminder to all of us of the potential problems involved. Because this information is at the same time intended to help the well-meaning posters of binaries, there are pointers at the end of this item on how to make your binary available in the proper way. If someone sees these things differently, ok, but please note that I would rather not get flaming, indignant arguments crashing in over this issue. I'd prefer not to waste the time with the bickering. (All civilized views are naturally always welcome). Also please note that it does not make a decisive difference whether these posting in fact just contains sources and no executables. The problems are similar whatever (binary posting or something else) we decide call this method of distribution. The same applies whether the binary posting is a short or a long one. This is not just a simple question of "bandwidth" (a term some users are so in love with :-). I know and understand that most of who do this mean well, and wish to contribute to the general usefulness of the Usenet news. We all appreciate that. Nevertheless, I would strongly advise against posting binaries to unmoderated discussion newsgroups. On top of that the net rules don't like it, let's look at this from a purely practical point of view. If other netters follow suit and start posting binaries to discussion newsgroups not meant for this purpose, there are several potential problems: 1) The traffic will soon explode, since it is bound to be more or less haphazard. This is bound to invoke action sooner or later from the systems along the feed and/or net administration. 2) There are no guarantees against trojans and other nasties. (This does not mean that the other methods are absolutely safe, but the likelihood is smaller by far.) 3) The probability of commercial material being posted over the net increases, with all the consequent repercussions. 4) The idea is very wasteful of net resources. Remember that there are over 80000 readers in e.g. comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d. Much better to put/get stuff into/from the orderly moderated groups, or use anonymous ftp, mail servers, or good BBSes. 5) Even should the binary posting be just a short minor one, it may easily snowball by invoking others. Even if a single binary posting need not be harmful in any way per se, the danger of the snowballing effect must be kept in mind. Now what to do if you have a useful binary you want to distribute. A much better avenue than posting it, is telling where the utility is available. Or if it is not yet available anywhere on the net, first upload it to a suitable ftp site, or send it to the relevant moderator of the binary postings (provided there is a suitable binary group on the net). If you wish to have the instructions for submitting material to the garbo.uwasa.fi MS-DOS & Windows archives I'll be happy to send you our upload instructions if you email me for them. Or if you wish to FTP the instructions directly, they are available as ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/UPLOAD.INF and /pc/UPTEXT.INF. A2: It is quite usual that some users facing this information tend to counter with something along the lines "But that was a very useful binary". This is missing the actual point. These postings often include per se useful material. But this does _not_ exempt any binary posting, however useful, from the problems listed above. Furthermore, the "ban" on posting binaries to discussion newsgroups is an established net code of conduct. It is not just my view, even if I happen to concur. I am just providing the information for the potential posters. A3: Alan Brown dogbowl@dogbox.acme.gen.nz offered this additional point. "Many sites are connected via uucp using 2400bps modems over LD links. They generally don't take binaries groups because of the cost involved in getting them and/or a lack of hard drive space. Posting a binary to a discussion group directly costs them a considerable amount of money and may cause their disks to overflow." A4: When I post this (or similar information) as a followup to a misplaced binary posting on the Usenet news, it often elicits what I call "the bandwidth myth". It usually goes, somewhat aggressively, like this. "Isn't your followup posting as much a waste of bandwidth as the original posting?" This is a fallacy. The comparison is mismatched. The comparison should be not only with the original, misplaced posting but also with all the potential others it helps to redirect to the proper channels. Besides, the purpose is to help users to find their way, not to complain. -------------------------------------------------------------------- From ts@uwasa.fi Fri Feb 9 00:00:14 1996 Subject: Instructions about cross-posting 14. ***** Q: What is cross-posting? How do I do it? A: As we all know, Usenet news have the newsgroups divided by the topic areas. If you want your message to appear in more than one newsgroup you can achieve this by cross-posting. If you look at the header in the news you will notice the item Newsgroups:. Put the names of the newsgroups in there separated by commas. Scan the headers of almost any newsgroup, and you are bound to see how it is done. The