From ames!ll-xn!husc6!purdue!spaf Thu Apr 13 15:09:47 PDT 1989 Article 383 of news.announce.newusers: Relay-Version: version B 2.10.3 4.3bsd-beta 6/6/85; site scubed.UUCP Path: scubed!ames!ll-xn!husc6!purdue!spaf >From: spaf@cs.purdue.EDU (Gene Spafford) Newsgroups: news.announce.newusers Subject: Introduction to news.announce (Updated: 15 May 1988) Message-ID: <6475@medusa.cs.purdue.edu> Date: 8 Apr 89 21:49:28 GMT Date-Received: 9 Apr 89 03:04:43 GMT Expires: 7 Jul 89 21:49:27 GMT Organization: Dept. of Computer Sciences, Purdue Univ. Lines: 50 Approved: spaf@cs.purdue.EDU Supersedes: <0@cs.purdue.edu> Original-from: mark@stargate.com (Mark Horton) [Most recent change: 15 May 1988 by spaf@purdue.edu (Gene Spafford)] "news.announce.important" is a newsgroup for just what it says it is -- important announcements. It is intended to be read by everyone on Usenet, although nobody is forced to subscribe. To post to news.announce.important, send mail to the moderator at "announce@stargate.com". Some netnews implementations will automatically mail to the moderator anything posted instead of attempting to post it directly. If the message is appropriate, it will be posted by the moderator; if not, the moderator will suggest a more appropriate place to post it or a better way to go about the same goal. Discussions in news.announce.important are explicitly forbidden, and the volume of traffic will be kept low enough to keep people from feeling a need to unsubscribe. Usenet administrators for each site should make a point of reading news.announce.important. Some messages will be repeated every month, in order to reach all newcomers. These messages will be placed in news.announce.newusers, which is also moderated. This makes it safe for experienced users who have already read these messages to unsubscribe to news.announce.newusers without missing anything new in news.announce.important. If you aren't familiar with the netnews guidelines in news.announce.newusers, please read them carefully. Your understanding of these rules will assure that you don't annoy the more than 1 million members of the net community (estimated) by unintentionally abusing the net, and will help you get more value from the net. The current policy is that news.announce.important submissions must be: (a) short - preferably they should fit on one crt screen, including headers. (b) important enough to at least have their header shown to everyone on the net. The posting should be more of benefit to the net than to the poster. (c) not posted to any other newsgroup - news.announce.important by itself is supposed to be sufficient to reach everybody, and nobody should have to read an announcement more than once. (d) signed - the author should be clearly evident. (e) not commercial, political, or religious in nature. Mark Horton Gene Spafford news.announce.important moderator news.announce.newusers moderator mark@stargate.com spaf@purdue.edu -- Gene Spafford NSF/Purdue/U of Florida Software Engineering Research Center, Dept. of Computer Sciences, Purdue University, W. Lafayette IN 47907-2004 Internet: spaf@cs.purdue.edu uucp: ...!{decwrl,gatech,ucbvax}!purdue!spaf From ames!ncar!husc6!purdue!spaf Thu Apr 13 15:07:34 PDT 1989 Article 388 of news.announce.newusers: Relay-Version: version B 2.10.3 4.3bsd-beta 6/6/85; site scubed.UUCP Path: scubed!ames!ncar!husc6!purdue!spaf >From: spaf@cs.purdue.EDU (Gene Spafford) Newsgroups: news.admin,news.announce.newusers Subject: USENET Software: History and Sources (Updated: 7 April 1989) Message-ID: <6481@medusa.cs.purdue.edu> Date: 8 Apr 89 21:50:04 GMT Date-Received: 9 Apr 89 03:12:58 GMT Expires: 7 Jul 89 21:50:03 GMT Followup-To: news.admin Organization: Dept. of Computer Sciences, Purdue Univ. Lines: 219 Approved: spaf@cs.purdue.EDU Xref: scubed news.admin:5849 news.announce.newusers:388 Supersedes: <6189@medusa.cs.purdue.edu> Original from: spaf@purdue (Gene Spafford) [Most recent change: 7 April 1989 by Gene Spafford ] Currently, Usenet readers interact with the news using a number of software packages and programs. This article mentions the important ones and a little of their history, gives pointers where you can look for more information and ends with some special notes about "foreign" and "obsolete" software. At the very end is a list of sites from which current versions of the Usenet software may be obtained. History ------- Usenet came into being in late 1979, shortly after the release of V7 Unix with UUCP. Two Duke University grad students in North Carolina, Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis, thought of hooking computers together to exchange information with the Unix community. Steve Bellovin, a grad student at the University of North Carolina, put together the first version of the news software using shell scripts and installed it on the first two sites: "unc" and "duke." At the beginning of 1980 the network consisted of those two sites and "phs" (another machine at Duke), and was described at the January Usenix conference. Steve Bellovin later rewrote the scripts into C programs, but they were never released beyond "unc" and "duke." Shortly thereafter, Steve Daniel did another implementation in C for public distribution. Tom Truscott made further modifications, and this became the "A" news release. In 1981 at U. C. Berkeley, grad student Mark Horton and high school student Matt Glickman rewrote the news software to add functionality and to cope with the ever increasing volume of news -- "A" news was intended for under 100 sites and only a few articles per group per day. This rewrite was the "B" news version. The first public release was version 2.1 in 1982; the 1.* versions were all beta test. As the net grew, the news software was expanded and modified. The last version maintained and released primarily by Mark was 2.10.1. Rick Adams, at the Center for Seismic Studies, took over coordination of the maintenance and enhancement of the news software with the 2.10.2 release in 1984. By this time, the increasing volume of news was becoming a concern, and the mechanism for moderated groups was added to the software at 2.10.2. Moderated groups were inspired by ARPA mailing lists and experience with other bulletin board systems. In late 1986, version 2.11 of news was released, including a number of changes to support a new naming structure for newsgroups, enhanced batching and compression, enhanced ihave/sendme control messages, and other features. The current release of news is 2.11, patchlevel 17, dated Feb 1989. Article format is specified in RFC 1036, last revised in December 1987 (a version is distributed with the news software). {An aside about RFCs: a RFC is a Request For Comment, a de-facto standard in the Internet Community. It is a form of published software standard, done through the Network Information Center (NIC) at SRI. Copies of RFCs are often posted to the net and obtainable from archive sites.} A new version of news, becoming known as "C" news, has been developed at the University of Toronto by Geoff Collyer and Henry Spencer. This version is a rewrite of the lowest levels of news to increase article processing speed, decrease article expiration processing and improve the reliability of the news system through better locking, etc. The package was released to the net in the autumn of 1987. For more information, see the paper "News Need Not Be Slow," published in The Winter 1987 Usenix Technical Conference proceedings. Two popular screen-oriented news reading interfaces have been developed in the last few years to replace the traditional "readnews" interface. The first of these was "vnews" and it was written by Kenneth Almquist. "vnews" provides a "readnews"-like command interface, but displays articles using direct screen positioning. It appears to have been inspired, to some extent, by the "notes" system (described below). "vnews" is currently distributed with the standard 2.11 news source. A second, more versatile interface, "rn", was developed by Larry Wall now of JPL/NASA and released in 1984. This interface also uses full-screen display with direct positioning, but it includes many other useful features and is very popular with many regular net readers. The interface includes reading, discarding, and/or processing of articles based on user-definable patterns, the ability to follow "threads of discussions" in newsgroups, and the ability of the user to develop customized macros for display and keyboard interaction. "rn" is currently at release 4.3, patchlevel 40, with a major re-release under development. "rn" is not provided with the standard news software release, but is very widely available due to its popularity. "notes" is a software package popular at some sites. It uses a different internal organization of articles, and a different interchange format than that of the standard Usenet software. It was inspired by the notesfiles available in the PLATO system and was developed independently from the Usenet news. Eventually, the "notes" network and Usenet were joined via gateways doing (sometimes imperfect) protocol translation. The interface for "notes" is similar to "rn" but implements different features, many of which are dictated by its internal organization. "notes" was written in 1980-1981 by Ray Essick and Rob Kolstad, (then) grad students at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The first public release of "notes" was at the January 1982 Usenix conference. The current release of notes is version 1.7. In March 1986 a package was released implementing news transmission, posting, and reading using the Network News Transfer Protocol (NNTP) (as specified in RFC 977). This protocol allows hosts to exchange articles via TCP/IP connections rather than using the traditional uucp. It also permits users to read and post news (using a modified version of "rn" or other user agents) from machines which cannot or chose not to install the USENET news software. Reading and posting are done using TCP/IP messages to a server host which does run the USENET software. Sites which have many workstations like the Sun and Apollo products find this a convenient way to allow workstation users to read news without having to store articles on each system. Many of the Usenet hosts that are also on the Internet exchange news articles using NNTP because the load impact of NNTP is much lower than uucp (and NNTP ensures much faster propagation). NNTP grew out of independent work in 1984-1985 by Brian Kantor at U. C. San Diego and Phil Lapsley at U. C. Berkeley. It is now in release 1.5, and includes support for System V UNIX with Excelan Ethernet cards and DECNET under Ultrix. NNTP was developed at U. C. Berkeley by Phil Lapsley with help from Erik Fair, Steven Grady, and Mike Meyer, among others. The NNTP package is distributed on the 4.3BSD release tape (although that is version 1.2a and out-of-date) and is also available from the various authors, many major hosts, and by anonymous FTP from ucbvax, ucsd, and gatech. Reader clients for VMS systems should be available soon. A TOPS-20 reader was developed by Dave Edwards of SRI , but current availability is unknown. There is also an NNTP-based netnews reader for Symbolics Lisp Machines (under Genera 7) available for anonymous FTP from ucbvax.berkeley.edu [10.2.0.78] in pub/nntp-clients/lispm written by Ian Connolly and maintained by Richard Welty . An NNTP reader suite for PC's running MS-DOS and having Excelan boards is available for ftp from ames.arc.nasa.gov; get the pcrrn files. At least one IBM VM/SP (CMS) version of the Usenet software is available. Interested parties should contact Irwin Tillman of Princeton University (irwin@pucc.princeton.edu or irwin@pucc.bitnet) for details. Another version may also be available from Bill Verity at Penn State (whv@psuvm.bitnet). A VAX/VMS implementation is available that implements a screen-based user interface with the functionality similar to rn. The program allows reading, posting, direct replies, moderated newsgroups, etc. in a fashion closely related to regular news. The implementation includes the RFC1036 news propagation algorithms and integrated use of the NNTP protocols to support remote news servers, implemented as a VAX/VMS Decnet object. A RFC977 server implemented as a Decnet object is also included. The license for the software is free, and there are no restrictions on the re-distribution. For more info, contact gih900@fac.anu.oz.au (Geoff Huston). Special note on "notes" and pre-2.11 news ----------------------------------------- Users of these systems may note problems in their interactions with the Usenet. In particular, postings may be made by "notes" users to moderated groups but they will not usually propagate throughout the entire Usenet. The same may happen to users of old B news software. Users of "notes" or old B news software wishing to post to moderated groups should either mail their submissions to the moderator, as listed in the monthly posting of "List of Moderators" in the group "news.lists", or else they should post from a system running up-to-date B news software (i.e., 2.11). "notes" users may obtain some patches from the comp.sources.unix archives which enable recent versions of "notes" to interact with moderated groups properly. Users of old B news and "notes" are also not able to take advantage of some other current B news features, such as the "checkgroups" message. "notes" continues to be a "foreign" system, and B news versions before 2.10.2 are considered "obsolete." The various maintainers of the Usenet software have never expressed any commitment to maintain backwards compatibility with "foreign" or obsolete news systems and are unlikely to do so; it is the responsibility of the users to maintain compatibility of such software if they wish to continue to interact with the Usenet. Software versions & availability -------------------------------- You can obtain the version number of your news software by issuing the "v" command in either "vnews" or "readnews." "rn" version is obtainable by typing the "v" command to the top level prompt -- it should currently be 4.3.1.4. Current software is obtainable from almost any major Usenet site. Source to the 'rn' newsreader program is also widely available. The following sites have sources to the current news software available for anyone needing a copy: Site Contact ---- ------- gatech gatech!usenet killer killer!postmaster ncar ncar!woods mirror mirror!usenet munnari munnari!kre osu-cis osu-cis!bob philabs philabs!usenet pyramid pyramid!usenet rutgers rutgers!usenet tektronix tektronix!news ulowell ulowell!usenet watmath watmath!usenet Sources for both news 2.11 and "rn" are also available in the comp.sources.unix archives. European sites should request the sources from their nearest Eunet backbone site. Acknowledgements ---------------- The preparation of this article (and Usenet itself!) was greatly enhanced by the contributions and assistance of the following persons: Steve Bellovin, Ray Essick, Mark Horton, Brian Kantor, Phil Lapsley, Bob Page, Tom Truscott, and Larry Wall. Thanks, folks. -- Gene Spafford NSF/Purdue/U of Florida Software Engineering Research Center, Dept. of Computer Sciences, Purdue University, W. Lafayette IN 47907-2004 Internet: spaf@cs.purdue.edu uucp: ...!{decwrl,gatech,ucbvax}!purdue!spaf From ames!haven!purdue!spaf Thu Apr 13 15:06:49 PDT 1989 Article 391 of news.announce.newusers: Relay-Version: version B 2.10.3 4.3bsd-beta 6/6/85; site scubed.UUCP Path: scubed!ames!haven!purdue!spaf >From: spaf@cs.purdue.EDU (Gene Spafford) Newsgroups: news.lists,news.groups,news.announce.newusers Subject: List of Active Newsgroups (Updated: 9 April 1989) Message-ID: <6483@medusa.cs.purdue.edu> Date: 8 Apr 89 21:50:19 GMT Date-Received: 9 Apr 89 03:17:04 GMT Expires: 7 Jul 89 21:50:18 GMT Followup-To: news.lists Organization: Dept. of Computer Sciences, Purdue Univ. Lines: 494 Approved: spaf@cs.purdue.EDU Xref: scubed news.lists:770 news.groups:9017 news.announce.newusers:391 Supersedes: <6191@medusa.cs.purdue.edu> [Most recent change: 9 April 1989 by spaf@cs.purdue.edu (Gene Spafford)>] The following is a list of currently active USENET newsgroups as of 8 April 1989. The groups distributed worldwide are divided into seven broad classifications: "news", "soc", "talk", "misc", "sci", "comp" and "rec". Each of these classifications is organized into groups and subgroups according to topic. "comp" Topics of interest to both computer professionals and hobbyists, including topics in computer science, software source, and information on hardware and software systems. "sci" Discussions intended as technical in nature and relating to the established sciences. "misc" Groups addressing themes not easily classified under any of the other headings or which incorporate themes from multiple categories. "soc" Groups primarily addressing social issues and socializing. "talk" Groups largely debate-oriented and tending to feature long discussions without resolution and without appreciable amounts of generally useful information. "news" Groups concerned with the news network and software themselves. "rec" Groups oriented towards hobbies and recreational activities. These "world" newsgroups are (usually) circulated around the entire USENET -- this implies world-wide distribution. Not all groups actually enjoy such wide distribution, however. The European Usenet and Eunet sites take only a selected subset of the more "technical" groups, and controversial "noise" groups are often not carried by many sites in the US and Canada (these groups are primarily under the "talk" and "soc" classifications). Many sites do not carry some or all of the comp.binaries groups. There are groups in other subcategories, but they are local: to institutions, to geographic regions, etc. and they are not listed here. Note that these distribution categories can be used to restrict the propagation of news articles. Currently, distributions include: world worldwide distribution (default) att limited to AT&T can limited to Canada eunet limited to European sites na limited to North America usa limited to the United States There may be other regional and local distribution categories available at your site. Most US states have distribution categories named after the two letter abbreviation for that state or category (e.g., "ga" for Georgia, "nj" for New Jersey). Please use an appropriate distribution category if your article is not likely to be of interest to USENET readers worldwide. Some groups are moderated or are monitored mailing lists. They can only be posted to by mailing submissions to the coordinator (provided in a companion posting). Some selected sites provide automatic remailing in support of 2.11 news -- posting to one of these groups automatically mails the article for the poster. Some of the moderated groups are gatewayed to USENET from the ARPA Internet and appear as newsgroups to facilitate distribution and posting from the Usenet. Other of the "world" groups are bidirectionally gatewayed with ARPA Internet mailing lists; items submitted from the ARPA side to the digest are split up and submitted to the USENET group, while articles submitted on the USENET side are bundled up and submitted to the mailing list. A complete list of moderated newsgroups, submission addresses and moderators is given in a companion posting. The following "world" groups have been gatewayed with the listed Arpa Internet lists. Some of them may not still be gatewayed due to broken software and/or gateways; such groups are marked with an asterisk ("*") in the list below. Please contact me if you should know of their current status. Also note that the group "comp.lang.forth" is gatewayed with the Bitnet discussion list "umforth@weizmann.bitnet", and rec.railroad is run from "railroad@queens.bitnet". Some of these lists are gated one-way into Usenet groups; those groups have been marked with a ">" symbol in the list below. If you are reading this article from a site not on the Usenet, you may subscribe to Arpa Internet lists by writing to the request address. You form such an address by putting "-request" before the "@" symbol, as in "unix-emacs-request@bbn.com". This gets your message directly to the list maintainer instead of broadcasting it to all the readers of the list. Also note that moderators of Usenet groups may not be in charge of the corresponding mailing list or gateway. For example, the moderator of comp.sources.unix does not have anything to do with the unix-sources mailing list; matters concerning the mailing list should be addressed to unix-sources-request@brl.arpa Usenet Group Arpa Internet list ------------ ---------------- comp.dcom.modems info-modems@wsmr-simtel20.army.mil comp.emacs unix-emacs@bbn.com >comp.emacs info-gnu-emacs@prep.ai.mit.edu *comp.lang.ada info-ada@ajpo.sei.cmu.edu comp.lang.c info-c@brl.arpa >comp.lang.c++ info-g++@prep.ai.mit.edu comp.lang.modula2 info-m2@ucf1vm.bitnet *comp.lang.pascal info-pascal@brl.arpa *comp.lang.prolog prolog@score.stanford.edu comp.os.cpm info-cpm@wsmr-simtel20.army.mil comp.os.minix info-minix@udel.edu