Summary: This article gives some general hints to help you find an
appropriate place to post on a given topic, and gives pointers
to some available resources. A few other new-user topics are
also addressed, mostly through pointers to other FAQs.
Keywords: newusers help newsgroups resources newbie news
There are thousands of Usenet newsgroups, and it is sometimes difficult
to find the right newsgroup to ask a question or start a discussion.
This document gives some general methods of finding the right newsgroup
or mailing list for a topic.
Resources for new Usenet users
Things that should not be posted to Usenet
Finding the right newsgroup
Crossposting to multiple newsgroups
Choosing a good Subject: header
Finding FAQs and other Periodical Postings
Finding public mailing lists
Starting a new Usenet newsgroup
About this post
Appendix: Anonymous FTP
Subject: Resources for new Usenet users
If you are new to Usenet, you should probably read the posts in
news.announce.newusers (n.a.n.) -- if they are not available in your
newsreader, they also available by anonymous FTP (see below) in
rtfm.mit.edu:/pub/usenet/news.announce.newusers/
A few that are most likely to be immediately helpful are:
A_Primer_on_How_to_Work_With_the_Usenet_Community
Answers_to_Frequently_Asked_Questions_about_Usenet
Emily_Postnews_Answers_Your_Questions_on_Netiquette
Hints_on_writing_style_for_Usenet
Introduction_to_the_*.answers_newsgroups
Rules_for_posting_to_Usenet
What_is_Usenet?
Another place you can look for helpful postings, or post general
questions, is the group news.newusers.questions. Some of the useful
articles regularly posted there are:
Anonymous_FTP:_Frequently_Asked_Questions_(FAQ)_List
FAQ:_How_to_find_people_s_E-mail_addresses
FAQ:_International_E-mail_accessibility
Internet_Services_Frequently_Asked_Questions_&_Answers_(FAQ)
Welcome_to_news.newusers.questions!_(weekly_posting)
rn_KILL_file_FAQ
Subject: Things that should not be posted to Usenet
1) Requests for help with your local system or software
When posting requests for help to Usenet, remember two things: people on
your local machine can probably help you better and faster, and people on
the Net do not know what your local configuration and problems are. You
should always try to access local help (the 'man' command on Unix systems),
or sending mail to your system maintainers/consultants (try 'usenet',
'news', or 'postmaster' on most Unix systems), before sending your question
out to hundreds of thousands of people.
Usenet news is not centrally controlled or distributed. It trickles around
from one machine to another, at varying speeds. The rate at which news
gets to your system, and the order of the articles you see, are determined
by the way your system and its neighbors handle news.
2) Commercial Advertisements
Some of the University networks connected to the InterNet prohibit using
their bandwidth for commercial advertising. In addition, most Usenet users
strongly disapprove of business advertising in non-business-related groups.
In particular, anything that looks like a pyramid scheme or chain letter
will draw floods of critical e-mail to both you and your machine
administrators. Posting about a few items for sale, or a job opening, in
an appropriate newsgroup (such as misc.forsale.* or misc.jobs.*) is OK;
posting an ad for your business is probably not. See also:
<insert pointer to Advertising On Usenet FAQ>
Subject: Finding the right newsgroup
To find what groups are relevant for your subject, you might search through
your local list of newsgroups (your .newsrc file on most Unix systems; use
the command grep <pattern> .newsrc), to see which group names seem related.
Then subscribe to those groups, and look at some of the recent traffic, to
make sure that your question is suitable for the group. (For example,
questions about Microsoft Windows belong in comp.os.ms-windows.*, not
comp.windows.*)
[The asterisk, '*', means multiple objects (here, groups) are referenced.]
On some systems, your .newsrc file won't contain the names of newsgroups
you haven't subscribed to. In that case, read the documentation for
your newsreader to find out how to add newsgroups, and use the methods
mentioned below to find out the names of groups that might be available
on your system.
On some systems, the 'newsgroups' command will show you a file containing
a one-line description of the purpose of each newsgroup (the newsgroups
file), or longer descriptions of the purpose and contents of each
newsgroup (the newsgroup charters.) Ask your local news administrator
if these resources are available on your system.