number one rule of cross-posting is that cross-posting should never be used indiscriminately. If you feel that it is necessary to cross-post, consider carefully your selection, and keep it down. Avoid cross-posting to groups that are branches of the same sub-hierarchy, that is don't cross-post to adjacent newsgroups. What goes for newsgroup selection in general, also applies to cross-posting. Never cross-post to newsgroups which do not coincide with your subject. There is one very important DON'T in cross-posting. Do not send the same message separately to different newsgroups. Always use the cross-posting facility of the news (Newsgroups:). If you repeat a message separately in different newsgroups, the readers will have to see your posting many times over, and will get annoyed. You have a good chance of justifiably ending up flamed. I have heard that there are some newsreader programs that do not allow editing the headers. I can only suggest contacting your system manager or some other local guru about it. I have no further information on this unusual dilemma since on most news programs editing the headers is not a problem. Be careful, however, if you edit the headers. Learn their exact requirements. If you make mistakes, the posting may fail, and/or the followups to it by other users may fail because of your editing errors. For example Newsgroups: comp.lang.pascal.borland,comp.os.msdos.programmer, would result in an error in following up because of the trailing comma. A2: Here are a couple of further tips when you have got the hang of cross posting. As you can see there is a "Followup-To:" field in the news header. Sometimes you might want to direct the replies only a to single newsgroup even if you have cross posted the original. The rationale here is to prevent the discussion from scattering to several newsgroups. Please consider using this option whenever you cross post. Some users put the word poster in there to redirect the potential replies directly to them by email. The problem with this method is that even if it should work, it is not guaranteed to do so. Some system configurations and newsreaders do not handle this correctly. For example I usually get a bounce if I reply to such a posting. -------------------------------------------------------------------- From ts@uwasa.fi Fri Feb 9 00:00:15 1996 Subject: Where are the net rules available 15. ***** Q: Where can I find the net rules (the "netiquette")? A: The newsgroup news.announce.newusers has a set of useful periodic postings of net advice and rules. Sometimes one feels that reading these periodic postings would not hurt the old hands either. I heartily suggest taking a look. I have stored some of this information as ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/doc-net/usenews.zip. It includes, among other things, the often requested information about how to go about creating a new newsgroup (as explained in another item of this FAQ). Another newsgroup of interest in this connection is news.answers. A2: From: elle@ellis.uchicago.edu (Ellen Keyne Seebacher) [Reproduced and edited with Ellen's kind permission] Newsgroups: news.newusers.questions Subject: Re: Looking for "netiquette" document Date: 9 Jan 91 23:00:53 GMT Organization: University of Chicago : >I'm looking for a copy of the document entitled "netiquette". : There is none by that exact title (though one contains the word). There _is_ a _series_ of articles referred to loosely as "netiquette" (net etiquette, of course); their individual titles are as follows: Introduction to news.announce List of Active Newsgroups Alternative Newsgroup Hierarchies Regional Newsgroup Hierarchies List of Moderators Publicly Accessible Mailing Lists List of Periodic Informational Postings How to Get Information about Networks Rules for posting to Usenet How to Create a New Newsgroup How to Create a New Trial Newsgroup A Primer on How to Work With the Usenet Community Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette Hints on writing style for Usenet Answers to Frequently Asked Questions USENET Software: History and Sources -------------------------------------------------------------------- From ts@uwasa.fi Fri Feb 9 00:00:16 1996 Subject: What to do about a mislaid posting 16. ***** Q: I just posted to a wrong newsgroup. Should I explain it in a follow-up posting? A: Not necessarily. Much better to cancel your posting. At least if you are using rn for reading news, you can cancel your posting as follows. Go to your posting, start reading it, then apply the command C on it. In the tin newsreader the cancel command is D. If you don't want to lose what you wrote, first save your message to a file with the s option if you are using rn. See the newsreader's help (h in rn) for more details on the commands. This is much preferable to following up with an explanation. It is a good thing that you care where you post. It is frustrating to see postings that have nothing to do with the contents of the newsgroup. Some users are way too careless in this respect. (I must plead occasionally guilty myself). Posting to a wrong newsgroup is not even rational, because the chances of getting a useful response are diminished. Nevertheless, a