comp.protocols.kerberos kerberos@athena.mit.edu comp.protocols.nfs nfs@tmc.edu comp.sys.apple info-apple@brl.arpa comp.sys.atari.8bit info-atari8@score.stanford.edu comp.sys.atari.st info-atari16@score.stanford.edu comp.sys.misc info-micro@wsmr-simtel20.army.mil comp.sys.sun sun-spots@rice.edu comp.sys.tahoe info-tahoe@csd1.milw.wisc.edu comp.sys.xerox info-1100@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu >comp.text texhax@cs.washington.edu *comp.terminals info-terms@mc.lcs.mit.edu comp.unix.questions info-unix@brl.arpa comp.unix.wizards unix-wizards@brl.arpa comp.windows.x xpert@expo.lcs.mit.edu rec.ham-radio info-hams@wsmr-simtel20.army.mil rec.ham-radio.packet packet-radio@wsmr-simtel20.army.mil rec.music.gdead dead-flames@ms.lcs.mit.edu rec.video videotech@wsmr-simtel20.army.mil *sci.astro sky-fans@xx.lcs.mit.edu sci.physics physics@unix.sri.com *sci.space space@angband.s1.gov *talk.origins evolution@kestrel.arpa rec.equestrian horse@bbn.com *rec.ham-radio info-hams@simtel20.arpa rec.ham-radio.packet packet-radio@eddie.mit.edu rec.arts.sf-lovers sf-lovers@rutgers.edu *rec.video videotech@simtel20.arpa comp.sources.misc unix-sources@brl.arpa comp.sources.unix unix-sources@brl.arpa Please notify me of any errors or changes to this article. Gene Spafford spaf@purdue.EDU ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Newsgroup Description ---------------------------------------------------------------------- comp.ai Artificial intelligence discussions. comp.ai.shells Artificial intelligence applied to shells. (Moderated) comp.ai.digest Artificial Intelligence discussions. (Moderated) comp.ai.neural-nets All aspects of neural networks. comp.ai.nlang-know-rep Natural Language and Knowledge Representation. (Moderated) comp.arch Computer architecture. comp.archives Descriptions of public access archives. (Moderated) comp.binaries.amiga Encoded public domain programs in binary. (Moderated) comp.binaries.apple2 Binary-only postings for the Apple II computer. comp.binaries.atari.st Binary-only postings for the Atari ST. (Moderated) comp.binaries.ibm.pc Binary-only postings for IBM PC/MS-DOS. (Moderated) comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d Discussions about IBM/PC binary postings. comp.binaries.mac Encoded Macintosh programs in binary. (Moderated) comp.bugs.2bsd Reports of UNIX* version 2BSD related bugs. comp.bugs.4bsd Reports of UNIX version 4BSD related bugs. comp.bugs.4bsd.ucb-fixes Bug reports/fixes for BSD Unix. (Moderated) comp.bugs.misc General UNIX bug reports and fixes (incl V7, uucp) comp.bugs.sys5 Reports of USG (System III, V, etc.) bugs. comp.cog-eng Cognitive engineering. comp.compilers Compiler construction, theory, etc. (Moderated) comp.databases Database and data management issues and theory. comp.dcom.lans Local area network hardware and software. comp.dcom.modems Data communications hardware and software. comp.dcom.telecom Telecommunications digest. (Moderated) comp.doc Archived public-domain documentation. (Moderated) comp.doc.techreports Lists of technical reports. (Moderated) comp.edu Computer science education. comp.emacs EMACS editors of different flavors. comp.fonts Typefonts -- design, conversion, use, etc. comp.graphics Computer graphics, art, animation, image processing. comp.graphics.digest Graphics software, hardware, theory, etc. (Moderated) comp.ivideodisc Interactive videodiscs -- uses, potential, etc. comp.lang.ada Discussion about Ada*. comp.lang.apl Discussion about APL. comp.lang.c Discussion about C. comp.lang.c++ The object-oriented C++ language. comp.lang.eiffel The object-oriented Eiffel language. comp.lang.forth Discussion about Forth. comp.lang.fortran Discussion about FORTRAN. comp.lang.lisp Discussion about LISP. comp.lang.misc Different computer languages not specifically listed. comp.lang.modula2 Discussion about Modula-2. comp.lang.pascal Discussion about Pascal. comp.lang.postscript The PostScript Page Description Language. comp.lang.prolog Discussion about PROLOG. comp.lang.scheme The Scheme Programming language. comp.lang.sigplan Info & announcements from ACM SIGPLAN. (Moderated) comp.lang.smalltalk Discussion about Smalltalk 80. comp.laser-printers Laser printers, hardware & software. (Moderated) comp.lsi Large scale integrated circuits. comp.mail.elm Discussion and fixes for ELM mail system. comp.mail.headers Gatewayed from the ARPA header-people list. comp.mail.maps Various maps, including UUCP maps. (Moderated) comp.mail.mh The UCI version of the Rand Message Handling system. comp.mail.misc General discussions about computer mail. comp.mail.sendmail Configuring and using the BSD sendmail agent. comp.mail.uucp Mail in the uucp network environment. comp.misc General topics about computers not covered elsewhere. comp.newprod Announcements of new products of interest. (Moderated) comp.org.decus DEC* Users' Society newsgroup. comp.org.fidonet FidoNews digest, official news of FidoNet Assoc. (Moderated) comp.org.ieee Issues and announcements about the IEEE & its members. comp.org.usenix USENIX Association events and announcements. comp.org.usrgroup News/discussion about/from the /usr/group organization. comp.os.cpm Discussion about the CP/M operating system. comp.os.eunice The SRI Eunice system. comp.os.minix Discussion of Tanenbaum's MINIX system. comp.os.misc General OS-oriented discussion not carried elsewhere. comp.os.os9 Discussions about the os9 operating system. comp.os.research Operating systems and related areas. (Moderated) comp.os.vms DEC's VAX* line of computers & VMS. comp.os.xinu The XINU operating system from Purdue (D. Comer). comp.parallel Massively parallel hardware/software. (Moderated) comp.periphs Peripheral devices. comp.protocols.appletalk Applebus hardware & software. comp.protocols.ibm Networking with IBM mainframes. comp.protocols.iso The ISO protocol stack. comp.protocols.kerberos The Kerberos authentification server. comp.protocols.kermit Info about the Kermit package. (Moderated) comp.protocols.misc Various forms and types of FTP protocol. comp.protocols.nfs Discussion about the Network File System protocol. comp.protocols.tcp-ip TCP and IP network protocols. comp.protocols.tcp-ip.ibmpc TCP/IP for IBM(-like) personal computers. comp.risks Risks to the public from computers & users. (Moderated) comp.simulation Simulation methods, problems, uses. (Moderated) comp.society The impact of technology on society. (Moderated) comp.society.futures Events in technology affecting future computing. comp.society.women Women's roles and problems in computing (Moderated) comp.software-eng Software Engineering and related topics. comp.sources.amiga Source code-only postings for the Amiga. (Moderated) comp.sources.atari.st Source code-only postings for the Atari ST. (Moderated) comp.sources.bugs Bug reports, fixes, discussion for posted sources comp.sources.d For any discussion of source postings. comp.sources.games Postings of recreational software. (Moderated) comp.sources.games.bugs Bug reports and fixes for posted game software. comp.sources.mac Software for the Apple Macintosh. (Moderated) comp.sources.misc Posting of software . (Moderated) comp.sources.sun Software for Sun workstations. (Moderated) comp.sources.unix Postings of complete, UNIX-oriented sources. (Moderated) comp.sources.wanted Requests for software and fixes. comp.sources.x Software for the X windows system. (Moderated) comp.std.c Discussion about C language standards. comp.std.internat Discussion about international standards. comp.std.misc Discussion about various standards. comp.std.mumps Discussion for the X11.1 committee on Mumps. (Moderated) comp.std.unix Discussion for the P1003 committee on UNIX. (Moderated) comp.sys.amiga Commodore Amiga: info&uses, but no programs. comp.sys.amiga.tech Technical discussion about the Amiga. comp.sys.apollo Apollo computer systems. comp.sys.apple Discussion about Apple micros. comp.sys.atari.8bit Discussion about 8 bit Atari micros. comp.sys.atari.st Discussion about 16 bit Atari micros. comp.sys.att Discussions about AT&T microcomputers. comp.sys.cbm Discussion about Commodore micros. comp.sys.celerity Celerity Computers comp.sys.dec Discussions about DEC computer systems. comp.sys.dec.micro DEC Micros (Rainbow, Professional 350/380) comp.sys.encore Encore's MultiMax computers. comp.sys.hp Discussion about Hewlett-Packard equipment. comp.sys.ibm.pc Discussion about IBM personal computers. comp.sys.ibm.pc.digest The IBM PC, PC-XT, and PC-AT. (Moderated) comp.sys.ibm.pc.rt Topics related to IBM's RT computer. comp.sys.intel Discussions about Intel systems and parts. comp.sys.m6809 Discussion about 6809's. comp.sys.m68k Discussion about 68k's. comp.sys.m68k.pc Discussion about 68k-based PCs. (Moderated) comp.sys.mac Discussions about the Apple Macintosh & Lisa. comp.sys.mac.digest Apple Macintosh: info&uses, but no programs. (Moderated) comp.sys.mac.hypercard The Macintosh Hypercard: info & uses. comp.sys.mac.programmer Discussion by people programming the Apple Macintosh. comp.sys.masscomp The Masscomp line of computers. (Moderated) comp.sys.misc Discussion about computers of all kinds. comp.sys.next Discussion about the new NeXT computer. comp.sys.nsc.32k National Semiconductor 32000 series chips. comp.sys.proteon Proteon gateway products. comp.sys.pyramid Pyramid 90x computers. comp.sys.ridge Ridge 32 computers and ROS. comp.sys.sequent Sequent systems, (Balance and Symmetry). comp.sys.sgi Silicon Graphics's Iris workstations and software. comp.sys.sun Sun "workstation" computers. (Moderated) comp.sys.tahoe CCI 6/32, Harris HCX/7, & Sperry 7000 computers. comp.sys.tandy Discussion about TRS-80's. comp.sys.ti Discussion about Texas Instruments. comp.sys.transputer The Transputer computer and OCCAM language. comp.sys.workstations Various workstation-type computers. (Moderated) comp.sys.xerox Xerox 1100 workstations and protocols. comp.sys.zenith.z100 The Zenith Z-100 (Heath H-100) family of computers. comp.terminals All sorts of terminals. comp.text Text processing issues and methods. comp.text.desktop Technology & techniques of desktop publishing. comp.theory.info-retrieval Information Retrieval topics. (Moderated) comp.unix Discussion of UNIX* features and bugs. (Moderated) comp.unix.aux The version of UNIX for Apple Macintosh II computers. comp.unix.i386 Versions of Unix running on Intel 80386-based boxes. comp.unix.microport Discussion of Microport's UNIX. comp.unix.questions UNIX neophytes group. comp.unix.ultrix Discussions about DEC's Ultrix. comp.unix.wizards Discussions, bug reports, and fixes on and for UNIX. comp.unix.xenix Discussion about the Xenix OS. comp.windows.misc Various issues about windowing systems. comp.windows.ms Window systems under MS/DOS. comp.windows.news Sun Microsystems' NewS window system. comp.windows.x Discussion about the X Window System. misc.consumers Consumer interests, product reviews, etc. misc.consumers.house Discussion about owning and maintaining a house. misc.forsale Short, tasteful postings about items for sale. misc.handicap Items of interest for/about the handicapped. (Moderated) misc.headlines Current interest: drug testing, terrorism, etc. misc.invest Investments and the handling of money. misc.jobs.misc Discussion about employment, workplaces, careers. misc.jobs.offered Announcements of positions available. misc.jobs.resumes Postings of resumes and "situation wanted" articles. misc.kids Children, their behavior and activities. misc.legal Legalities and the ethics of law. misc.misc Various discussions not fitting in any other group. misc.security Security in general, not just computers. (Moderated) misc.taxes Tax laws and advice. misc.test For testing of network software. Very boring. misc.wanted Requests for things that are needed (NOT software). news.admin Comments directed to news administrators. news.announce.conferences Calls for papers and conference announcements. (Moderated) news.announce.important General announcements of interest to all. (Moderated) news.announce.newusers Explanatory postings for new users. (Moderated) news.config Postings of system down times and interruptions. news.groups Discussions and lists of newsgroups. news.lists News-related statistics and lists. (Moderated) news.misc Discussions of USENET itself. news.newsites Postings of new site announcements. news.software.b Discussion about B-news-compatible software. news.software.notes Notesfile software from the Univ. of Illinois. news.sysadmin Comments directed to system administrators. rec.arts.anime Japanese animation fen discussion. rec.arts.books Books of all genres, and the publishing industry. rec.arts.comics Comic books and strips, graphic novels, sequential art. rec.arts.drwho Discussion about Dr. Who. rec.arts.int-fiction Discussions about interactive fiction. rec.arts.misc Discussions about the arts not in other groups. rec.arts.movies Discussions of movies and movie making. rec.arts.movies.reviews Reviews of movies. (Moderated) rec.arts.poems For the posting of poems. rec.arts.sf-lovers Science fiction lovers' newsgroup. rec.arts.startrek Star Trek, the TV shows and the movies. rec.arts.tv The boob tube, its history, and past and current shows. rec.arts.tv.soaps Postings about soap operas. rec.arts.wobegon "A Prairie Home Companion" radio show discussion. rec.audio High fidelity audio. rec.autos Automobiles, automotive products and laws. rec.autos.sport Discussion of organized, legal auto competitions. rec.autos.tech Technical aspects of automobiles, et. al. rec.aviation Aviation rules, means, and methods. rec.backcountry Activities in the Great Outdoors. rec.bicycles Bicycles, related products and laws. rec.birds Hobbyists interested in bird watching. rec.boats Hobbyists interested in boating. rec.equestrian Discussion of things equestrian. rec.folk-dancing Folk dances, dancers, and dancing. rec.food.cooking Food, cooking, cookbooks, and recipes. rec.food.drink Wines and spirits. rec.food.veg Vegetarians. rec.games.board Discussion and hints on board games. rec.games.bridge Hobbyists interested in bridge. rec.games.chess Chess & computer chess. rec.games.empire Discussion and hints about Empire. rec.games.frp Discussion about Fantasy Role Playing games. rec.games.go Discussion about Go. rec.games.hack Discussion, hints, etc. about the Hack game. rec.games.misc Games and computer games. rec.games.moria Comments, hints, and info about the Moria game. rec.games.pbm Discussion about Play by Mail games. rec.games.programmer Discussion of adventure game programming. rec.games.rogue Discussion and hints about Rogue. rec.games.trivia Discussion about trivia. rec.games.video Discussion about video games. rec.gardens Gardening, methods and results. rec.guns Discussions about firearms. (Moderated) rec.ham-radio Amateur Radio practices, contests, events, rules, etc. rec.ham-radio.packet Discussion about packet radio setups. rec.ham-radio.swap Offers to trade and swap radio equipment. rec.humor Jokes and the like. May be somewhat offensive. rec.humor.d Discussions on the content of rec.humor articles. rec.humor.funny Jokes that are funny (in the moderator's opinion). (Moderated) rec.mag Magazine summaries, tables of contents, etc. rec.mag.otherrealms Edited science fiction & fantasy "magazine". (Moderated) rec.misc General topics about recreational/participant sports. rec.models.rc Radio-controlled models for hobbyists. rec.motorcycles Motorcycles and related products and laws. rec.music.beatles Postings about the Fab Four & their music. rec.music.bluenote Discussion of jazz, blues, and related types of music. rec.music.cd CDs -- availability and other discussions. rec.music.classical Discussion about classical music. rec.music.dementia Discussion of comedy and novelty music. rec.music.folk Folks discussing folk music of various sorts. rec.music.gaffa Progressive music (e.g., Kate Bush). (Moderated) rec.music.gdead A group for (Grateful) Dead-heads. rec.music.makers For performers and their discussions. rec.music.misc Music lovers' group. rec.music.synth Synthesizers and computer music. rec.nude Hobbyists interested in naturist/nudist activities. rec.pets Pets, pet care, and household animals in general. rec.photo Hobbyists interested in photography. rec.puzzles Puzzles, problems, and quizzes. rec.railroad Real and model train fans' newsgroup. rec.scuba Hobbyists interested in SCUBA diving. rec.skiing Hobbyists interested in skiing. rec.skydiving Hobbyists interested in skydiving. rec.sport.baseball Discussion about baseball. rec.sport.basketball Discussion about basketball. rec.sport.football Discussion about football. rec.sport.hockey Discussion about hockey. rec.sport.misc Spectator sports. rec.travel Traveling all over the world. rec.video Video and video components. rec.woodworking Hobbyists interested in woodworking. sci.astro Astronomy discussions and information. sci.bio Biology and related sciences. sci.chem Chemistry and related sciences. sci.crypt Different methods of data en/decryption. sci.edu Science education. sci.electronics Circuits, theory, electrons and discussions. sci.environment Discussions about the environment and ecology. sci.lang Natural languages, communication, etc. sci.lang.japan The Japanese language, both spoken and written. sci.logic Logic -- math, philosophy & computational aspects. sci.math Mathematical discussions and pursuits. sci.math.stat Statistics discussion. sci.math.symbolic Symbolic algebra discussion. sci.med Medicine and its related products and regulations. sci.med.aids AIDS: treatment, pathology/biology of HIV, prevention. (Moderated) sci.military Discussion about science & the military. (Moderated) sci.misc Short-lived discussions on subjects in the sciences. sci.nanotech Self-reproducing molecular-scale machines. (Moderated) sci.philosophy.tech Technical philosophy: math, science, logic, etc. sci.physics Physical laws, properties, etc. sci.psychology Topics related to psychology. sci.research Research methods, funding, ethics, and whatever. sci.space Space, space programs, space related research, etc. sci.space.shuttle The space shuttle and the STS program. soc.college College, college activities, campus life, etc. soc.couples Discussions for couples (cf. soc.singles). soc.culture.african Discussions about Africa & things African. soc.culture.arabic Technological & cultural issues, *not* politics. soc.culture.china About China and Chinese culture. soc.culture.celtic Group about Celts (*not* basketball!). soc.culture.greek Group about Greeks. soc.culture.indian Group for discussion about India & things Indian. soc.culture.japan Everything Japanese, except the Japanese language. soc.culture.jewish Jewish culture & religion. (cf. talk.politics.mideast) soc.culture.misc Group for discussion about other cultures. soc.culture.turkish Discussion about things Turkish. soc.human-nets Computer aided communications digest. (Moderated) soc.men Issues related to men, their problems & relationships. soc.misc Socially-oriented topics not in other groups. soc.motss Issues pertaining to homosexuality. soc.net-people Announcements, requests, etc. about people on the net. soc.politics Political problems, systems, solutions. (Moderated) soc.politics.arms-d Arms discussion digest. (Moderated) soc.religion.christian Christianity and related topics. (Moderated) soc.roots Genealogical matters. soc.singles Newsgroup for single people, their activities, etc. soc.women Issues related to women, their problems & relationships. talk.abortion All sorts of discussions and arguments on abortion. talk.bizarre The unusual, bizarre, curious, and often stupid. talk.origins Evolution versus creationism (sometimes hot!). talk.philosophy.misc Philosophical musings on all topics. talk.politics.guns The politics of firearm ownership and (mis)use. talk.politics.mideast Discussion & debate over Middle Eastern events. talk.politics.misc Political discussions and ravings of all kinds. talk.politics.soviet Discussion of Soviet politics, domestic and foreign. talk.politics.theory Theory of politics and political systems. talk.religion.misc Religious, ethical, & moral implications. talk.religion.newage Esoteric and minority religions & philosophies. talk.rumors For the posting of rumors. -------------------- * UNIX is a registered Trademark of AT&T. * DEC and Ultrix are Trademarks of the Digital Equipment Corporation. * VAX is a Trademark of the Digital Equipment Corporation. * Ada is a registered Trademark of the Ada Joint Program Office of the United States Department of Defense. -- Gene Spafford NSF/Purdue/U of Florida Software Engineering Research Center, Dept. of Computer Sciences, Purdue University, W. Lafayette IN 47907-2004 Internet: spaf@cs.purdue.edu uucp: ...!{decwrl,gatech,ucbvax}!purdue!spaf From ames!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!bu-cs!purdue!spaf Thu Apr 13 15:07:05 PDT 1989 Article 390 of news.announce.newusers: Relay-Version: version B 2.10.3 4.3bsd-beta 6/6/85; site scubed.UUCP Path: scubed!ames!