For widely-distributed newsgroups, you can also find the one-line
descriptions in the following n.a.n postings:
List_of_Active_Newsgroups,_Part_I
List_of_Active_Newsgroups,_Part_II
Alternative_Newsgroup_Hierarchies,_Part_I
Alternative_Newsgroup_Hierarchies,_Part_II
The 'List' posts describe newsgroups in the comp, misc, news, rec, soc,
sci, and talk hierarchies. The 'Alt' posts describe newsgroups in the
alt, bionet, bit, biz, clarinet, gnu, hepnet, ieee, inet, info, k12,
relcom, u3b, and vmsnet hierarchies. They will not describe groups
that are available only in your region or institution.
(These posts also available in garbo.uwasa.fi:/pc/doc-net/newsgrps.zip)
Once you have checked local resources, and the formal newsgroup
descriptions, if you are still uncertain as to what groups are 'right'
for your post, you can ask in news.groups.questions - this group is
designed for people to ask what existing newsgroup is appropriate for
a given topic or sub-topic of discussion.
Very few sites carry all available newsgroups (there are thousands).
Your local news administrator can help you access newsgroups that are not
currently available, or explain why certain groups are not available at
your site. If your site does not carry the newsgroup(s) where your post
belongs, do NOT post it in other, inappropriate groups.
Subject: Crossposting to multiple newsgroups
Think very carefully before crossposting to more than one, or perhaps
two, newsgroups. It is considered highly inappropriate to broadcast
your message to a wide selection of newsgroups merely to have more people
read it. Note also that many people automatically ignore articles posted
to more than two or three groups. Follow the general rules of Netiquette
(Usenet etiquette) described in the news.announce.newusers postings above.
Often, even when an article is appropriate for multiple newsgroups, it
is desirable to redirect all followup discussion into one particular
newsgroup. You can do this by adding a Followup-To header line that
lists the single newsgroup where further discussion will go. (You should
also mention in the body of the article that you have redirected
followups to that group, so that people interested in following the
subject can find it.) For example:
Newsgroups: rec.pets.cats,misc.consumers.house
Followup-To: rec.pets.cats
Subject: Need product to remove cat odor from carpets
directed to rec.pets.cats]
Text of article
Subject: Choosing a good Subject: header
Many people scan the Subject lines of newsgroups, and choose to only
read articles with a Subject line that is of interest to them. (This
is the '=' command in rn - check the documentation of your newsreader
to see if this ability is available to you.) If your Subject line does
not contain useful information about the contents of your post, relatively
few people will read it. For example, you are more likely to get useful
replies with a subject of "Need file conversion utility from PC-Write to
WordPerfect" than with a subject of "Help!".
Some newsgroups have a 'standard' for what information should be
contained in the Subject line - for example, postings in
misc.jobs.offered are expected to contain the job title and location in
the Subject line, and postings in rec.games.board are expected to
list the name of the specific game. It is always a good idea to scan
the contents of a newsgroup to see if there is a common format in use.
If you are following up to another post, make sure that the Subject is
relevant to your post, too. If you change the topic away from the
original one, you should probably change the Subject line, too.
Subject: Finding FAQs and other Periodical Postings
Once you decide what newsgroup(s) are relevant to your question, make
sure that you're not asking questions that are frequently asked and
answered. In addition to looking at recent traffic in the group,
check whether your question is included in a FAQ (Frequently
Asked/Answered Questions) list. Most FAQs are archived at rtfm.mit.edu,
in directory /pub/usenet/your.group.name, if they're not available in
your newsreader in the specific group or in *.answers. Many groups also
have a periodic introductory post that describes the content and purpose
of the newsgroup - if one exists, you should read it before posting.
A listing of many of the periodical postings on Usenet can be found
in n.a.n. or its archives, as
List_of_Periodic_Informational_Postings,_Part_*_*
If you have access to the World Wide Web (often reached through the
Mosaic software), you can access the FAQs in HTML format at
http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/hypertext/faq/usenet/FAQ-List.html
These FAQs are easy to browse through.
<need a gopher pointer, too...>
Subject: Finding public mailing lists
There are a great many public mailing lists, on a wide range of topics.
Some of them cover specific topics that aren't often discussed on Usenet,
while others duplicate the topics of one or more newsgroups. A listing
of many of the public lists is in n.a.n. and archives, as
List of Publicly Accessible Mailing Lists, Part */*
Starting a new Usenet newsgroup
If you can't find a newsgroup or mailing list that holds discussion on a
specific topic, it is probably a bad idea to start a new newsgroup for
it. Most successful newsgroups are started to split off a sub-topic that
is already being discussed on one or more other newsgroups. You might
try posting an article on the appropriate *.misc newsgroup, and see if
there are others who are interested in the subject.