follow-up explanatory posting may just double the mistake and draw unnecessary attention (if you cannot cancel what you posted). -------------------------------------------------------------------- From ts@uwasa.fi Fri Feb 9 00:00:17 1996 Subject: Where to put test postings 17. ***** Q: Where to put test postings? A: Let me try to give hopefully helpful information about how best go about making test postings. Please don't take offense by this item. It is solely meant as friendly guidance so that you can better find your way on the net. Novice users, and sometimes even others, occasionally place these "A test, please ignore" messages in discussion newsgroups. Please don't do this. It is wasteful of the resources. These news reach tens of thousands of readers, so a very wide distribution is involved. Furthermore, many users find the test messages very annoying in the discussion newsgroups, and you have a good chance of getting some testy email. There is a much better solution for the testing. There are special test newsgroups just for this purpose, such as alt.test and misc.test. The misc.test is a good option, since there are several test echoes along the feed. They will automatically send you email acknowledgements when your test posting reaches these sites. If you just wish to test posting without the automatic acknowledgments to clutter your mailbox, check if your site has a newsgroup simply called test. Thus don't necessarily start with a newsgroup with a "world" distribution right away. First consider experimenting with a "local" newsgroup, and think of expanding only after that, if this still is necessary. If you look at the header of a Usenet posting, you'll notice that it includes the a line for distribution. Don't trust it. The distribution limitation is not guaranteed to work. In global newsgroups a local distribution can easily "leak" since not all configurations along the feed observe this feature. Thus the distribution field in the header is best left unchanged. Another method. If you want to suppress the autoresponders along the feed, include the word "ignore" in the "Subject:" header of our articles posted to *.test. Additional information to neophyte news users from Jim Wamsley wamsley@dcsun1.stortek.com. "When testing your ability to post to newsgroups, test first to your local.test newsgroup. This posting should appear only on your news server. When you are satisfied that you are comfortable with postings, you can try some of the many test news groups on the network, such as alt.test and misc.test. However, do not include local.test in these postings. When you include local.test and another newsgroup, not only is your article posted on *.test and your local.test, but in every other local.test on every news server in the world. This tends to upset news administrators and on occasion has them chasing a problem that really doesn't exist." If you are a news or a system manager who has had to do the test this way for practical reasons, my apologies if this advisory note was not appropriate in the case of your test. This was only meant as benevolent advice in case you were not aware of these alternatives. On the other hand, a responsible and knowledgeable system manager could, of course, indicate why the global test posting was necessary in the first place and cancel the test posting as soon as it is no longer necessary to circulate it to the tens of thousands of Usenet readers subscribing to the discussion newsgroups. News administrators might also be interested in the newsgroup misc.test.moderated run by Ian Phillipps. An extract from its charter: "The group misc.test.moderated complements misc.test, by providing a way for news administrators to test the mechanism for posting to moderated groups." A2: Here is a very important little tip when you have made your test posting in the proper newsgroup. Take a careful look at the "From:" header of your test posting. Your full email address should appear in there, like mine would show up (without the quotes) as "From: ts@poiju.uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi)" If not, you have a serious problem, since other users will not be able to reply to your postings by email. In that case contact your own site's newsmaster a.s.a.p. alerting him/her to the problem. -------------------------------------------------------------------- From ts@uwasa.fi Fri Feb 9 00:00:18 1996 Subject: What is archie 18. ***** Q: What is archie? A: See answer A2 to the question "Is there a list of ftp sites (for certain kind of programs)?". -------------------------------------------------------------------- From ts@uwasa.fi Fri Feb 9 00:00:19 1996 Subject: My replying habits 19. ***** Q: Why do you sometimes answer so tersely? Why do you not post the full answer instead of your stupid FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) referrals? Why don't you use email instead of postings? A1: When one answers as many questions as I have done on the net, both on the Usenet news and by email, one sometimes omits the coating, and concentrates on the essential, for better or worse. This may convey an unintended impression of unfriendliness, which most certainly is not my