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!bu-cs!purdue!spaf >From: spaf@cs.purdue.EDU (Gene Spafford) Newsgroups: news.lists,news.groups,news.announce.newusers Subject: Alternative Newsgroup Hierarchies (Updated: 7 April 1989) Message-ID: <6482@medusa.cs.purdue.edu> Date: 8 Apr 89 21:50:12 GMT Date-Received: 9 Apr 89 03:14:46 GMT Expires: 7 Jul 89 21:50:11 GMT Followup-To: news.lists Organization: Dept. of Computer Sciences, Purdue Univ. Lines: 303 Summary: describes the following alternate hierarchies: alt, bionet, biz, gnu, inet/ddn, pubnet, unix-pc, u3b Approved: spaf@cs.purdue.EDU Xref: scubed news.lists:768 news.groups:9016 news.announce.newusers:390 Supersedes: <6190@medusa.cs.purdue.edu> Original-from: hoptoad!gnu (John Gilmore) and spaf@purdue.edu (Gene Spafford) [Most recent change: 7 April 1989 by Gene Spafford ] Introduction ------------ The Usenet software allows the support and transport of hierarchies of newsgroups not part of the "traditional" Usenet through use of the distribution mechanism. These hierarchies of groups are available to sites wishing to support them and finding a feed. In general, these groups are not carried by the entire network due to their volume, a restricted sphere of interest, or a different set of administrative rules and concerns. In general it is a bad idea to forward these newsgroups to your neighbors without asking them first; they should only be received at a site by choice. Not only is this generally-accepted net etiquette, it helps to preserve the freedom to do and say as the posters please in these newsgroups, since the only people who get them are those who asked to get them. This freedom is more restricted in the Usenet as a whole, since every mainstream posting and every mainstream newsgroup name must be acceptable to a much wider audience than is present in these hierarchies. Due to the sheer size of the mainstream Usenet, extra-long or controversial postings are more likely to cause problems when posted to the Usenet; however, these alternative hierarchies exist precisely to support those kinds of postings (if germane to the hierarchy). Usually, there is is no restriction on getting these groups as long as you have the capacity to receive, store, and forward the groups; 2.10.3 or 2.11 news is required to make the distribution mechanism work properly for these groups. How to join each distribution is described below. Note that the "uunet" service carries all of these hierarchies. Contact uunet!uunet-request for subscription details. Also note -- the lists in this article are totally unofficial and possibly incomplete or inaccurate. I try to keep the lists up-to-date, but make no guarantee that any of the information contained corresponds with the named groups in any significant way. Corrections and comments should be mailed directly to me. Alt --- "alt" is a small collection of newsgroups which are being distributed by a collection of sites that choose to carry them. Many Usenet sites are not interested in these groups. Here is a recent list of the 'alt" newsgroups: alt.activism Activities for activists. alt.aquaria The aquarium & related as a hobby. alt.bbs Computer BBS systems & software. alt.california Discussion of the state and the state of mind. alt.co-ops Discussion about co-operatives. alt.config Alternative subnet discussions and connectivity. alt.cult-movies Movies with a cult following (e.g., Rocky Horror PS) alt.cyberpunk High-tech low-life. alt.dev.null The ultimate in moderated newsgroups. (Moderated) alt.drugs Recreational pharmaceuticals and related flames. alt.emusic Exotic music discussions. alt.fax Faxing documents -- protocols, equipment, etc. alt.fishing Fishing as a hobby and sport. alt.flame Alternative, literate, pithy, succinct screaming. alt.gourmand Recipes & cooking info. (Moderated) alt.great-lakes Discussions of the Great Lakes and adjacent places. alt.hypertext Discussion of hypertext -- uses, transport, etc. alt.individualism Philosophies where individual rights are paramount. alt.postmodern Postmodernism, semiotics, deconstruction, and the like. alt.prose Postings of original writings, fictional & otherwise. alt.prose.d Discussions about postings in alt.prose. alt.recovery 12-step groups (such as AA, ACA, GA, etc) alt.rhode_island Discussion of the great little state. alt.rissa: For discussing the one and only rissa alt.rmgroup: For the people who like to rmgroup/newgroup things alt.rock-n-roll Counterpart to alt.sex and alt.drugs.... alt.sca Society for Creative Anachronism alt.sex Postings of a prurient nature. alt.slack Posting relating to the Church of the Subgenius. alt.sources Alternative source code, unmoderated. Caveat Emptor. alt.sources.amiga Technically-oriented Amiga PC sources. (Moderated) alt.test Alternative subnetwork testing. alt.weemba Talk & flames about the one & only Weemba. Submissions to the moderated alt.gourmand group should be mailed to recipes@decwrl.dec.com (Brian Reid). Submissions to the moderated Amiga sources group should be mailed to amiga-sources@sugar.uu.net You can join the "alt subnet" by finding a site in your area that carries the groups. Either send mail to the administrators of the sites you connect to, or post something to a local "general" or "wanted" newsgroup for your area . If no sites nearby are getting them, you can get them from uunet. Bionet ------ There is a newsgroup hierarchy for topics interesting to biologists called "bionet" originating from NET.BIO.NET and carried on a growing number of machines including rutgers, phri, mit-eddie, ukma, and all of the machines at UCSD. Contact Eliot Lear for more details. The current newsgroup list looks like this: bionet.general General BIONET announcements. bionet.jobs Scientific Job opportunities. bionet.molbio.ageing Cellular and organismal ageing. bionet.molbio.bio-matrix Computer applications to biological databases. bionet.molbio.embldatabank Info about the EMBL Nucleic acid database. bionet.molbio.evolution How genes and proteins have evolved. bionet.molbio.genbank Info about the GenBank Nucleic acid database. bionet.molbio.gene-express How genes are regulated in cells. bionet.molbio.gene-org How genes are organized on chromosomes. bionet.molbio.methds-reagnts Requests for information and lab reagents. bionet.molbio.news Research news of interest to the community. bionet.molbio.oncogenes Genes that cause cancer. bionet.molbio.pir The PIR protein sequencing database. bionet.molbio.plant Molecular biology of plants. bionet.molbio.proteins Research on proteins and protein databases. bionet.molbio.swiss-prot Discussions on the Swiss Protein database. bionet.molbio.yeast Molecular biology of yeast. bionet.population-bio ?? bionet.sci-resources Info on funding agencies & programs. bionet.software General discussion of software for BIONET. bionet.software.contrib Info on programs contributed to BIONET. bionet.software.pc Info on PC software for scientists. bionet.software.pc.comm Info on PC communications software. bionet.technology.conversion Info on biomass and waste treatment. Biz --- "Biz" is a distribution of newsgroups that are carried and propagated by sites interested in the world of business products around them -- in particular, computer products and services. This includes product announcements, announcements of fixes and enhancements, product reviews, and postings of demo software. Current biz groups include: biz.config biz.control biz.newgroup biz.test biz.comp.hardware biz.comp.software biz.comp.software.demos biz.comp.services biz.comp.telebit biz.comp.mcs Feeds can be obtained from ddsw1, spl1, and telly.on.ca among others. GNU --- "gnu.all" is a set of newsgroups that are gated bi-directionally with the DoD/NSF Internet mailing lists concerned with the GNU Project of the Free Software Foundation. GNU (GNU's Not Unix) will be a complete operating system with freely redistributable source code. The GNU Project is led by Richard Stallman. Current groups include: Newsgroup Description --------- ----------- gnu.announce Status and announcements from the Project. (Moderated) gnu.config GNU's Not Usenet administration and configuration gnu.test GNU's Not Usenet alternative sub-network testing gnu.emacs Editor/development environment and occasional sources gnu.emacs.bug GNU Emacs bug reports and suggested fixes gnu.emacs.gnus News reading under GNU Emacs using GNUS (in English). gnu.emacs.vms Discussion of the VMS port of GNU Emacs gnu.emacs.lisp.manual Working group on the GNU Emacs LISP Programmer's Manual gnu.gdb.bug GNU DeBugger bug reports and suggested fixes gnu.gcc Discussion of the GNU C Compiler gnu.gcc.bug GNU C Compiler bug reports and suggested fixes. gnu.ghostscript.bug GNU Ghostscript interpreter bugs. gnu.g++ Discussion of the GNU C++ Compiler and GDB+ Debugger. gnu.g++.bug G++ and GDB+ bug reports and suggested fixes. gnu.g++.lib.bug G++ library bug reports and suggested fixes. gnu.chess Discussion of the GNU Chess program gnu.utils.bug Bugs in GNU utility programs (e.g., gnumake) Usenet sites carrying the gnu.all newsgroups include bloom-beacon.mit.edu, bu-cs.bu.edu, decwrl.dec.com, cs.utexas.edu, mailrus.cc.umich.edu, mandrill.ces.cwru.edu, osu-cis, cs.purdue.edu, rutgers.edu, telly.on.ca, tut.cis.ohio-state.edu, uccba.uc.edu, and uunet.uu.net, and many more. Ask usenet@any of these sites for a feed, or send mail to gnu.config@cis.ohio-state.edu to find someone who can offer them you. Questions about GNU can be directed to gnu@prep.ai.mit.edu or: Free Software Foundation, Inc. 675 Mass Ave Cambridge, MA 02139 USA +1 (617) 876-3296 Inet/DDN -------- Another alternative hierarchy is the "inet/ddn" distribution. This consists of many newsgroups bearing names similar to traditional Usenet groups and corresponding to Arpa discussion lists. These groups are circulated using the NNTP transport mechanism amongst sites on the Internet in an attempt to reduce the number of copies of these groups flowing through the mail (some sites get these groups via UUCP and other tranpost mechanisms, but the volume can be substantial and load may be significant without a high-speed link). Further details may be obtained by writing to Erik Fair (fair@ucbarpa.berkeley.edu). Current inet groups are: comp.ai.edu Applications of Artificial Intelligence to Education. comp.ai.vision Artifical Intelligence Vision Research. (Moderated) comp.dcom.lans.hyperchannel Hyperchannel networks within an IP network. comp.dcom.lans.v2lni Proteon Pronet/V2LNI Ring networks. comp.editors Topics related to computerized text editing. comp.edu.composition Writing instruction in computer-based classrooms. comp.lang.asm370 Programming in IBM System/370 Assembly Language. comp.lang.clu The CLU language & related topics. (Moderated) comp.lang.forth.mac The CSI MacForth programming environment. comp.lang.icon Topics related to the ICON programming language. comp.lang.idl IBL (Interface Description Language) related topics. comp.lang.lisp.franz The Franz Lisp programming language. comp.lang.lisp.x The XLISP language system. comp.lang.rexx The REXX command langauge. comp.lang.scheme.c The Scheme language environment. comp.lang.visual Visual programming languages. comp.lsi.cad Electrical Computer Aided Design. comp.mail.multi-media Multimedia Mail. comp.music Applications of computers in music research. comp.os.aos Topics related to Data General's AOS/VS. comp.os.cpm.amethyst Discussion of Amethyst, CP/M-80 software package. comp.os.rsts Topics related to the PDP-11 RSTS/E operating system. comp.os.v The V distributed operating system from Stanford. comp.periphs.printers Information on printers. comp.protocols.iso.dev-environ The ISO Development Environment. comp.protocols.iso.x400 X400 mail protocol discussions. (Moderated) comp.protocols.iso.x400.gateway X400 mail gateway discussions. (Moderated) comp.protocols.pcnet Topics related to PCNET (a personal computer network). comp.protocols.pup The Xerox PUP network protocols. comp.protocols.tcp-ip.domains Topics related to Domain Style names. comp.soft-sys.andrew The Andrew software system from CMU. comp.sys.cdc Control Data Corporation Computers (e.g., Cybers). comp.sys.handhelds Handheld computers and programmable calculators. comp.sys.intel.ipsc310 Anything related to Xenix on an Intel 310. comp.sys.northstar Northstar microcomputer users. comp.sys.super Supercomputers. comp.sys.ti.explorer The Texas Instruments Explorer. comp.sys.zenith Heath terminals and related Zenith products. comp.terminals.bitgraph The BB&N BitGraph Terminal. comp.terminals.tty5620 AT&T Dot Mapped Display Terminals (5620 and BLIT). comp.theory Theoretical Computer Science. comp.theory.cell-automata Discussion of all aspects of cellular automata. comp.theory.dynamic-sys Ergodic Theory and Dynamical Systems. comp.theory.self-org-sys Topics related to self-organization. comp.unix.cray Cray computers and their operating systems. news.software.nntp The Network News Transfer Protocol. rec.games.vectrex The Vectrex game system. rec.mag.fsfnet A Science Fiction "fanzine." (Moderated) sci.bio.technology Any topic relating to biotechnology. sci.math.num-analysis Numerical Analysis. sci.philosophy.meta Discussions within the scope of "MetaPhilosophy." soc.culture.esperanto The neutral international language Esperanto. Pubnet ------ The "pubnet" distribution is for public-access systems and was originated by Bill Wisner. Current groups include: pubnet.config Pubnet connectivity discussions. pubnet.nixpub The "nixpub" list of public access UNIXes. pubnet.sources Software of interest to BBS users and sysops. pubnet.talk Miscellaneous BBS talk. pubnet.test Pubnet subnet testing. pubnet.wanted "Wanted" messages with a limited audience. pubnet.sysops Discussions between sysops of BBS systems. Currently, the following sites receive the group, and the system admins there can be contacted for more info or to establish a feed: chinet, dasys1, ddsw1, gryphon, icus, igloo, killer, ncoast, netsys, qetzal, telly, mit-eddie and tapa. Unix-PC ------- Another such hierarchy is the "unix-pc" distribution. This consists of groups devoted to users of the AT&T Unix-PC. These groups were originated as a mailing list started by three owners of AT&T Unix PCs: Gary Smith, David Dalton and Kathy Vincent. As the list expanded, it turned into a newsgroup hierarchy, and more and more sites began to carry the groups; hundreds of sites now carry these groups. To recieve them, you need to contact a site already getting them; att, gatech, mit-eddie, psuvax1, ucsd and ukma are well-known sites getting these groups and the admins there may be willing to help find a feed should you desire (and ask nicely); uunet also carries these groups. The unix-pc groups circulated include: unix-pc.bugs Bug reports, fixes & workarounds. unix-pc.general General information and discussion. unix-pc.sources Source code to various programs. unix-pc.uucp Configuration and management of uucp on Unix-PCs. unix-pc.test Test group. U3B --- Groups dealing with AT&T 3B{2,5,15,20,4000} computers -- everything except for the UNIX PC/3B1. Both uunet and ames carry these groups. u3b.config 3B Distribution configuration u3b.misc 3B Miscellaneous Discussions u3b.tech 3B Technical Discussions u3b.test 3B Distribution Testing -- Gene Spafford NSF/Purdue/U of Florida Software Engineering Research Center, Dept. of Computer Sciences, Purdue University, W. Lafayette IN 47907-2004 Internet: spaf@cs.purdue.edu uucp: ...!{decwrl,gatech,ucbvax}!purdue!spaf From ames!ncar!husc6!purdue!spaf Thu Apr 13 15:06:14 PDT 1989 Article 393 of news.announce.newusers: Relay-Version: version B 2.10.3 4.3bsd-beta 6/6/85; site scubed.UUCP Path: scubed!ames!ncar!husc6!purdue!spaf >From: spaf@cs.purdue.EDU (Gene Spafford) Newsgroups: news.lists,news.announce.newusers Subject: Publicly Accessible Mailing Lists (Updated: 7 April 1989) Message-ID: <6486@medusa.cs.purdue.edu> Date: 8 Apr 89 21:50:45 GMT Date-Received: 9 Apr 89 03:21:07 GMT Expires: 7 Jul 89 21:50:43 GMT Followup-To: news.lists Organization: Dept. of Computer Sciences, Purdue Univ. Lines: 1313 Approved: spaf@cs.purdue.EDU Xref: scubed news.lists:772 news.announce.newusers:393 Supersedes: <6194@medusa.cs.purdue.edu> Original-from: chuq@apple.COM (Chuq Von Rospach) [Most recent change: 7 April 1989 by Gene Spafford ] This is a list of mailing lists available primarily on the UUCP network. A mailing list is different from a newsgroup because you do not receive anything unless you specifically request it. To be added to a mailing list, please mail a note to the contact for that list, listed below. Some of the lists mentioned may be available as limited-distribution newsgroups. Contact the administrator for exact details. Please note the following caveats: publication of a list here does not guarantee that you will be allowed to join as a member. That is up to the moderator and readers, and they have the right to restrict access to their list as they see fit. Mailing lists use MUCH less system overhead on a world-wide basis but do tend to increase loading on the moderators' machines so the number of people that can be added to a list may be limited by machine resources as well. If you have a list that you want added to this posting or are interested in starting a list but don't know how, drop me a note at spaf@purdue.edu Groups listed in this posting 12step game-design newlists 386users gnu-manual NFS adndlist Gouldbugs objc aiuan handicap objectivism algeria-net hang-gliding ocean.policy alternates herpetology ODA amiga-forth homebrew offroad AmigaUUCP horse origami animal-rights impulse OtherRealms anime info-386ix pdp8-lovers argproc info-3b2 pipes att-pc+ info-aids posix-ada auto-sports info-altos pro-video backstreets info-encore rc-flying big-DB info-futures reflections british-cars info-gnu sappho cavers info-high-audio sca CD-forum info-tahoe scribe chem-talk interleaf security christian isi silicon-compilers C-IBM-370 islam sil-info cisco iti151 space-activists climbing its-a-crime supercomputers clu jazz sysops CoCo jewish t3 compress killifish tandy4k comp-visualization kites tartan-c cryonics lang-lucid transputer CTIX-users lasnet traveller drwho-spoilers lds ucsd-empire eastenders Linda Unisys eclipse Logo UNITEX EMS MacMASH unix-pc-net ensembles Mactivists usml esperanto MacWorkers VMEbus feminists martial-arts war-worlds ferrets meditators whitewater Fiction-Writers medphys wildnet fire men worldcup firearms military x-ada f-mac mtxinu-users Yiddish folk-dancing musicals z-cars funky-music mustangs zilog Specific Information on Groups 12step Contact {decvax,ucbvax,sdcrdcf}!trwrb!suhre (Maurice Suhre) Purpose: To discuss/share experiences about 12 step programs such as Alcoholics Anonymous, Overeaters Anonymous, Alanon, ACA, etc. Questions will also be answered. 386users Contact: 386users-request@udel.edu (William Davidsen, Jr.) Purpose: Topics are 80386 based computers, and all hardware and software which is either 386 specific or which has special interest on the 386. adndlist Contact: ...!osu-cis!musky2!arequest Purpose: This list is for Advanced Dungeons and Dragons gamers to discuss their ideas and creations for the game. New material for the game will also appear here. aiuan Contact: aiuan-request@hombre.MASA.COM -or- rutgers!hombre!aiuan-request (Kevin Axelson) Purpose: Amnesty International "Urgent Action" letterwriting actions to protect victims of dire human rights abuse worldwide. *Distribution limited to USA* algeria-net Contact: bouguett@boulder.colorado.edu (Athman Bouguettaya) Purpose: a forum for discussion about political, cultural aspects of Algerian society. alternates Contact: alternates-request%ncube@nosun.sun.com (Hank Buurman) Purpose: Mail.alternates is a mail list for people who advocate, and/or practice an open sexual lifestyle. Its members are primarily bisexual men and women, and their SO's. Mail.alternates is intended as a forum, and support group for adult men and women who espouse their freedom of choice and imagination in human sexual relations. Those who are offended by frank, and uninhibited discussions relating to sexual issues should not subscribe. amiga-forth Contact: amiga-forth-request@cs.utah.edu (Richard A. Thomson) Purpose: This mailing list consists of information by FORTH programmers targeted towards other FORTH programmers. The idea is to foster understanding of FORTH code by sharing examples and insights. The list concentrates on applications written for the Amiga computer, but generic FORTH programmers are welcome. The list is moderated and archives are available by anonymous ftp to cs.utah.edu. AmigaUUCP Contact: AmigaUUCP-request@panchax.gryphon.com Purpose: This list is for people using and working on the Loftus/Schein UUCP project. animal-rights Contact: animal-rights-request@cs.odu.edu (Chip Roberson) Purpose: An unmoderated list for the discussion of Animal Rights. Peter Singer's book "Animal Liberation" proposes a "New Ethics for our Treatment of Animals" and many activist groups, such as PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), regard this as the "Bible of the Animal Rights movement". Consumers and researches alike are facing new questions concerning the human animals' treatment of the rest of the animal kingdom. The purpose of this list is to provide students, researchers, and activists, a forum for discussing issues like: Animal Rights Animal Liberation Consumer Product Testing Cruelty-free products Vivasection/Dissection Medical Testing Animals in Laboratories Research using Animals Hunting/Trapping/Fishing Animals in Entertainment Factory Farming Fur Ecology Environmental Protection Vegetarianism Vegan lifestyles Christian Perspectives anime Contact: pyramid!sdeggo!anime.req (David Smith) Purpose: To provide information exchange for Japanese animation fen. argproc Contact: rochester!srs!argproc-request (Dan Kegel) Purpose: discussion about command-line processors like getopt(). att-pc+ Contact: bill@ssbn.wlk.com --or-- ...!