If you really think it is appropriate to start a new newsgroup, some
general guidelines can be found in:
news.announce.newgroups: How_to_Create_a_New_Usenet_Newsgroup
alt.config: So_You_Want_to_Create_an_Alt_Newsgroup
Talk to someone local about starting new local newsgroups. Send mail
to your local news admin to find out where to start.
Subject: About this post
Following these suggestions will help not only to ensure that your
post reaches its intended audience, but to make Usenet more useful
for all of us.
The following people have contributed to this article:
[log in to unmask] (Jim Jewett)
[log in to unmask] (Mark Brader)
[log in to unmask] (Juha Laiho)
[log in to unmask] (Bob McCormick)
[log in to unmask] (Edmund Schweppe)
[log in to unmask] (Prof. Timo Salmi)
<win your fifteen bytes of fame by helping to improve this article>
Questions about the contents of this article, suggestions for improvement,
and corrections should be sent to [log in to unmask]
This article is copyrighted by its author, Aliza R. Panitz
([log in to unmask]). It may be copied and redistributed, in
its entirety, for free redistribution. In particular, you are encouraged
to save this article and send it to people who post inappropriate
material to your newsgroups. All other rights reserved.
Subject: Appendix: Anonymous FTP
[This help file was written for the roguelike games FAQ; some of the
hints and examples may not be relevant here.]
Pretty much everything mentioned here is available by anonymous FTP.
FAQ lists cross-posted to news.answers and *.answers can be gotten
from rtfm.mit.edu (18.70.0.209), under /pub/usenet/news.answers or
under /pub/usenet/more.specific.group.name
"anonymous FTP" is just a way for files to be stored where anyone on
the Internet can retrieve them over the Net. For example, to retrieve
the latest version of the Moria FAQ, do the following:
> ftp rtfm.mit.edu /* connect to the site; a message follows */
> anonymous /* type this when it asks for your name */
> <your email address> /* type your address as the password */
> cd /pub/usenet /* go to the directory you want to be in */
> cd rec.games.moria /* one level down (no slash). */
> dir /* look at what's there */
> get r.g.m_F_A_Q /* get the file; case-sensitive */
> quit /* stop this mysterious thing */
If your FTP program complains that it doesn't know where the site you
want to use is, type the numerical address instead of the sitename:
> ftp 18.70.0.209 /* connect with numerical address */
If you don't have ftp access, send e-mail to [log in to unmask]
with the single word "help" in the body of the message.
Getting binary files (executables, or any compressed files) is only
slightly more difficult. You need to set binary mode inside FTP before
you transfer the file.
> binary /* set binary transfer mode */
> ascii /* set back to text transfer mode */
FAQs and other text documents are generally ascii files; everything else is
generally binary files. Compressed text files turn into binary files, though.
Some common extensions on binary files in archive sites are:
.Z Compressed; extract with uncompress
.tar.Z Compressed 'tape archive'; uncompress then untar or tar -xvf
.gz or .z Gnu gzip; use gunzip (prep.ai.mit.edu:/pub/gnu/gzip.*.tar)
.tgz Gnu gzip of a tar archive; read the gzip man page.
.sit (Mac) StufIt archive
.zip (PC) Extract with Zip or Unzip
.zoo (PC) Yet another archive/compress program
.lzh (Unix and PC) Yet another...
.arj (PC) and another...
.lha (Amiga) Common archive format.
.exe (PC) Self-extracting archives - just execute them.
[Note: sometimes non-archived executables are stored.]
.uue or .UUE Transfer as text file; use uudecode to convert to binary
.hqx (Mac) BinHex format; transfer in text mode
Generic help can be found in the FAQs of comp.binaries.<your_system_type> for
how to transfer, extract, and virus-check binary files. (At rtfm.mit.edu)
If you can't FTP from your site, use one of the following ftp-by-mail servers:
[log in to unmask]
[log in to unmask]
[log in to unmask]
[log in to unmask]
For complete instructions, send a message reading "help" to the server.
Some FTP sites, such as rtfm.mit.edu, have dedicated mailservers that
will send you files only from that site; it causes less network load to
use local FTP servers where they exist.
If you don't know exactly what you're looking for, or exactly where it
is, there are programs and servers that can help you. For more info,
send e-mail to [log in to unmask] with the body of the
message reading send usenet/news.answers/finding-sources
--
================================================================================
Adam Finkelstein [log in to unmask] [log in to unmask]
=============================================== |Bees To Please| ===========
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