purpose nor my attitude. A related matter is that I have often posted or emailed a pointer to the answer by referring to my Frequently Asked Questions and other collections or programs, rather than the actual, full answer. There are several reasons for this conduct, which some users don't quite like. First, I feel that it is better to help people to learn how to find the answers, than simply feed them. (I'm supposed to be a professor underneath, am I not? :-). In the long run such know-how is much more beneficial for the users. (Recall the proverb about teaching a man to fish instead of giving him a fish). Also this method has a curbing effect of the same repeated questions ballooning and filling a newsgroup. Second, the pointed information is often much better and more accurate what one can provide on the fly. It is much more easy and thus more efficient to give a pointer rather than to try to remember, for example, the exact name and/or location of a utility that a user asks for. Third, although being very busy most of the time, I can usually afford the few moments it takes to write a pointer, but I simply cannot repeatedly afford the time to look for the same full answer, and then write it. It's hopefully better to give some information than none at all. Ask yourself which is better. A pointer or no answer. Of course, there must be a sensible balance between pointers to answers and giving the full answers. Fourth, I get by email many such questions or requests which, while still welcome, are not fair in the sense that answering them would take an inordinate amount of effort from my part. A few examples of such requests. A typical one is that I should manually uuencode some package and email it to the user. My standard response is to send the prerecorded Garbo instructions (/pc/link/pd2ans.txt which also is included in /pc/ts/tsfaqn*.zip). Believe it or not, some users see it fit to complain about getting the full prerecorded Garbo instructions from me as a reply to their emailed Garbo related standard questions. They seem to think that I should devote my time to an individualized service carefully editing for them exactly the information they need. Another excessive one is asking me to see on the requester's behalf what a package's documentation says, or to test and then describe a particular package for him/her individually so that the requester would not have to take the trouble of downloading it to see for him/herself. There are also many other similar instances where I must refer the emailer to post the questions to the Usenet news, to refer him/her to other general sources of information, or refer him/her to a person to whose domain the question belongs. I am sometimes surprised (and why not flattered) of the kind of knowledge the users imagine I have. You really wouldn't believe some of the requests I get, starting from asking me to send information about hotels in Finland to foreign students' enrollment pleas, and even about matters I have never even heard of in my life like locating some obscure German health products. Fifth, don't let my FAQ referrals deter you from posting your own answers. They are definitely not meant to discourage anyone else posting one's own answers. As an aside it is interesting to note that more than once I have encountered posters who recriminate giving the FAQ reference and pointedly show off with how to answer the question in full. They might do it a few times, but after a while they tend to quit answering at all. So much for their initial bravado. Sixth, some users are upset about my posting my answers instead of emailing them. The drift from the above should be clear. I can't repeatedly afford the luxury of giving individual guidance. If I have a pointer I post it at one go, since from experience we know that the same subjects keep repeating, and the overall effect can still be the hankered reduction of traffic! Of course there is a problem to the pointer or FAQ method which I often use as an answer to questions posed on the Usenet news. Someone else may have a much better answer than I do. If s/he doesn't post it because of the pointer I've made to the FAQ, good answers are foregone by the users. For some more on this subject please see the following items in ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/pd2/tspost17.zip "Reducing comp.lang.pascal traffic" "Re: A kill file example" ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/pd2/tspost14.zip "Advantages and disadvantages of FAQ referrals" "Re: what is bandwidth?" and ftp:/garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/pd2/tspost08.zip "Re: "Wasted" Bandwidth" If someone's legitimate postings are bothering you, also see ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/doc-net/killfile.zip killfile.zip rn KILL file FAQ from Leanne Phillips A2: I try to help when I can, but with the amount of email I get one has to be realistic. Therefore, I very often have to respond to users with prerecorded messages, FAQ referrals and/or refer their questions to the Usenet news. Please do not be put off if and when I have to give you this kind of a response. --------------------------------------------------------------------