{killer,att,daver,netsys}!ssbn!bill (Bill Kennedy) Purpose: For people interested in the AT&T PC 63xx series of systems. Sub-lists are maintained for MS-DOS-only and UNIX-386-only mailings as well as the full list for items of general interest. The UNIX-386 sub-list is gatewayed to the BITNET mailing list for AT&T 6386 and the BITNET list forwards to this one. Membership must be requested and mail path verification is required before membership is granted. auto-sports Contact: ...!{uunet,rochester,philabs}!steinmetz!auto-sports-request auto-sports-request%steinmetz@ge-crd.arpa (Richard Welty) *** Currently inactive **** Purpose: This list is an unmoderated mailing list for discussion of any and all aspects of auto sports -- Race, Rally, or Autocross. The list is intended to reach spectators, workers, and contestants. backstreets Contact: backstreets-request@virginia.edu (Marc Rouleau) Purpose: Our purpose is to discuss any and all issues likely to be of interest to people who enjoy Bruce Springsteen's music. big-DB Contact: big-DB@sphinx.uchicago.EDU (Fareed Asad-Harooni) Purpose: Discussions pertaining to large data bases (generally greater than 1 million records) and large data base management systems such as IMS, DB2, and CCA's Model/204. Anyone having interests in large data base issues is welcome. british-cars Contact: ...!{linus,mit-eddie}!alliant!british-cars-request -or- british-cars-request@alliant.alliant.com (Dale C. Cook) Purpose: To discuss any and all aspects of owning, showing, repairing, driving, etc. British automobiles. cavers Contact: cavers-request@m2c.org -or- harvard!m2c!cavers-request (John D. Sutter) Purpose: Information resource and forum for all interested in exploring caves. To join, send a note to the above address including your geographical location as well as e-mail address; details of caving experience and locations where you've caved; NSS number if you have one; and any other information that might be useful. CD-Forum Contact: ...!{ctvax!pollux,smu,texsun}!killer!dcj (Denise Jacob) Purpose: CD-Forum is a mail list for people involved in Cross- Dressing. It is intended as a forum, information network, and support group for men and women who are affected to any degree by gender dysphoria, either directly or indirectly. This includes transvestites, transsexuals, transgenderists, or anywhere in between. Friends and supportive others are also encouraged to join. Chem-talk Contact: Dr. Manus Monroe, Chemistry Department, Marin Community College ...!{ames,cbosgd}!pacbell!unicom!manus Purpose: As chemists, dialogue and conversation with other scientists are essential to stimulating or provoking new ideas. As teachers and researchers, we can find the demands of our profession extensive, which may lead to a reduction in our ability to keep abreast of new data and changes in theories. Sometimes, conversation helps to clarify articles, illuminate new perceptions of theories, and sustain us through our precarious journey in chemistry. A solution to this problem or concern is the creation of efficient communication network using this mailing list. christian Contact: ames!elroy!grian!mailjc-request mailjc-request@grian.cps.altadena.ca.us Purpose: To provide a non-hostile environment for discussion among christians. Non-christians may join the list and "listen-in", but full blown debates between Christians and non-Christians are best carried out in talk.religion.misc or soc.religion.christian. C-IBM-370 Contact: {spsd,zardoz,felix,elroy}!dhw68k!C-IBM-370-request C-IBM-370-request@dhw68k.cts.com (David Wolfskill) Purpose: The C on IBM mainframes mailing list is a place to discuss aspects of using the C programming language on s/370-architecture computers -- especially under IBM's operating systems for that environment. cisco Contact: cisco-request@spot.colorado.edu (David Wood) Purpose: This list is for discussion of the network products from Cisco Systems, Inc; primarily the AGS gateway, but also the ASM terminal multiplexor and any other relevant products. Discussions about operation, problems, features, topology, configuration, protocols, routing, loading, serving, etc are all encouraged. Other topics include vendor relations, new product announcements, availability of fixes and new features, and discussion of new requirements and desirables. climbing Contact: {ames,rutgers}!cit-vax!climbing-request climbing-request@cit-vax.arpa (Fritz Nordby) Purpose: The climber's mailing list is intended as a forum on all sorts topics in climbing, from ethics to equipment, from ice climbing to rock climbing to mountaineering. Beginners may listen in; HOWEVER this is *NOT* a place to learn about climbing -- that is the province of a climbing school. clu Contact: clu-sw-request@cs.utu.fi -or- mcvax!tucos!clu-sw-request (Matti Jokinen) Purpose: Exchange of CLU software and technical discussion of related topics. CoCo Contact: ewtileni@pucc.princeton.edu (Eric Tilenius) Purpose: Discussion related to the Tandy Color Computer (any model), OS-9 Operating System, and any other topics relating to the "CoCo", as this computer is affectionately known. Anyone wishing to be on the list should send me mail. UUCP users, PLEASE NOTE: I need a nearby ARPA or BITNET node to get things through to you reliably, so please send me a path in the form: zeus!yourcomp!yourid@sun.COM compress Contact: {decvax,ucbvax}!vax135!petsd!joe Purpose: discussions about file compression, especially Lempel-Ziv algorithms. comp-visualization Contact: comp-vis-request@cs.utah.edu (Rich Thomson) Purpose: This mailing list is intended to be a forum for discussion of computer visualization. "Computer visualization" refers to the related topics of graphical program interfaces, simulation, image processing and computer graphics with a dash of hypermedia and artificial intelligence thrown in. The group discusses any and or all topics related to computer visualization and its application to problems in the sciences. cryonics Contact: ...{att,clyde,cuae2}!ho4cad!kqb (Kevin Q. Brown) Purpose: This list is a forum for topics related to cryonics (low temperature preservation of a person who was recently declared dead in anticipation of future technology that can achieve revival). Message topics may include nanotechnology (cell repair machines), cryogenics (in particular, vitrification), biochemistry (of memory), medicine (hypothermic), law (wills, legal status of cryonically suspended people), philosophy (of identity), social/organizational psychology (how to build long-lasting organizations), new research and publications, current (mass media) cryonics-related news, conferences, and local cryonics group meetings. CTIX-users Contact: {alberta,uunet}!ncc!ctix-users-request (Lyndon Nerenberg) Purpose: The CTIX-USERS mailing list is a forum for discussion of the various aspects of the CTIX operating system from Convergent Technologies. Topics include bug reports and fixes, postings of short utility programs for system administrators, reports on new OS releases and application software updates, as well as a variety of other subjects. The list is currently unmoderated, and includes sites in North America, Europe, and Australia. drwho-spoilers Contact: terminus!nyssa (James Armstrong, Jr.) Purpose: Branched off of rec.arts.drwho is a list for "Spoilers", which is intended to distribute news about upcoming seasons and discussion on recently released episodes and keep it away from the eyes of people who would rather not know until they see the shows themselves. eastenders Contact: eastenders@flatline.UUCP Purpose: Discussion of the BBC serial "EastEnders" as it is broadcast within the US. UK'ers are invited, but be warned we're about two years behind the UK series. eclipse Contact: eclipse-request@beach.cis.ufl.edu (John C. Orthoefer) Purpose: Info and commentary on the musical group Pink Floyd as well as other projects members of the group have been involved with. EMS Contact: vampire@philabs.philips.com (Rich Hemmer) Purpose: The purpose of the EMS mailing list is to share ideas, training aspects, problems, solutions, EMS calls, and other aspects of the Emergency Medical Service life. The nature of the submissions could include: a hard diagnosis on a call, a rough / problem type call with solutions, training in general, training equipment new vs. old, new ideas in patient care, new protocols local / state / national, volunteer professionals vs. paid professionals, etc. ensembles Contact: brass-request@dinorah.wustl.edu (Art Smith) ...!uunet!wucs1!dinorah!brass-request Purpose: A discussion group for people interested in small musical ensembles, particularly brass quintets. It is unmoderated at present. esperanto Contact: ...!{oberon,vortex}!trwspp!urban (Mike Urban) Purpose: This list is a forum for people interested in the neutral international language Esperanto. Discussions about the language itself, the Esperanto movement, publications, and news are encouraged; of course, discussion *in* the language itself are especially encouraged, although English translations may be advisable when the material is of interest to beginners or non-Esperantists. f-mac Contact: brunyan%utmem2.bitnet@cunyvm.cuny.edu (Bill Runyan) Purpose: Information on commentary on the musical group Fleetwood Mac as well as any work or projects that any of the members have been involved with. Such as the solo work of singer Stevie Nicks. feminists Contact: hxe@rayssd.ray.com -or- {gatech,linus,necntc,raybed2,uiucdcs}!rayssd!hxe Purpose: The feminist mailing list is intended to provide a forum for discussion of issues of interest to women, in a friendly atmosphere. The basic tenets of feminism and the day-to-day experiences of women do not have to be explained or defended. Men and women can join, but everyone requesting to be added to the mailing list MUST provide the moderator with: 1) a full name; 2) a complete uucp path to a well-known host or a fully specified Internet address; 3) the correspondent's gender (for records and statistics only). NO exceptions. ferrets Contact: ferret-request@eci386.uucp (Chris Lewis) {utzoo,utai,attcan}!lsuc!gate!eci386!ferret-request Purpose: This is a mailing list for people who have or are merely interested in ferrets (Mustela Furo). Discussions are welcome on any subject relating to ferrets -- suitability as pets, health information, funny ferret stories etc. Fiction-Writers Contact: writers-request@snark.bellcore.com (Perry Metzger) Purpose: The Fiction Writers Group exists for two purposes: To give people interested in writing fiction professionally a support group of peers for where information can be shared and discussions of the task of writing can be carried on. To create an environment where Works In Progress can be passed around and criticized so that the author can find the weak spots and polish the manuscript into a salable work. The group has handled mostly Science Fiction, Fantasy, and related genres, but is not restricted to them. Membership is open to anyone who has in interest in writing fiction regardless of previous experience or published/unpublished status. Members must be prepared to regularly contribute either by critiquing the work of others or presenting work for critique. fire Contact {rutgers,harvard,cornell}!rochester!roche --or-- roche@cs.rochester.edu (Jim Roche) Purpose: To discuss fires and firefighting techniques, equipment, regulations, legislation, etc. Non-firefighters are encouraged to join the list, however, "flames" from non-firefighters will not be accepted. firearms Contact: osu-cis!firearms-request --or-- firearms-request@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu Purpose: The mailing list firearms has been created to provide an environment in which sportsmen can discuss issues of concern to them. Topics include but are not limited to hunting, firearms safety, legal issues, reloading tips, maintenance suggestions, target shooting, and dissemination of general info. Anyone is welcome to join -- note that we do NOT intend to discuss the merits of gun control. folk-dancing Contact: tjw@vms.cis.pittsburgh.edu (Terry J. Wood) {allegra,bellcore,cadre,psuvax1}!pitt!cisunx!cisvms!tjw Purpose: Any discussion of FOLK dancing. The topics would include, but not be limited to: international and square dancing, morris dancing, cajun dancing, etc. Discussions could be about such things as: What groups are touring; Your group is having a camp and who the instructors are, etc. Please put "FOLK DANCING MAILING LIST" or "FDML" in the subject when sending mail to the moderator. funky-music Contact: funky-music-request@apollo.lap.upenn.edu (George Zipperlen) -or- ...!rutgers!super.upenn.edu!apollo.lap.upenn.edu!funky-music-request Purpose: The funky-music mailing list is for the discussion of funk music, as well as rap, hip-hop, soul, r&b, and related varieties. Discussions of zydeco, reggae, salsa, soca, and similar gutsy street music are also welcome. Funk music is based on the rhythmic innovations pioneered by James Brown. Other notable artists in the genre are Parliament, Funkadelic, War, Earth Wind and Fire, the Meters, and Mandrill. Funky music has a dance-able beat to it, a soulful feel, and an underlying intelligence. All the varieties of music mentioned above, are funky. game-design Contact: tsource@wet.uucp (Aryeh Friedman) Purpose: This list will discuss everything involved in game design. The list runs the gambit from professional designers to those who just want to change a rule here or two. The only limitation to the list is we would like to stay away from computer games; it already has a list of its own (gamemasters). gnu-manual Contact: internet: gnu-manual-request@a.cs.uiuc.edu csnet: gnu-manual@uiuc.csnet usenet: uiucdcs!gnu-manual Purpose: "gnu-manual" members are volunteers who write, proofread, and comment on documents for a GNU Emacs Lisp programmers' manual. Gouldbugs Contact: gouldbugs-request@wasatch.utah.edu -or- ...{decvax,bellcore}!utah-cs!wasatch!gouldbugs-request Purpose: This list is aimed at system administrators of Gould series machines. Discussion should be limited to Gould specific problems and/or questions. Anyone is welcome to join the list. The list is not moderated, but is simply a mail forwarder. handicap Contact: ...!{decvax,philabs}!bunker!wtm Purpose: The Handicap Digest provides an information/discussion exchange for issues dealing with the physically/mentally handicapped. Topics include, but are not limited to: medical, education, legal, technological aids and the handicapped in society. Note: The articles from the Handicap Digest are also posted in the Usenet Newsgroup, "misc.handicap". hang-gliding Contact: hang-gliding@sphinx.uchicago.EDU (Fareed Asad-Harooni) Purpose: Topics covering all aspects of hang-gliding and ballooning, for ultra-light and lighter-than-air enthusiasts. herpetology Contact: rel!gaboon!herpetology-request --or-- crpmks!gaboon!herpetology-request (Stan Voket) Purpose: The Herpetological mailing list is designed to promote the exchange of ideas and information relating to the study of reptiles and amphibians. Discussions include husbandry and veterinary care of captives, field biology and observations, captive propagation and breeding techniques, etc. The list is also intended to provide a forum for the legal exchange of captive specimens. The list stresses conservation and preservation of native wildlife populations as its central theme. homebrew Contact: homebrew-request%hpfcmr@hplabs.hp.com or ...!hplabs!hpfcmr!homebrew-request (Rob Gardner) Purpose: Forum on Beer, homebrewing, and related issues. Though mainly intended for discussion of beer making, also welcome are discussions on making cider, mead, wine, or any other fermented (but not distilled) beverage. Beginners are welcomed as well as experienced brewers. horse Contact: {decvax,harvard}!bbn!horse-request horse-request@bbn.COM (Ken Rossen) Purpose: Discussion of things equestrian. Horse enthusiasts of all disciplines and levels of experience are welcome. Articles are distributed periodically in digest format, and also appear individually in the Usenet newsgroup "rec.equestrian". impulse Contact: impulse-users-request@j.cc.purdue.edu (Kevin Braunsdorf) Purpose: A low-volume list for users of the LPC Mpulse line of computers. The moderator does filter and journalize submissions. info-386ix Contact: info-386ix-request%vixie@uunet.uu.net -or- ...{hoptoad,ptsfa,qantel,uunet}!vixie!info-386ix-request (Paul Vixie) Purpose: discussion of INTERACTIVE Systems Corp's UNIX(tm) 386/ix product. INTERACTIVE was the contractor principally responsible for porting AT&T UNIX System V.3 to the 386 architecture. The version of UNIX V.3 shipped by AT&T with their 6386 systems, by Microport as "Microport System V/386", and Bell Technologies as "UNIX System V/386" are all derived from the code ported by INTERACTIVE under contract to Intel and AT&T. Therefore, much discussion about INTERACTIVE's 386/ix product is also relevant to AT&T's, Microport's, and Bell Technologies' 80386-UNIX products. The list is not sponsored or controlled by INTERACTIVE, although they have joined the mailing list. info-3b2 Contact: info-3b2-request@netsys.com (Len Rose) Purpose: to act as a clearinghouse for information,and discussion about ATT 3B2/XXX systems,software and various topics concerning owners of these systems. Open to anyone with the time and inclination to participate. info-aids Contact: info-aids-request@lamc.UUCP --or-- {pacbell,netsys,hoptoad,well}!lamc!info-aids-request (Ken Davis) Purpose: to act as a clearinghouse for information, and discussion about AIDS, including alternative treatments, political implications, etc. Exchanges files with AIDNEWS@RUTVM1.BITNET. Open to anyone with the time and inclination to participate. Mailing list will be confidential and known only to the members. Anonymous postings will be accepted. info-altos Contact: info-altos-request@tiamat.fsc.com (Jim O'Connor & Mike Johnson) Purpose: Information and discussion about Altos computers. info-encore Contact: info-encore-request@cs-gw.D.UMN.EDU --or-- info-encore-request@umnd-cs.UUCP (Dan Burrows) Purpose: Mailing list for discussion of issues involving hardware and software issues of Encore computers and ethernet terminal servers. This mailing list is also gatewayed into the inet list, comp.sys.encore info-futures Contact: harvard!bu-cs!info-futures-request -or- info-futures-request%bu-cs@relay.cs.net Purpose: To provide a speculative forum for analyzing current and likely events in technology as they will affect our near future in computing and related areas. info-gnu Contact: info-gnu-request@prep.ai.mit.edu --or-- ucbvax!prep.ai.mit.edu!info-gnu-request Purpose: to distribute progress reports on the GNU Project, headed by Richard Stallman, and to ask members for various kinds of help. The list is gated both ways with the alternative newsgroup "gnu.announce," and is filtered (weakly moderated) by Leonard H. Tower Jr. GNU, which stands for Gnu's Not Unix, is the name for a complete Unix-compatible software system whose sources can be given away free to everyone. Major parts have already been written; major parts still remain undone. Project GNU has additional mailing lists to distribute information about specific GNU programs, and to report bugs in them. Contact us at the above address for details. info-high-audio Contact: info-high-audio-request@csd4.milw.wisc.edu (Thomas Krueger) Purpose: This list is for the exchange of subjective comments about high end audio equipment and modifications performed to high end pieces. Techniques used to modify equipment, especially, but not limited to, vacuum tube electronics are exchanged. Some comments may be subjective or intuitive and may not yet have a measurable basis. Other topics of discussion include turntables, arms and cartridges; preamplifiers, headamps and cartridge matching; speakers, amplifiers and matching; placement of speakers, and room treatments. Any comments that prevent an open exchange of ideas and techniques are not encouraged. Archives of projects will be maintained on csd4.milw.wisc.edu and available via anonymous ftp. info-tahoe Contact: info-tahoe-request@csd1.milw.wisc.edu --or-- uwmcsd1!info-tahoe-request (Jim Lowe) Purpose: Discussions pertaining to the Tahoe type of CPU. These include the CCI Power 6/32, the Harris HCX/7, and the Sperry 7000 series computers. The info-tahoe mailing list is set up as a mail reflector. Archives are available to Internet hosts from csd1.milw.wisc.edu (192.12.221.1), using ftp with the anonymous login convention. This mailing list is also gatewayed into the inet list, comp.sys.tahoe interleaf Contact: leaf-request@tekig4.TEK.COM (Carolyn Strong) ...!tektronix!tekig4!leaf-request Purpose: Discussions on all aspects related to the Interleaf publishing environment, including (but not restricted to) the Interleaf language, user environment, implementations on new platforms, user written enhancements, and filters, and bug reports. isi Contact: ...!harvard!lownlab!info-isi-request Purpose: discussions about Integrated Solutions computers, both equipment and software. islam Contact: islam-request@eecs.nwu.edu -or- {oddjob,laidbak,chinet}!nucsrl!islam-request (Naim Abdullah) Purpose: To discuss the basic tenets of Islam and interpretations of the Quran. The list is not for discussing the validity of Islam or any political issues. iti151 Contact: iti151-request@oce.orst.edu (Paul O'Neill) {tektronix, hplabs!hp-pcd}!orstcs!oce.orst.edu!iti151-request Purpose: For users of Imaging Technology's series 150 and 151 image processing systems and ITEX151 software. The goal is to share algorithms, code, tricks, pitfalls, advice, etc. in an effort to decrease development time and increase functionality for the users of these systems. (Also, despite their good support, we customers may want to gang up on ITI someday!!) its-a-crime Contact: griffith@scam.berkeley.edu -or- ...!ucbvax!scam!griffith (Jim Griffith) Purpose: The mailing list is devoted to the discussion of the play-by-mail game "It's A Crime!", which is run by Adventures By Mail, Inc. in Cohoes, NY. Although we are all playing, our alias has no direct connection to that group (hence we're on our own, no profit or money involved). Mainly, we discuss strategies, modifications, and happenings in our respective games, probably much in the same way that the Traveller group does. A typical game runs a year and a half and has 500 or so players. There are generally 10 games in progress at a given time. jazz **inactive** see the newsgroup rec.music.bluenote jewish Contact: princeton!pruxc!ayf (Avi Feldblum) Purpose: The mailing list provides a non-abusive forum for discussion of Jewish topics with an emphasis on Jewish law. Debates between Jews and non-Jews or between various factions of Judaism should be posted to talk.religion.misc or soc.culture.jewish. killifish Contact: killie-request@panchax.gryphon.com Purpose: For people who keep and are interested killifish, (family cyprinodontidae). kites Contact: (USA/Canada/Europe): kites-request@harvard.harvard.edu harvard!kites-request (Japan): koscvax.keio.junet!kites-request Purpose: This mailing list is for people interested in making, flying, or just talking about all kinds of kites. Topics will (I hope) include kite plans and construction techniques, reviews of commercially available kites and plans, timely (or otherwise) human interest notes, and talk about flying. lang-lucid Contact: lang-lucid-request@csl.sri.com (Rosanna Lee) Purpose: Discussions on all aspects related to the language Lucid, including (but not restricted to) language design issues, implementations for personal computers, implementations for parallel machines, language extensions, programming environments, products, bug reports, bug fixes/workarounds. lasnet Contact: lasnet-request@emx.utexas.edu (Langston James Goree VI) Purpose: To facilitate the exchange of information among scholars doing research related to Latin America. lds Contact: lds-request@decwrl.dec.com -or- decwrl!lds-request Purpose: a forum for members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (mormons) to discuss church doctrine, mormon culture and life in general. Non-members are welcome to join, but we're not interested in flame wars. Linda Contact: linda-users-request@yale.cs.edu linda-users-request@yalecs.bitnet decvax!yale!linda-users-request Purpose: Linda is a set of operators for explicitly parallel programming. The operators are embedded into various conventional programming languages to produce parallel programming languages. Logo Contact: logo-friends-request@aiai.ed.ac.uk Purpose: Discuss the Logo computer language. Mactivists Contact: Mactivists-Request@rascal.ics.utexas.edu (Werner Uhrig) Purpose: Discussion Group and private communication channel for netters who are *VERY* active in providing information to people on Worldnet, are maintaining public or limited access archives archives, moderate Macintosh-oriented news-groups or BBOARDs, or are an invited guest of the group. MacWorkers Contact: MacWorkers-requests@rascal.ics.utexas.edu (Werner Uhrig) Purpose: A subset of the Mactivists group: the dozen (or so people) who maintain the major archives and moderate Macintosh oriented news-groups. MacMASH Contact: MacMASH-request@rascal.ics.utexas.edu (Werner Uhrig) Purpose: A dozen+ netters who have decided to cooperate and communicate with the purpose to fight viruses, worms and other diseases attacking the Macintosh. Members have job-related reasons to be on the list or have very good credentials and references. martial-arts Contact: brillig.umd.edu!martial-arts-request martial-arts-request@brillig.umd.edu (Bruce Israel) Purpose: The martial arts mailing list is for discussion on various aspects of the martial arts. This includes teaching and training techniques, martial arts philosophy, self-defense, traditional and non-traditional styles, among others. meditators Contact: seetha%sokuryo.t.u-tokyo.junet@RELAY.CS.NET (Seetharam, K.E.) Purpose: This is a group to discuss the different techniques of meditation and the experiences of those who practice any kind of meditation. The group is also intended to share views about the various effects of practising meditation to the person, the society and world. The group is not for discussing any religious matter. medphys Contact: ...!mcnc!godot!medphys-request Submissions: ...!mcnc!godot!medphys Purpose: An attempt to foster electronic communication between medical physicists, open to interested others. Medical physics is a somewhat opaque but widely used synonym for radiological physics -- the physics of the diagnostic and therapeutic use of radiation in medicine. At present most of the subscribers are involved in radiotherapy. men Contact: attunix!mail-men-request mail-men-request@attunix.att.com (Marcel Franck Simon) Purpose: This digested mailing list discusses "men's issues" just as feminists discusses those of women. Both women and men may join. military Contact: military-request@att.att.com (Bill Thacker) Purpose: Discussion of military technology, and related issues. This group is gatewayed to and from the Usenet newsgroup sci.military; all postings to the group are echoed to the list, and vice-versa. Both the group and list are moderated to prevent political flammage. mtxinu-users Contact: gatech!emory!mtxinu-users-request (Arnold Robbins) Purpose: Discussion and bug fixes for users of the 4.3+NFS release from the Mt. Xinu folks. musicals Contact: musicals-request@bu-it.bu.edu (Elizabeth A. Lear) Purpose: We discuss musicals, both movie and stage, (although about 90% of the articles concern stage productions and Broadway in particular). Discussion is meant to be more or less light-hearted and not bogged down with aesthetics. This is a place for circulating information and opinions, not a theater critics' forum. We discuss productions, ticket information, recordings, proper Sondheim-appreciation-and worship, upcoming shows and Broadway-related gossip. mustangs Contact mustangs-request@hpda.hp.com (Gary Gitzen) or {hplabs,sun,uunet}!hpda!mustangs-request Purpose: To discuss/share technical issues, problems, solutions, and modifications relating to late model Ford Mustangs. Flames and "my car is faster than your car" mailings are discouraged. newlists Contact: info@vm1.nodak.edu (Marty Hoag) Purpose: This is a mailing list "clearing house" for new mailing lists. Subscribers will get announcements of new lists that are mailed to this list. NFS Contact: nfs-request@tmc.edu (Stan Barber) Purpose: Discussions about NFS. While this discussion is mostly oriented toward PC-NFS and MAC-NFS and so on, "large" computer NFS discussions are also welcome. objectivism Contact: smyers@orion.cf.uci.edu (Steve Myers) Purpose: A mailing list for students of Objectivism to share their beliefs with one another. objc Contact: bunker!stpstn!objc-request (Anthony A. Datri) Purpose: The Objective-C mailing list is for the discussion of Stepstone's Objective-C language, Objective-C compiler, Objective-C interpreter, and the ICPak-201 user interface library. ocean.policy Contact: {dual,vortex}!islenet!scott Purpose: Discussions of the legal, economic, and military aspects of ocean use policies. Specific issues include the "law of the sea", pending treaties, economic implications of EEZs and the military use of the sea. Coordinated by Dr. Scott Allen, Associate Director, International Law of the Sea Institute, University of Hawaii. offroad Contact: {decvax,ulowell,ima}!cg-atla!wizvax!spg (Steve Gilgut) Purpose: To discuss/share experiences about 4X4 offroad adventures, tips and anything else related to 4 wheel drive, off roading, etc. ODA Contact: utzoo!trigraph!oda-request (Les Gondor) Purpose: ODA is a mailing list for topics related to the ISO 8613 standard for Office Document Architecture, and ODIF (Office Document Interchange Format). origami Contact: origami-request@cs.utexas.edu (Brad Blumenthal) Purpose: This unmoderated mailing list is for discussion of all facets of origami, the Japanese art of paper folding. Topics include bibliographies, folding techniques, display ideas, descriptions of new folds, creativity, materials, organizations, computer representations of folds, etc. OtherRealms Contact: chuq@apple.com (Chuq Von Rospach) Purpose: a distribution list for people who can't read rec.mag.otherrealms. OtherRealms is an electronic fanzine that covers Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror books. pdp8-lovers Contact: pdp8-lovers-request@mc.lcs.mit.edu (Robert E. Seastrom) Purpose: This mailing list exists in order to facilitate communication and cooperation between owners of vintage DEC computers, specifically, but not limited to, the PDP-8 series of minicomputers. Discussions of all manner of hardware, software, programming techniques are invited. Ownership of an 'antique' computer is not required for membership, but flames from people who feel that anything that is not cutting edge technology is worthless are discouraged. pipes Contact: pipes-request@paul.rutgers.edu (Steve Masticola) Purpose: For all those who enjoy smoking, collecting, or sharing information on pipes, tobacco, and related topics. Flames aren't allowed (except for the purpose of lighting up :-) posix-ada Contact: umd5!grebyn!posix-ada-request -or- posix-ada-request@grebyn.com (Karl Nyberg) Purpose: to discuss the Ada binding of the Posix standard. This is the IEEE P1003.5 working group. pro-video Contact: ...tektronix!reed!provideo (Marc Visnick) Purpose: This mailing list is concerned with professional and semi- professional video. Topics of discussion will include switchers, cameras, DVE's, field and studio techniques, post production, and so on. rc-flying Contact : sun!suntri!black!rc-flying-request (Dwight Frye) Purpose : Discussions about the sport of flying radio control models. This includes sailplanes, power planes, and helicopters. reflections Contact: reflections@lcuxlm.att.com (Steve Dahmen) Purpose: *REFLECTIONS* is an electronic "New Age" community of a very unique flavor. Going beyond individual dogma and disbelief, challenges and debates, we discover that we can all share ourselves without causing "net violence" to one another. The focus is on Soul growth and the a deep sharing of our life experiences with the intention that we can all learn from and can be inspired by one another. Various channeled material shared. Topics: Earth Changes, Channeling, Emotions, dealing with Life from an Enlightened perspective, more. Using a community model, we go beyond our minds and share from the heart about spirit growth. Articles sent on an "as-submitted" basis. sappho Contact: sappho-request@bloom-beacon.mit.edu (Jean Marie Diaz) {mit-eddie,bu-cs}!bloom-beacon!sappho-request Purpose: A forum and support group for gay and bisexual women. The list is not moderated, but may become so if the volume and/or content begins to warrant it. A digest version is available; if you want it, be sure to mention it in your addition request.Men who want to "listen in," for whatever reason, are requested to use the feminist and alternates mailing lists instead; sappho membership is limited to women. sca Contact: sca-request@ai.ai.mit.edu (Danulf Donaldson, MKA Dana Groff) Purpose: This group discusses anything relating to the Society for Creative Anachronism, a world-wide medievallist organization. Anyone in the Society (or interested in it) is welcome to join. Those with basic questions about the Society should direct them to justin@inmet.inmet.com (Justin du Coeur, MKA Mark Waks), who will be happy to answer them. (Please note that the mailing list is not officially related to the SCA in any way; it is simply a group of talkative members). The SCA mailing list is gatewayed into the alt.sca newsgroup. scribe Contact: scribe-hacks-request@cs.utah.edu -or- ...!utah-cs!scribe-hacks-request Submissions: scribe-hacks@cs.utah.edu -or- ...!utah-cs!scribe-hacks Purpose: This list is designed for persons who perform the role of Scribe Database Administrator at their installation. Discussion will be about Scribe features, bugs, enhancements, performance, support, and other topics of interest to Scribe DBAs. The list will NOT be moderated, but will simply consist of a mail "reflector" - ie. if you send a message to the list, it will be rebroadcast to everyone on the list. Discussion at the level of "How do I get a paragraph to indent 5 spaces instead of 3?" is specifically discouraged. security Contact: {ncar,nbires,pyramid,udenva}!isis!sec-request (Andrew Burt) *** Currently inactive **** Purpose: Discussion and comment (and sometimes bug fixes) which touch on the security aspects of the UNIX operating system. This mailing list is joined at the pleasure of the applicant's System Administrator and/or the list administrator. Requests to join must be mailed from the root account and must specify (1) the full name of the recipient; (2) the address to send the list to; (3) the address of the contact person for that site (if different from (2)). sil-info Contact: sil-info-request@isf.unisys.com Purpose: Discussion of activities of The Society for Interactive Literature and related activities. silicon-compilers Contact: silicon-compilers-request@ge-dab.ge.com (Steven J. Dovich) Submissions: silicon-compilers@ge-dab.ge.com Purpose: The Silicon Compiler Users mailing list was created to enhance the communication among those who are interested in new developments in the field of silicon compilation. List membership is open to all, with one restriction: the list is not to be used for business, or to push "products." The usual USENET/ARPANET/BITNET etiquette applies to messages sent to the list. Commercials are not welcome. Submissions should be of non-proprietary nature and be concerned with, but not limited to: development efforts (hardware and software); interfaces; new products; product bugs, and "features"; research. space-activists Contact: space-activists-request@cs.rpi.edu (Christopher Welty) Purpose: The space-activists digest is a public, moderated, digest-style mailing list for people interested in receiving timely information related to space activism, that is reports on government activities in this area. supercomputers Contact: supercomputer-request@nyu.edu -or- cmcl2!supercomputer-request Submissions: supercomputer@nyu.edu, cmcl2!supercomputer Purpose: To discuss "supercomputers" and related technology. Contact the list administrators for more information. sysops Contact: {harpo,bellcore,cmcl2}!cucard!dasys1!sysops-request -or- {allegra,cmcl2,philabs}!phri!dasys1!sysops-request Purpose: The purpose of this list is to facilitate communication among operators of computerized bulletin-board systems. Topics will include, but are certainly not limited to: applications, security, legal issues, and software. t3 Contact: t3-request@ncsugn.ncsu.edu (Ted H. Emigh) Purpose: Discussion of T3, a WYSIWYG (almost) scientific word processing system for MS-DOS computers. tandy4k Contact: ...!{psu-cs,reed,ogcvax}!qiclab!tandy4k-users (Steven Neighorn) Purpose: A mailing list for owners, users, and other interested parties of the Intel 80386-based Tandy 4000 Microcomputer. The list will contain problems encountered, hints, program source code, and anything else related to the operation of Tandy's newest entry into the world of microcomputers. tartan-c Contact: astrovax!tartan-c-requests Purpose: Discussion related to the Tartan C compiler for the vax. This can include bug reports, benchmarks, C quirks handled differently by tcc, experiences compiling system source with tcc, etc. transputer Submissions: transputer@tcgould.tn.cornell.edu -or- ...{cmcl2,decvax,uw-beaver}!cornell!batcomputer!transputer Contact: transputer-request (at the above address) Purpose: The Transputer mailing list was created to enhance the communication among those who are interested in the Transputer and Transputer based systems. Submissions should be of non-proprietary nature and be concerned with, but not limited to: o Algorithms o Current development efforts (hardware and software) o INMOS and third party systems (Meiko, FPS, etc.) o Interfaces o Dedicated computational resources o Occam and Non-Occam language development Archives of submissions are available by anonymous ftp from the host tcgould.tn.cornell.edu (userid "anonymous", password is of the form "user@host") and through uucp on a per-request basis. The list is maintained as a mail reflector. Submissions are therefore sent out as they are received. traveller Contact: traveller-request@dadla.la.tek.com (James T. Perkins) Purpose: This mailing list exists to discuss the TRAVELLER Science Fiction Role Playing Game, published by Game Designers' Workshop. All variants of Traveller (Traveller 2300, MegaTraveller), and Traveller games (Snapshot, Trillion Credit Squadron, etc.) are included, too. Discussion is unmoderated and open to all facets and levels of Traveller discussion. Listeners as well as contributors are welcome. ucsd-Empire Contact: ucsd-empire-request@cogsci.berkeley.edu (David Muir Sharnoff) Purpose: ucsd-empire is devoted to co-ordinating work on the UCSD version of the game of Empire (ideas, announcements, and patches). whitewater Contact: iuvax!whitewater-request --or-- whitewater-request@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (Charles Daffinger) Purpose: To discuss WhiteWater sports, experiences, and information. Includes kayak and canoeing enthusiasts. Unisys Contact: unisys-request@tmc.edu (Richard H. Miller) Purpose: Discussion of all Unisys products and equipment. UNITEX Contact: rutgers!rubbs!keyles -or- keyles@rubbs.fidonet.org (Michael Keyles) Purpose: The UNITEX conference consists of timely news features and press releases from various mainframe databases maintained by the United Nations in New York and Geneva, Switzerland. This includes, UN Press Releases, UN Radio News, IPS (Int'l Press stories), UNICEF and NASA related space news. We encourage intelligent inquiries and user feedback on the various topics that arise week to week. unix-pc-net Contact: {pyramid,tolerant,uunet}!zorch!unix-pc-request (Scott H. Mueller) Purpose: To provide redistribution via mail of the unix-pc news hierarchy to sites that don't or cannot receive it as a regular distribution. The special address "zorch!unix-pc" can be used by subscribers to post to the group unix-pc.general. usml Contact: usml-request@hc.dspo.gov (Josh Siegel) Purpose: This mailing list is for discussions on various techniques for simulations of the universe as related to games and reality. VMEbus Contact: {clyde,att,ulysses}!houxl!mlh (Marc Harrison) Purpose: A user's group for the AT&T VMEbus products to provide a two-way USENET conduit for the open exchange of information, both within and outside of AT&T. There's very little data that's proprietary about the products (other than the source code for UNIX System V/VME), so the list is open to suggestions as to items of interest. If you're interested, please send your name, e-mail path (via att preferred), affiliation, and use of WE 321SB (if you have one). Suggestions for items of interest are also encouraged. war-of-worlds Contact: war-worlds-request@ssyx.ucsc.edu (Steven Grimm) Purpose: A mailing list for fans of Paramount's syndicated science-fiction show "War Of the Worlds." wildnet Contact: dvinci!ejw --or-- woodsworth@sask.bitnet (Eric Woodsworth) Purpose: This list is concerned with computing and statistics in fisheries and wildlife biology. worldcup Contact: att!mtuxo!rolls!worldcup-join Purpose: A discussion of the 1990 World Cup in Italy from qualifiers through the finals. Hopefully an international discussion. x-ada Contact: x-ada-request@expo.lcs.mit.edu Purpose: to discuss the interfaces and bindings for an Ada interface to the X window system. Yiddish Contact: lsuc!dave (Dave Sherman) Purpose: articles, jokes, etc. in transliterated Yiddish, and discussion of Yiddish language and culture (in English). Some familiarity with the language is required to understand most of the messages. z-cars Contact: z-cars-request@ctt.bellcore.com (Tom Reingold) -or- ...!bellcore!ctt!z-cars-request Purpose: Discussion of Nissan/Datsun Z-Cars (i.e., cars whose model number satisfies the regular expression "{240,260,280,300}Z{,X}"). zilog Contact: ...!cbmvax!mail-zilog-request Purpose: A self-help group to provide communications among Zilog users. Topics include problems with Zeus, fixes, portability problems, availability of ported software and exchange of programs on Zilog compatible media. Open to both end users and systems houses, but all should be able to cope with the phrase Zilog Brain Damage with some degree of equanimity. -- Gene Spafford NSF/Purdue/U of Florida Software Engineering Research Center, Dept. of Computer Sciences, Purdue University, W. Lafayette IN 47907-2004 Internet: spaf@cs.purdue.edu uucp: ...!{decwrl,gatech,ucbvax}!purdue!spaf From ames!lll-winken!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!uxc!iuvax!purdue!spaf Thu Apr 13 15:06:30 PDT 1989 Article 392 of news.announce.newusers: Relay-Version: version B 2.10.3 4.3bsd-beta 6/6/85; site scubed.UUCP Path: scubed!ames!lll-winken!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!uxc!iuvax!purdue!spaf >From: spaf@cs.purdue.EDU (Gene Spafford) Newsgroups: news.lists,news.groups,news.announce.newusers Subject: List of Moderators (Updated: 9 April 1989) Message-ID: <6485@medusa.cs.purdue.edu> Date: 8 Apr 89 21:50:31 GMT Date-Received: 9 Apr 89 03:17:58 GMT Expires: 7 Jul 89 21:50:30 GMT Followup-To: news.lists Organization: Dept. of Computer Sciences, Purdue Univ. Lines: 309 Approved: spaf@cs.purdue.EDU Xref: scubed news.lists:771 news.groups:9018 news.announce.newusers:392 Supersedes: <6193@medusa.cs.purdue.edu> Original-from: Gene Spafford (spaf@cs.purdue.edu) [Most recent change: 9 April 1989 by spaf@cs.purdue.edu (Gene Spafford)] A number of moderated groups exist on the net. These are groups which usually have one or more individuals (acting as editors and/or moderators) who must approve articles before they are published to the net. In general, these groups fall into one of five categories: 1) Groups with postings of an informative nature not suited to discussion and always originating from the same (very small) group of posters. Groups within this category include news.lists, news.announce.newusers, and comp.mail.maps. 2) Groups derived from regular groups with such a high volume that it is hard for the average reader to keep up. The moderated versions of these groups are an attempt to provide a lower volume and higher quality version of the same forum. Examples of this category include news.announce and comp.unix. 3) Groups derived from regular groups which have often been abused. That is, the regular groups often received postings of items which were not germane to the stated topic of the group (or sometimes even within the realm of politeness for the net). This also includes groups suffering from an annoying number of duplicate postings and inappropriate followups. Moderated groups in this category include comp.sources.unix. 4) Groups designed to serve also as direct feedback to an off-the-net group. The discussion in comp.std.mumps is an example of this. 5) Groups which are gatewayed into the Usenet from an Arpa Internet mailing list. These groups are moderated by someone on the Internet side but are shared with the Usenet population. Submissions mailed to the proper addresses, given below, will appear in both the group on Usenet, and the Internet list. This includes some groups in the "inet" distribution which are listed here for completeness: comp.ai.vision, comp.lang.clu and rec.mag.fsfnet. To post to a moderated group, write your article and mail it to the listed SUBMISSION address. The moderator will then do the actual posting of the article. The news software on the Usenet will not allow direct posting to moderated newsgroups, nor will it forward unauthorized articles to other sites. The only way to post to a moderated group is to mail it to the moderator. If you are running 2.11 news or later, your news software will automatically mail your article to the moderator if you attempt to post it. Thus, posting to a moderated newsgroup should appear the same as posting to any other group (except you don't see the posting right away). Depending on the newsgroup involved, if the moderator feels that your article is inappropriate for the group, s/he will return the article to you with a suggestion for other newsgroups in which to post it, and/or an explanation of why it is not appropriate for the moderated group. You may still post such articles to the regular groups as you currently do, if such groups exist. If you have questions or complaints about the way a moderated group is run, contact the moderator by mail. Alternatively, you can send mail to the mailing list "moderators@purdue.edu" and it will be rebroadcast to all of the current Usenet-only newsgroup moderators. Below is a list of the current moderated groups and the moderators of those groups. Included in that list are the addresses to use if you have questions of comments about the groups. After that is given a list of addresses for submissions of articles to those groups. If your site is running 2.10.2 or 2.10.3 news, these addresses can be used to build the "moderators" file so that "postnews" can automatically mail an article to the correct moderator. If your system is running 2.11 news, posting to moderated newsgroups is done by mailing your submission to well-defined aliases at a nearby well-connected site. The mail path to that site should be in your news library, in the file "mailpaths" -- there is no need to update a moderators file. Information on how to construct the paths in the "mailpaths" file are posted monthly in a companion article. If you are NOT running 2.11 news, you are *STRONGLY* advised to upgrade to it so as to take advantage of this feature, as well as the numerous bug fixes and other enhancements. The addresses below are given in Internet/domain form. If a site has an Internet address, that is given in the list, otherwise a UUCP pseudo-domain address is given. If you are a UUCP-only site, you can mail to an ARPA (EDU, GOV, etc.)-only site by mailing through the gateways using a uucp-style path, e.g.: ...!{clyde,decuac,mcnc,ucsd,uw-beaver,watmath}!site.arpa!address Gene Spafford 8 April 1989 ------------------------------------------------------------------ Group Moderator or Coordinator Requests, Comments, etc. ------------------------------------------------------------------ comp.ai.digest Kenneth Laws ailist-request@stripe.sri.com comp.ai.nlang-know-rep Christopher Welty nl-kr-request@cs.rpi.edu comp.ai.shells Bernd Bachmann shellreq@uklirb.uucp comp.ai.vision Tod Levitt vision-list-request@ads.com comp.archives T. William Wells comp-archives-request@twwells.uucp comp.binaries.amiga Bob Page page@sun.com comp.binaries.atari.st Steven Grimm atari-binaries@ssyx.ucsc.edu comp.binaries.ibm.pc Rahul Dhesi ibmpc-binaries-request@bsu-cs.bsu.edu comp.binaries.mac Roger Long macintosh-request@felix.uucp comp.bugs.4bsd.ucb-fixes Keith Bostic ucb-fixes-request@okeeffe.berkeley.edu comp.compilers John Levine compilers-request@ima.isc.com comp.dcom.telecom Patrick Townson telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu comp.doc Brian Kantor comp-doc@ucsd.edu comp.doc.techreports Lawrence Leff trlist-request@cs.smu.edu comp.graphics.digest Andy Cromarty info-graphics-request@ads.com comp.lang.clu Matti Jokinen clu-sw-request@cs.utu.fi comp.lang.sigplan David S. Wise sigplan-request@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu comp.laser-printers Richard Furuta laser-lovers-request@brillig.umd.edu comp.mail.maps Mel Pleasant uucpmap@rutgers.edu comp.newprod Ron Heiby newprod@mcdchg.chi.il.us comp.org.fidonet Tim Pozar pozar@hop.toad.com comp.os.research Darrell Long darrell@jupiter.ucsc.edu comp.parallel Dennis Stevenson hypercube-request@hubcap.clemson.edu comp.protocols.kermit Frank da Cruz info-kermit-request@cu20b.columbia.edu comp.risks Peter G. Neumann risks-request@csl.sri.com comp.simulation Paul A. Fishwick simulation-request@uflorida.cis.ufl.edu comp.society Dave Taylor comp-soc-request@hplabs.hp.com comp.society.women Trish Roberts comp-women-request@cs.purdue.edu comp.sources.amiga Bob Page page@sun.com comp.sources.atari.st Steven Grimm atari-sources@ssyx.ucsc.edu comp.sources.games Bill Randle games-request@saab.cna.tek.com comp.sources.mac Roger Long macintosh-request@felix.uucp comp.sources.misc Brandon S. Allbery sources-misc-request@uunet.uu.net comp.sources.sun Charles McGrew mcgrew@aramis.rutgers.edu comp.sources.unix Rich Salz rsalz@uunet.uu.net comp.sources.x Mike Wexler x-sources-request@wyse.com comp.std.mumps Hokey std-mumps-request@plus5.com comp.std.unix John S. Quarterman std-unix-request@uunet.uu.net comp.sys.ibm.pc.digest Gregory Hicks info-ibmpc-request@simtel20.army.mil comp.sys.m68k.pc Mike Meyer info-68k-request@ucbvax.berkeley.edu comp.sys.mac.digest Lance Nakata, Jon Pugh, & Dwayne Virnau info-mac-request@sumex-aim.stanford.edu comp.sys.masscomp Stan Barber masscomp-request@soma.neuro.bcm.tmc.edu comp.sys.sun William LeFebvre sun-spots-request@rice.edu comp.sys.workstations Dave Steiner works-request@rutgers.edu comp.theory.info-retrieval Edward A. Fox fox@vtopus.cs.vt.edu comp.unix D. Tynan comp-unix-req@zorba.tynan.com misc.handicap Bill McGarry wtm@bunker.uucp misc.security A. "*Hobbit*" Walker security-request@rutgers.edu news.announce.conferences Dennis Page denny@mcmi.uucp news.announce.important Mark Horton announce@stargate.com news.announce.newusers Gene Spafford spaf@purdue.edu news.lists Rick Adams, Brian Reid & Gene Spafford news-lists-request@cs.purdue.edu rec.arts.movies.reviews Evelyn C. Leeper movies-request@mtgzy.att.com rec.guns Sean Sheedy sean@ism780c.isc.com rec.humor.funny Brad Templeton funny-request@looking.uucp rec.mag.fsfnet David Liscomb csdave@maine.bitnet rec.music.gaffa Doug Alan love-hounds-request@eddie.mit.edu sci.med.aids Dan Greening aids-request@cs.ucla.edu sci.military Bill Thacker military-request@att.att.com sci.nanotech J. Storrs Hall (JoSH) josh@aramis.rutgers.edu soc.human-nets Charles McGrew human-nets-request@rutgers.edu soc.politics Charles McGrew poli-sci-request@rutgers.edu soc.politics.arms-d Herb Lin arms-d-request@xx.lcs.mit.edu soc.religion.christian Charles Hedrick christian-request@aramis.rutgers.edu alt.gourmand Brian Reid recipes-request@decwrl.dec.com alt.sources.amiga Peter da Silva & Karl Lehenbauer amiga-sources@sugar.uu.net gnu.announce Leonard H. Tower Jr. info-gnu-request@prep.ai.mit.edu ------------------------------------------------------------------ Group Submissions :----------------------------------------------------------------- comp.ai.digest ailist@stripe.sri.com comp.ai.nlang-know-rep nl-kr@cs.rpi.edu comp.ai.shells shell@uklirb.uucp comp.ai.vision vision-list@ads.com comp.archives comp-archives@twwells.uucp comp.binaries.amiga page@sun.com comp.binaries.atari.st atari-binaries@ssyx.ucsc.edu comp.binaries.ibm.pc ibmpc-binaries@bsu-cs.bsu.edu comp.binaries.mac macintosh@felix.uucp comp.bugs.4bsd.ucb-fixes ucb-fixes@okeeffe.berkeley.edu comp.compilers compilers@ima.isc.com comp.dcom.telecom telecom@eecs.nwu.edu comp.doc comp-doc@ucsd.edu comp.doc.techreports trlist@cs.smu.edu comp.graphics.digest info-graphics@ads.com comp.lang.clu clu-sw@cs.utu.fi comp.lang.sigplan sigplan@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu comp.laser-printers laser-lovers@brillig.umd.edu comp.mail.maps uucpmap@rutgers.edu comp.newprod newprod@mcdchg.chi.il.us comp.org.fidonet pozar@hop.toad.com comp.os.research darrell@jupiter.ucsc.edu comp.parallel hypercube@hubcap.clemson.edu comp.protocols.kermit info-kermit@cu20b.columbia.edu comp.risks risks@csl.sri.com comp.simulation simulation@uflorida.cis.ufl.edu comp.society comp-soc@hplabs.hp.com comp.sources.amiga page@sun.com comp.sources.atari.st atari-sources@ssyx.ucsc.edu comp.sources.games games@saab.cna.tek.com comp.sources.mac macintosh@felix.uucp comp.sources.misc sources-misc@uunet.uu.net comp.sources.sun sun-sources@topaz.rutgers.edu comp.sources.unix rsalz@uunet.uu.net comp.sources.x x-sources@wyse.com comp.std.mumps std-mumps@plus5.com comp.std.unix std-unix@uunet.uu.net comp.sys.ibm.pc.digest info-ibmpc@simtel20.army.mil comp.sys.m68k.pc info-68k@ucbvax.berkeley.edu comp.sys.mac.digest info-mac@sumex-aim.stanford.edu comp.sys.masscomp masscomp@soma.neuro.bcm.tmc.edu comp.sys.sun sun-spots@rice.edu comp.sys.workstations works@rutgers.edu comp.theory.info-retrieval fox@vtopus.cs.vt.edu comp.unix comp-unix@zorba.tynan.com comp.society.women comp-women@cs.purdue.edu misc.handicap handicap@bunker.uucp misc.security security@rutgers.edu news.announce.conferences news-announce-conferences@mcmi.uucp news.announce.important announce@stargate.com news.announce.newusers spaf@cs.purdue.edu news.lists news-lists-request@cs.purdue.edu rec.arts.movies.reviews movies@mtgzy.att.com rec.guns rec-guns@ism780c.isc.com rec.humor.funny funny@looking.uucp rec.mag.fsfnet csdave@maine.bitnet rec.music.gaffa gaffa-post@eddie.mit.edu sci.med.aids aids@cs.ucla.edu sci.military military@att.att.com sci.nanotech nanotech@aramis.rutgers.edu soc.human-nets human-nets@red.rutgers.edu soc.politics poli-sci@rutgers.edu soc.politics.arms-d arms-d@xx.lcs.mit.edu soc.religion.christian christian@aramis.rutgers.edu gnu.announce info-gnu@prep.ai.mit.edu alt.gourmand recipes@decwrl.dec.com alt.sources.amiga amiga-sources@sugar.uu.net ddn.mgt-bulletin nic@sri-nic.arpa comp.protocols.iso.x400 post-x400@tis.llnl.gov comp.protocols.iso.x400.gateway post-x400-gateway@tis.llnl.gov -- Gene Spafford NSF/Purdue/U of Florida Software Engineering Research Center, Dept. of Computer Sciences, Purdue University, W. Lafayette IN 47907-2004 Internet: spaf@cs.purdue.edu uucp: ...!{decwrl,gatech,ucbvax}!purdue!spaf From ames!haven!purdue!spaf Thu Apr 13 15:08:28 PDT 1989 Article 385 of news.announce.newusers: Relay-Version: version B 2.10.3 4.3bsd-beta 6/6/85; site scubed.UUCP Path: scubed!ames!haven!purdue!spaf >From: spaf@cs.purdue.EDU (Gene Spafford) Newsgroups: news.announce.newusers Subject: Rules for posting to Usenet (Updated: 29 January 1989) Message-ID: <6476@medusa.cs.purdue.edu> Date: 8 Apr 89 21:49:33 GMT Date-Received: 9 Apr 89 03:08:25 GMT Expires: 7 Jul 89 21:49:32 GMT Organization: Dept. of Computer Sciences, Purdue Univ. Lines: 185 Approved: spaf@cs.purdue.EDU Supersedes: <6184@medusa.cs.purdue.edu> Original-from: mark@stargate.com (Mark Horton) [Most recent change: 29 January 1989 by spaf@cs.purdue.edu (Gene Spafford)] This message describes some of the rules of conduct on Usenet. The rules vary depending on the newsgroup. Some newsgroups are intended for discussions and some for announcements or queries. It is not usually a good idea to carry on discussions in newsgroups that are designated otherwise. It is never a good idea to carry on "meta-discussions" about whether a given discussion is appropriate -- such traffic mushrooms until nobody can find articles that belong. If you are unhappy with what some user said, send him/her mail, don't post it. Before posting, think about where your article is going. If it's posted to a "comp", "news", "misc", "soc", "sci", "rec" or "talk" newsgroup, it will probably go to the USA, Canada, Europe, Korea, and Australia. Certain articles are only of local interest (e.g. used car ads) and it is inappropriate to post them to the whole world. Use the "Distribution" feature to restrict distribution to your local area. If you don't know how to use this feature, read "Frequently Submitted Items" in another article in news.announce.newusers. Don't post announcements regarding major news events (e.g. the space shuttle has just exploded!) to news groups. By the time most people receive such items, they will long since have been informed by conventional media. If you wish to discuss such an event on the net, use the "misc.headlines" newsgroup. Announcement of professional products or services on Usenet is allowed; however, since someone else is paying the phone bills for this, it is important that it be of overall benefit to Usenet. Post to the appropriate newsgroup -- comp.newprod -- never to a general purpose newsgroup such as "misc.misc". Clearly mark your article as a product announcement in the subject. Never repeat these -- one article per product at the most; preferably group everything into one article. Advertising hype is especially frowned upon -- stick to technical facts. Obnoxious or inappropriate announcements or articles violating this policy will generally be rejected. This policy is, of course, subject to change if it becomes a problem. Some newsgroups are moderated. In these groups, you cannot post directly, either by convention or because the software prevents it. To post to these newsgroups, send mail to the moderator. Examples: Newsgroup Moderator Purpose --------- --------- ------- news.announce.important stargate!announce Important announcements for everyone comp.std.unix uunet!std-unix Unix standards discussion comp.std.mumps plus5!std-mumps ANSI Mumps standards discussion comp.unix mcdchg!modunix Discussion of Unix* features and bugs Some newsgroups have special purpose rules: Newsgroup Rules --------- ----- news.announce.important Moderated, no direct postings, important things only. misc.wanted Queries, "I want an x", "Anyone want my x?". No discussions. Don't post to more than one xxx.wanted. Use the smallest appropriate wanted (e.g. used car ads to nj.wanted.) Requests for sources, termcaps, etc. should go to the "comp.sources.wanted" newsgroup. rec.humor Clean humor only; anything offensive must be rotated; no discussions -- humor only. Discussions go in rec.humor.d rec.arts.movies Don't post anything revealing part of a movie without marking it (spoiler) in the subject. rec.arts.* Same as movies -- mark spoilers in the subject line. news.groups Discussions about new groups: whether to create them and what to call them. Don't post yes/no votes, mail them to the author misc.test Use the smallest test group possible, e.g. "test" or "ucb.test". Say in the body of the message what you are testing. It is perfectly legal to reproduce short extracts of a copyrighted work for critical purposes, but reproduction in whole is strictly and explicitly forbidden by US and international copyright law. (Otherwise, there would be no way for the artist to make money, and there would thus be less motive for people to go to the trouble of making their art available at all. The crime of theft is as serious in this context as any other, even though you may not have to pick locks, mask your face, or conceal merchandise.) All opinions or statements made in messages posted to Usenet should be taken as the opinions of the person who wrote the message. They do not necessarily represent the opinions of the employer of that person, the owner of the computer from which the message was posted, or anyone involved with Usenet or the underlying networks of which Usenet is made up. All responsibility for statements made in Usenet messages rests with the individual posting the message. Posting of information on Usenet is to be viewed as similar to publication. Because of this, do not post instructions for how to do some illegal act (such as jamming radar or obtaining cable TV service illegally); also do not ask how to do illegal acts by posting to the net. If you have a standard signature you like to append to your articles, put it in a file called .signature in your home directory. "postnews" and "inews" will automatically append it to your article. Please keep your signatures concise, as people do not appreciate seeing lengthy signatures, nor paying the phone bills to repeatedly transmit them. 2 or 3 lines are usually plenty. Sometimes it is also appropriate to add another line or two for addresses on other major networks where you can be reached (e.g., ARPA, CSnet, Bitnet). Long signatures are definitely frowned upon. DO NOT include drawings, pictures, maps, or other graphics in your signature -- it is not the appropriate place for such material and is viewed as rude by other readers. If you post an article and remember something you've left out or realize you've made a factual error, you can cancel the article and (if canceled quickly enough) prevent its distribution. Then you can correct whatever was wrong and post a new copy. In "rn" and "readnews", an article that you posted can be canceled with the "C" command. Be aware, however, that some people may have already read the incorrect version so the sooner you cancel something, the better. If the news system rejects a followup due to "more quoted lines than new text," please do not use "filler" lines to make up for this. Instead, if after careful editing, you have more to quote than to write, change the citation character. For example, in the display editor vi, you could use the incantation: :%s/^>//'s that are not being used as the citation character. (In particular, it will damage the "References" line in the article header.) In preparing an article, be aware that other people's machines are not the same as yours. The following is a list of things to keep in mind: * Except for source, keep your lines under 80 characters, and under 72 if possible. (most editors have a fill or format mode that will do this for you automatically) * Right justified text may look "prettier" is some sense, but it is almost always harder to read than leaving ragged right margins; don't justify your articles. * Most special control characters will not work for most readers. In fact, the tab and space characters are about the only ones you can be sure work consistently, and tabs aren't always the same from machine to machine. * Pictures and diagrams should not use embedded tabs. * Refer to articles by Message-ID, and never by article number. * What you think is the previous article is unlikely to be so elsewhere. * Submissions in a single case (all upper or all lower) are difficult to read. In general, when a mailing to somebody fails, DON'T post a message about it! Think for a moment: you are trying to send something to someone on ONE system. Your message might go through (at most) TEN systems on the way there. Posting a message in the news sends it to over 7800 systems throughout the world! There is no way to justify adding to the news load of nearly 8000 machines simply because you cannot determine how to get your mail through. If your message is important, contact someone who knows more about the mail system and who might be able to help you get your message through. Your local system administrator, for instance, or the admin of the next site "upstream," might be able to help. You can also send mail to "postmaster" at one of the major Usenet sites. Almost all of these people would rather see an occasional plea for help in their mailbox than read another broadcast in the news system. If your message is *really* important, pick up the phone and try to call the other person. -- Gene Spafford NSF/Purdue/U of Florida Software Engineering Research Center, Dept. of Computer Sciences, Purdue University, W. Lafayette IN 47907-2004 Internet: spaf@cs.purdue.edu uucp: ...!{decwrl,gatech,ucbvax}!purdue!spaf From ames!ll-xn!husc6!purdue!spaf Thu Apr 13 15:08:43 PDT 1989 Article 384 of news.announce.newusers: Relay-Version: version B 2.10.3 4.3bsd-beta 6/6/85; site scubed.UUCP Path: scubed!ames!ll-xn!husc6!purdue!spaf >From: spaf@cs.purdue.EDU (Gene Spafford) Newsgroups: news.announce.newusers Subject: A Primer on How to Work With the Usenet Community (Updated: 6 March 1989) Message-ID: <6477@medusa.cs.purdue.edu> Date: 8 Apr 89 21:49:40 GMT Date-Received: 9 Apr 89 03:07:27 GMT Expires: 7 Jul 89 21:49:39 GMT Organization: Dept. of Computer Sciences, Purdue Univ. Lines: 324 Approved: spaf@cs.purdue.EDU Supersedes: <6185@medusa.cs.purdue.edu> Original-from: chuq@sun.COM (Chuq Von Rospach) [Most recent change: 6 March 1989 by spaf@cs.purdue.edu (Gene Spafford)] A Primer on How to Work With the USENET Community Chuq Von Rospach *** You now have access to Usenet, a big network of thousands of computers. Other documents or your system administrator will provide detailed technical documentation. This message describes the Usenet culture and customs that have developed over time. All new users should read this message to find out how Usenet works. *** *** (Old users could read it, too, to refresh their memories.) *** USENET is a large collection of computers that share data with each other. It is the people on these computers that make USENET worth the effort, and for USENET to function properly those people must be able to interact in productive ways. This document is intended as a guide to using the net in ways that will be pleasant and productive for everyone. This document is not intended to teach you how to use USENET. Instead, it is a guide to using it politely, effectively and efficiently. Communication by computer is new to almost everybody, and there are certain aspects that can make it a frustrating experience until you get used to them. This document should help you avoid the worst traps. The easiest way to learn how to use USENET is to watch how others use it. Start reading the news and try to figure out what people are doing and why. After a couple of weeks you will start understanding why certain things are done and what things shouldn't be done. There are documents available describing the technical details of how to use the software. These are different depending on which programs you use to access the news. You can get copies of these from your system administrator. If you do not know who that person is, they can be contacted on most systems by mailing to account "usenet". Never Forget that the Person on the Other Side is Human Because your interaction with the network is through a computer it is easy to forget that there are people "out there." Situations arise where emotions erupt into a verbal free-for-all that can lead to hurt feelings. Please remember that people all over the world are reading your words. Do not attack people if you cannot persuade them with your presentation of the facts. Screaming, cursing, and abusing others only serves to make people think less of you and less willing to help you when you need it. If you are upset at something or someone, wait until you have had a chance to calm down and think about it. A cup of coffee or a good night's sleep works wonders on your perspective. Hasty words create more problems than they solve. Try not to say anything to others you would not say to them in person in a room full of people. Be Careful What You Say About Others Please remember -- you read netnews; so do as many as 250,000 other people. This group quite possibly includes your boss, your friend's boss, your girl friend's brother's best friend and one of your father's beer buddies. Information posted on the net can come back to haunt you or the person you are talking about. Think twice before you post personal information about yourself or others. This applies especially strongly to groups like soc.singles and alt.sex but even postings in groups like talk.politics.misc have included information about the personal life of third parties that could get them into serious trouble if it got into the wrong hands. Be Brief Never say in ten words what you can say in fewer. Say it succinctly and it will have a greater impact. Remember that the longer you make your article, the fewer people will bother to read it. Your Postings Reflect Upon You -- Be Proud of Them Most people on USENET will know you only by what you say and how well you say it. They may someday be your co-workers or friends. Take some time to make sure each posting is something that will not embarrass you later. Minimize your spelling errors and make sure that the article is easy to read and understand. Writing is an art and to do it well requires practice. Since much of how people judge you on the net is based on your writing, such time is well spent. Use Descriptive Titles The subject line of an article is there to enable a person with a limited amount of time to decide whether or not to read your article. Tell people what the article is about before they read it. A title like "Car for Sale" to rec.autos does not help as much as "66 MG Midget for sale: Beaverton OR." Don't expect people to read your article to find out what it is about because many of them won't bother. Some sites truncate the length of the subject line to 40 characters so keep your subjects short and to the point. Think About Your Audience When you post an article, think about the people you are trying to reach. Asking UNIX(*) questions on rec.autos will not reach as many of the people you want to reach as if you asked them on comp.unix.questions or comp.unix.wizards. Try to get the most appropriate audience for your message, not the widest. It is considered bad form to post both to misc.misc, soc.net-people, or misc.wanted and to some other newsgroup. If it belongs in that other newsgroup, it does not belong in misc.misc, soc.net-people, or misc.wanted. If your message is of interest to a limited geographic area (apartments, car sales, meetings, concerts, etc...), restrict the distribution of the message to your local area. Some areas have special newsgroups with geographical limitations, and the recent versions of the news software allow you to limit the distribution of material sent to world-wide newsgroups. Check with your system administrator to see what newsgroups are available and how to use them. If you want to try a test of something, do not use a world-wide newsgroup! Messages in misc.misc that say "This is a test" are likely to cause large numbers of caustic messages to flow into your mailbox. There are newsgroups that are local to your computer or area that should be used. Your system administrator can tell you what they are. Be familiar with the group you are posting to before you post! You shouldn't post to groups you do not read, or post to groups you've only read a few articles from -- you may not be familiar with the on-going conventions and themes of the group. One normally does not join a conversation by just walking up and talking. Instead, you listen first and then join in if you have something pertinent to contribute. Be Careful with Humor and Sarcasm Without the voice inflections and body language of personal communications, it is easy for a remark meant to be funny to be misinterpreted. Subtle humor tends to get lost, so take steps to make sure that people realize you are trying to be funny. The net has developed a symbol called the smiley face. It looks like ":-)" and points out sections of articles with humorous intent. No matter how broad the humor or satire, it is safer to remind people that you are being funny. But also be aware that quite frequently satire is posted without any explicit indications. If an article outrages you strongly, you should ask yourself if it just may have been unmarked satire. Several self-proclaimed connoisseurs refuse to use smiley faces, so take heed or you may make a temporary fool of yourself. Only Post a Message Once Avoid posting messages to more than one newsgroup unless you are sure it is appropriate. If you do post to multiple newsgroups, do not post to each group separately. Instead, specify all the groups on a single copy of the message. This reduces network overhead and lets people who subscribe to more than one of those groups see the message once instead of having to wade through each copy. Please Rotate Messages With Questionable Content Certain newsgroups (such as rec.humor) have messages in them that may be offensive to some people. To make sure that these messages are not read unless they are explicitly requested, these messages should be encrypted. The standard encryption method is to rotate each letter by thirteen characters so that an "a" becomes an "n". This is known on the network as "rot13" and when you rotate a message the word "rot13" should be in the "Subject:" line. Most of the software used to read usenet articles have some way of encrypting and decrypting messages. Your system administrator can tell you how the software on your system works, or you can use the Unix command "tr [a-z][A-Z] [n-z][a-m][N-Z][A-M]". (Note that some versions of Unix don't require the [] in the "tr" command. In fact, some systems will get upset if you use them in an unquoted manner. The following should work for everyone, but may be shortened on some systems: tr '[a-m][n-z][A-M][N-Z]' '[n-z][a-m][N-Z][A-M]' Don't forget the single quotes!) Summarize What You are Following Up When you are following up someone's article, please summarize the parts of the article to which you are responding. This allows readers to appreciate your comments rather than trying to remember what the original article said. It is also possible for your response to get to some sites before the original article. Summarization is best done by including appropriate quotes from the original article. Do not include the entire article since it will irritate the people who have already seen it. Even if you are responding to the entire article, summarize only the major points you are discussing. When Summarizing, Summarize! When you request information from the network, it is common courtesy to report your findings so that others can benefit as well. The best way of doing this is to take all the responses that you received and edit them into a single article that is posted to the places where you originally posted your question. Take the time to strip headers, combine duplicate information, and write a short summary. Try to credit the information to the people that sent it to you, where possible. Use Mail, Don't Post a Follow-up One of the biggest problems we have on the network is that when someone asks a question, many people send out identical answers. When this happens, dozens of identical answers pour through the net. Mail your answer to the person and suggest that they summarize to the network. This way the net will only see a single copy of the answers, no matter how many people answer the question. If you post a question, please remind people to send you the answers by mail and offer to summarize them to the network. Read All Follow-ups and Don't Repeat What Has Already Been Said Before you submit a follow-up to a message, read the rest of the messages in the newsgroup to see whether someone has already said what you want to say. If someone has, don't repeat it. Check the Headers When Following Up The news software has provisions to specify that follow-ups to an article should go to a specific set of newsgroups -- possibly different from the newsgroups to which the original article was posted. Sometimes the groups chosen for follow-ups are totally inappropriate, especially as a thread of discussion changes with repeated postings. You should carefully check the groups and distributions given in the header and edit them as appropriate. If you change the groups named in the header, or if you direct follow-ups to a particular group, say so in the body of the message -- not everyone reads the headers of postings. Be Careful About Copyrights and Licenses Once something is posted onto the network, it is effectively in the public domain unless you own the appropriate rights (most notably, if you wrote the thing yourself) and you post it with a valid copyright notice. Of course, the *information* becomes public, so you mustn't post trade secrets that way. When posting material to the network, keep in mind that material that is UNIX-related may be restricted by the license you or your company signed with AT&T and be careful not to violate it. You should also be aware that posting movie reviews, song lyrics, or anything else published under a copyright could cause you, your company, or the net itself to be held liable for damages, so we highly recommend caution in using this material. Cite Appropriate References If you are using facts to support a cause, state where they came from. Don't take someone else's ideas and use them as your own. You don't want someone pretending that your ideas are theirs; show them the same respect. Mark or Rotate Answers and Spoilers When you post something (like a movie review that discusses a detail of the plot) which might spoil a surprise for other people, please mark your message with a warning so that they can skip the message. Another alternative would be to use the "rot13" protocol to encrypt the message so it cannot be read accidentally. When you post a message with a spoiler in it make sure the word "spoiler" is part of the "Subject:" line. Spelling Flames Considered Harmful Every few months a plague descends on USENET called the spelling flame. It starts out when someone posts an article correcting the spelling or grammar in some article. The immediate result seems to be for everyone on the net to turn into a 6th grade English teacher and pick apart each other's postings for a few weeks. This is not productive and tends to cause people who used to be friends to get angry with each other. It is important to remember that we all make mistakes, and that there are many users on the net who use English as a second language. If you feel that you must make a comment on the quality of a posting, please do so by mail, not on the network. Don't Overdo Signatures Signatures are nice, and many people can have a signature added to their postings automatically by placing it in a file called "$HOME/.signature". Don't overdo it. Signatures can tell the world something about you, but keep them short. A signature that is longer than the message itself is considered to be in bad taste. The main purpose of a signature is to help people locate you, not to tell your life story. Every signature should include at least your return address relative to a well known site on the network and/or a proper domain-format address. Your system administrator can give this to you. Some news posters attempt to enforce a 4 line limit on signature files -- an amount that should be more than sufficient to provide a return address and attribution. Summary of Things to Remember Never forget that the person on the other side is human Be Careful What You Say About Others Be brief Your postings reflect upon you; be proud of them Use descriptive titles Think about your audience Be careful with humor and sarcasm Only post a message once Please rotate material with questionable content Summarize what you are following up Use mail, don't post a follow-up Read all follow-ups and don't repeat what has already been said Double-check follow-up newsgroups and distributions. Be careful about copyrights and licenses Cite appropriate references When summarizing, summarize Mark or rotate answers or spoilers Spelling flames considered harmful Don't overdo signatures (*)UNIX is a registered trademark of AT&T. ----------- This document is in the public domain and may be reproduced or excerpted by anyone wishing to do so. -- Gene Spafford NSF/Purdue/U of Florida Software Engineering Research Center, Dept. of Computer Sciences, Purdue University, W. Lafayette IN 47907-2004 Internet: spaf@cs.purdue.edu uucp: ...!{decwrl,gatech,ucbvax}!purdue!spaf From ames!ncar!husc6!purdue!spaf Thu Apr 13 15:07:47 PDT 1989 Article 387 of news.announce.newusers: Relay-Version: version B 2.10.3 4.3bsd-beta 6/6/85; site scubed.UUCP Path: scubed!ames!ncar!husc6!purdue!spaf >From: spaf@cs.purdue.EDU (Gene Spafford) Newsgroups: news.announce.newusers Subject: Answers to Frequently Asked Questions (Updated: 6 March 1989) Message-ID: <6480@medusa.cs.purdue.edu> Date: 8 Apr 89 21:49:58 GMT Date-Received: 9 Apr 89 03:11:25 GMT Expires: 7 Jul 89 21:49:57 GMT Organization: Dept. of Computer Sciences, Purdue Univ. Lines: 408 Approved: spaf@cs.purdue.EDU Supersedes: <6188@medusa.cs.purdue.edu> Original-from: jerry@eagle.UUCP (Jerry Schwarz) [Most recent change: 6 March 1989 by spaf@cs.purdue.edu (Gene Spafford)] Frequently Submitted Items This document discusses some items that occur repeatedly on USENET. They frequently are submitted by new users, and result in many followups, sometimes swamping groups for weeks. The purpose of this note is to head off these annoying events by answering some questions and warning about the inevitable consequence of asking others. If you don't like these answers let spaf@purdue.edu know. 1. What does UNIX stand for? It is not an acronym, but is a pun on "Multics". Multics is a large operating system that was being developed shortly before UNIX was created. 2. What is the derivation of "foo" as a filler word? The favorite story is that it comes from "fubar" which is an acronym for "fouled up beyond all recognition", which is supposed to be a military term. (Various forms of this exist, "fouled" usually being replaced by a stronger word.) "Foo" and "Bar" have the same derivation. 3. Is a machine at "foo" on the net? These questions belong in news.config (if anywhere), but in fact your best bet is usually to phone somebody at "foo" to find out. If you don't know anybody at "foo" you can always try calling and asking for the "comp center." Also, see the newsgroup comp.mail.maps where maps of USENET and the uucp network are posted regularly. 4. What does "rc" at the end of files like .newsrc mean? It is related to the phrase "run commands." It is used for any file that contains startup information for a command. The use of "rc" in startup files derives from the /etc/rc command file used to start multi-user Unix. 5. What does :-) mean? This is the net convention for a "smiley face". It means that something is being said in jest. If it doesn't look like a smiley face to you, flop your head over to the left and look again. 6. How do I decrypt jokes in rec.humor? The standard cypher used in rec.humor is called "rot13." Each letter is replaced by the letter 13 farther along in the alphabet (cycling around at the end). Most systems have a built-in command to decrypt such articles; readnews has the "D" command, rn has the "X" or "^X" commands, notes has "%" or "R". If your system doesn't have a program to encrypt and decrypt these, you can quickly create a shell script using "tr": tr A-Za-z N-ZA-Mn-za-m On some versions of Unix, the "tr" command should be written as: tr "[a-m][n-z][A-M][N-Z]" "[n-z][a-m][N-Z][A-M]" 7. misc.misc or misc.wanted: Is John Doe out there anywhere? I suspect that these items are people looking for Freshman room- mates that they haven't seen in ten years. If you have some idea where the person is you are usually better off calling the organization. For example, if you call any Bell Labs location and request John Doe's number they can give it to you even if he works at a different location. If you must try the net, use newsgroup soc.net-people *NOT* misc.misc or misc.wanted. 8. sci.math: Proofs that 1=0. Almost everyone has seen one or more of these in high school. They are almost always based on either division by 0 or taking the square root of a negative number. 9. rec.games.*: Where can I get the source for empire or rogue? You can't get the source of rogue. The authors of the game, as is their right, have chosen not to make the sources available. However, several rogue-like games have been posted to the comp.sources.games group and they are available in the archives. You can obtain the source to a version of empire if you provide a tape and SASE *plus* a photocopy of your Unix source license. To obtain further info, contact mcnc!rti-sel!polyof!john. You can also call John at +1 516 454-5191 (9am-9pm EST only). Sites with Internet access can ftp several versions of empire from site g.ms.uky.edu Also, please note that the wizards' passwords in games like these are usually system-dependent and it does no good to ask the net-at-large what they are. 10. comp.unix.questions: How do I remove files with non-ascii characters in their names? You can try to find a pattern that uniquely identifies the file. This sometimes fails because a peculiarity of some shells is that they strip off the highorder bit of characters in command lines. Next, you can try an rm -i, or rm -r. Finally, you can mess around with i-node numbers and "find". Some Emacs editors allow you to directly edit a directory, and this provides yet another way to remove a file with a funny name (assuming you have Emacs and figure out how to use it!). To remove a file named "-" from your directory, simply do: rm ./- 11. comp.unix.wizards: There is a bug in the way UNIX handles protection for programs that run suid. There are indeed problems with the treatment of protection in setuid programs. When this is brought up, suggestions for changes range from implementing a full capability list arrangement to new kernel calls for allowing more control over when the effective id is used and when the real id is used to control accesses. Sooner or later you can expect this to be improved. For now you just have to live with it. 12. Volatile topics, e.g., soc.women: What do you think about abortion? Although abortion might appear to be an appropriate topic for soc.women, more heat than light is generated when it is brought up. All abortion-related discussion should take place in the newsgroup talk.abortion. If your site administrators have chosen not to receive this group, you should respect this and not post articles about abortion at all. This principle applies to other topics: religious upbringing of children should be restricted to talk.religion.misc and kept out of misc.kids, and similarly Zionism discussions should be kept to talk.politics.mideast and not in soc.culture.jewish. USENET newsgroups are named for mostly historical reasons, and are not intended to be fully general discussion groups for everything about the named topic. Please accept this and post articles in their appropriate forums. 13. soc.singles: What do MOTOS, MOTSS, and MOTAS stand for? What does LJBF mean? Member of the opposite sex, member of the same sex, and member of the appropriate sex, respectively. SO stands for "significant other". LJBF means "Let's just be friends." This phrase is often heard when you least want it. 14. soc.singles and elsewhere: What does HASA stand for? The acronym HASA originated with the Heathen and Atheistic SCUM Alliance; the Hedonistic Asti-Spumante Alliance, Heroes Against Spaghetti Altering, the Society for Creative Atheism (SCATHE), SASA, SALSA, PASTA, and many others too numerous to mention all followed. HASA started in (what is now) talk.religion.misc and also turns up in soc.singles, talk.bizarre, et al. because members post there too. 15. sci.space.shuttle: Shouldn't this group be merged with sci.space? No. sci.space.shuttle is for timely news bulletins. sci.space is for discussions. 16. How do I use the "Distribution" feature? When postnews prompts you for a distribution, it's asking how widely distributed you want your article. The set of possible replies is different, depending on where you are, but at Bell Labs in Murray Hill, New Jersey, possibilities include (for example): local local to this machine mh Bell Labs, Murray Hill Branch nj all sites in New Jersey btl All Bell Labs machines att All AT&T machines usa Everywhere in the USA na Everywhere in North America world Everywhere on USENET in the world If you hit return, you'll get the default, which is usually "world.". This default is often not appropriate -- PLEASE take a moment to think about how far away people are likely to be interested in what you have to say. Used car ads, housing wanted ads, and things for sale other than specialized equipment like computers certainly shouldn't be distributed to Europe and Korea, or even to the next state. 17. Why do some people put funny lines ("bug killers") at the beginning of their articles? Some earlier versions of news had a bug which would drop the first 512 or 1024 bytes of text of certain articles. The bug was triggered whenever the article started with whitespace (a blank or a tab). A fix many people adopted was to begin their articles with a line containing a character other than white space. This gradually evolved into the habit of including amusing first lines. The original bug has since been fixed in newer version of news, and sites running older versions of news have applied a patch to prevent articles from losing text. The "bug-killer" lines are therefore probably no longer needed, but they linger on. 18. What is the address or phone number of the "foo" company? Try the white and yellow pages of your phone directory, first; a sales representative will surely know, and if you're a potential customer they will be who you're looking for. Phone books for other cities are usually available in libraries of any size. Whoever buys or recommends things for your company will probably have some buyer's guides or national company directories. Call or visit the reference desk of your library; they have several company and organization directories and many will answer questions like this over the phone. Remember if you only know the city where the company is, you can telephone to find out their full address or a dealer. The network is NOT a free resource, although it may look like that to some people. It is far better to spend a few minutes of your own time researching an answer rather than broadcast your laziness and/or ineptitude to the net. 19. What is the origin of the name "grep"? The exact origin of the name is shrouded in the mists of prehistory, but one explanation is often given: The command g/re/p in the original UNIX text editor "ed" was used so often it was packaged up into a command that was obviously named "grep." According to Kernighan/Plauger _Software Tools in Pascal_, it stands for "Globally look for Regular Expressions and Print." 20. How do I get from BITNET to UUCP, ARPA to BITNET, JANET etc etc.? See the article "Notable Computer Networks" in Volume 29, #10 (October 1986) of the "Communications of the ACM" (CACM). The table on page 940 should provide the syntax needed. The appropriate gateways should be derivable from the postings in comp.mail.maps. 21. Didn't some state once pass a law setting pi equal to 3 ? Indiana House Bill #246 was introduced on 18 January 1897, and referred to the Committee on Canals "midst general cheerfulness." The text states, "the ratio of the diameter and circumference is as five-fourths to four", which makes pi 3.2 (not 3), but there are internal contradictions in the bill as well as contradictions with reality. The author was a mathematical crank. The bill was passed by the state House on 5 February, but indefinitely tabled by the state Senate, in part thanks to the fortuitous presence on other business of a Purdue professor of mathematics. For details, including an annotated text of the bill, read the article by D. Singmaster in "The Mathematical Intelligencer" v7 #2, pp 69-72. 22. Where can I get the necessary software to get a "smart" mail system running on my machine that will take advantage of the postings in comp.mail.maps? (E.g., pathalias, smail, etc.) There are a couple of packages available through the supporters of the comp.sources.unix archives. If sites next to you don't have what you want, contact your nearest comp.sources.unix archive, or the moderator. Information on archive sites, and indices of comp.sources.unix back issues are posted regularly in comp.sources.unix and comp.sources.d. 23. What is "food for the NSA line-eater"? This refers to the alleged scanning of all USENET traffic by the National Security Agency (and possibly other intelligence organizations) for interesting keywords. The "food" is believed to contain some of those keywords in the fond hope of overloading NSA's poor computers. A little thought should convince anyone that this is unlikely to occur. Other posters have taken up this practice, either as an ambiguous form of political statement, or as an attempt at humor. The bottom line is that excessive signatures in any form are discouraged, the joke has worn stale amongst long-time net readers, and there are specific newsgroups for the discussion of politics. 24. Does anyone know the {pinouts, schematics, switch settings, what does jumper J3 do} for widget X? These postings are almost always inappropriate unless the manufacturer has gone out of business or no longer supports the device. If neither of these is the case, you're likely to get a better and faster response by simply telephoning the manufacturer. 25. What is "anonymous ftp"? "FTP" stands for File Transfer Protocol; on many systems, it's also the name of a user-level program that implements that protocol. This program allows a user to transfer files to and from a remote network site, provided that network site is reachable via the DARPA Internet or a similar facility. (Ftp is also usable on many local-area networks.) "Anonymous FTP" indicates that a user may log into the remote system as user "anonymous" with an arbitrary password. A common convention is that some sort of identification is supplied as the password, e.g. "mumble@foo". This is sometimes useful to those sites that track ftp usage. Also note that most sites restrict when transfers can be made, or at least suggest that large transfers be made only during non-peak hours. 26. What is UUNET? UUNET is a non-profit communications service designed to provide access to USENET news, mail, and various source archives at low cost by obtaining volume discounts. Charges are calculated to recover costs. The Usenix Association is currently sponsoring this service. For more information send your US mail address to usenix!uunet-request. 27. Isn't the posting mechanism broken? When I post an article to both a moderated group and unmoderated groups, it gets mailed to the moderator and not posted to the unmoderated groups. This is a question that is debated every few months. The answer is "No, it was designed to work that way." The software is designed so that the moderator can crosspost the article so it appears in the regular groups as well as the moderated group, if appropriate. If the article were to be posted immediately to the unmoderated groups, the moderated group name would have to be deleted from the header and you would lose the crossposting. Whether or not this is correct behavior is a matter of opinion. If you want your article to go out immediately to the unmoderated groups, post it twice -- once to the unmoderated groups and once to the moderated groups. 28. comp.arch and elsewhere: What do FYI and IMHO mean? Those are abbreviations for common phrases. FYI is "For Your Information" and IMHO is "In My Humble Opinion." 29. Would someone repost {large software distribution}? This question should never be posted unless you are reporting a widespread problem in article propagation. Lamentably, there ARE occasional glitches in article transport. Large source or binary postings, by their sheer size, are an inviting target. If the problem is isolated, it is much better to take it upon yourself to obtain the bad portions of the program than to ask thousands of sites to spend thousands of dollars to needlessly move several hundred kilobytes of code. There are archive sites around the net that make most source/binary newsgroups available via anonymous FTP and UUCP. If you get desperate, you can always mail the author a blank disk or magnetic tape with provisions for return postage. 30. How do I contact the moderator of an Arpanet mailing list rather than post to the entire list? To do this you should know that there are, by convention, two mailing addresses for every mailing list (except where noted by the List of Lists): list@host (e.g. xpert@athena.mit.edu) list-request@host (e.g. xpert-request@athena.mit.edu) When you have something for everyone on the mailing list to read, mail to the list@host address. HOWEVER, if you have an administrative request to make (e.g. "please add me to this list", "please remove me from this list", "where are the archives?", "what is this mailer error I got from sending to this list?"), it should be directed to the list-request@host address, which goes only to the mailing list administrator. It is considered to be in bad taste to send administrative requests to the entire mailing list in question, and if (as is often the case) the administrator does not read the mailing list (i.e. he just takes care of the admin tasks for the list), he will not see your request if you don't send it to the right address. 31, I see BTW (or "btw") and RTFM in postings. What do they mean? BTW is shorthand for "by the way." RTFM is generally used as an admonition and means "read the f*ing manual" (choice of f-words varies according to reader). The implication is that the answer to a query or complaint is easy to find if one looks in the appropriate location FIRST. 32. Are there any restrictions on posting e-mail someone sends to me? At a minimum, it is only polite for you to contact the author of the letter and secure her or his permission to post it to the net. On a more serious note, it can be argued that posting someone's e-mail to the net without their permission is a violation of copyright law. Under that law, even though a letter was addressed to you, it does not grant you the right to publish the contents, since those are the work of the author and the author retains copyright (even if no explicit copyright mark appears). There have been many court cases brought because someone tried to publish a collection of letters by a famous person, and that person (or their estate) objected. No case has yet been brought for unauthorized publication of e-mail, but the law seems clear that it is not legal. -- Gene Spafford NSF/Purdue/U of Florida Software Engineering Research Center, Dept. of Computer Sciences, Purdue University, W. Lafayette IN 47907-2004 Internet: spaf@cs.purdue.edu uucp: ...!{decwrl,gatech,ucbvax}!purdue!spaf From ames!ll-xn!husc6!purdue!spaf Thu Apr 13 15:07:18 PDT 1989 Article 389 of news.announce.newusers: Relay-Version: version B 2.10.3 4.3bsd-beta 6/6/85; site scubed.UUCP Path: scubed!ames!ll-xn!husc6!purdue!spaf >From: spaf@cs.purdue.EDU (Gene Spafford) Newsgroups: news.announce.newusers Subject: Hints on writing style for Usenet (Updated: 6 March 1989) Message-ID: <6479@medusa.cs.purdue.edu> Date: 8 Apr 89 21:49:51 GMT Date-Received: 9 Apr 89 03:13:24 GMT Expires: 7 Jul 89 21:49:50 GMT Organization: Dept. of Computer Sciences, Purdue Univ. Lines: 95 Approved: spaf@cs.purdue.EDU Supersedes: <6187@medusa.cs.purdue.edu> Original-from: ofut@gatech.edu (A. Jeff Offutt VI) [Most recent change: 6 March 1989 by spaf@cs.purdue.edu (Gene Spafford)] I would like to take a moment to share some of my knowledge of writing style. If you read the suggestions below, remember: it's easy to agree that they make sense but it's much harder to apply them. References: Cunningham and Pearsall, "How to Write For the World of Work" Strunk & White, "Elements of Style" The above references are both excellent books. Cunningham is a standard in tech writing classes and won an award for the best tech writing book from the Association for Teaching of Technical Writing. I was lucky enough to take a class from him as an undergraduate. Strunk is a standard in college composition classes. Other ideas here come from my own experience on the net and hints from other people. This is a "long article." The rest of it is simply a list of pointers. Writing style: * Write *below* the readers' reading level. The avg. person in the US reads at a 5th grade level (11 years of age). The avg. professional reads at about the 12th grade level (18 years of age). * Keep paragraphs short and sweet. Keep sentences shorter and sweeter. This means "concise," not cryptic. * White space is not wasted space -- it greatly improves clarity. A blank line only adds a byte to the article length, so don't be stingy if it will help make your meaning clearer. * Pick your words to have only *one* meaning. Vagueness is considered artistic by literary critics. We are not being literary here. * People can only grasp about seven things at once. This means ideas in a paragraph, major sections, etc.. * Avoid abbreviations and acronyms, if possible, and define the ones you use. * There are several variations on any one sentence. A passive, questioning or negative sentence takes longer to read. Net style: * Subtlety is not communicated well in written form - especially over a computer. * The above applies to humor as well. (rec.humor, of course, not included.) * When being especially "flame-boyant", I find it helpful to go to the bathroom before actually sending. Then, I often change the tone considerably. :-) Take a break before posting something in anger or that might hurt or anger others. * Subject lines should be used very carefully. How much time have you wasted reading articles with a misleading subject line? The "Subject:" header line can be edited in all the various posting programs (as can the "Distribution:", "Newsgroups:" and "Followup-To:" header lines). * References need to be made. When you answer mail, you have the original message fresh in your mind. When I receive your answer, I don't. * It's *much* easier to read a mixture of upper and lower case letters. * Leaving out articles (such as "the," "a," "an," etc.) for "brevity" mangles the meaning of your sentences and takes longer to read. It saves you time at the expense of your reader. * Be careful of contextual meanings of words. For instance, I used "articles" just now. In the context of netnews, it has a different meaning than I intended. * Make an effort to spell words correctly. Obvious misspellings are jarring and distract the reader. Every news posting program allows you to edit your article before posting, and most systems have some kind of spelling checker program that you can use on your article. * Remember - this is an international network. * Remember - your future employers may be reading your articles. 'Nuff said. These suggestions are all easily supported by arguments and research. There's a lot more to say, but.... -- Gene Spafford NSF/Purdue/U of Florida Software Engineering Research Center, Dept. of Computer Sciences, Purdue University, W. Lafayette IN 47907-2004 Internet: spaf@cs.purdue.edu uucp: ...!{decwrl,gatech,ucbvax}!purdue!spaf From ames!pasteur!ucbvax!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!bu-cs!purdue!spaf Thu Apr 13 15:07:59 PDT 1989 Article 386 of news.announce.newusers: Relay-Version: version B 2.10.3 4.3bsd-beta 6/6/85; site scubed.UUCP Path: scubed!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!bu-cs!purdue!spaf >From: spaf@cs.purdue.EDU (Gene Spafford) Newsgroups: news.announce.newusers Subject: Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette (Updated: 29 January 1989) Message-ID: <6478@medusa.cs.purdue.edu> Date: 8 Apr 89 21:49:46 GMT Date-Received: 9 Apr 89 03:10:27 GMT Expires: 7 Jul 89 21:49:45 GMT Organization: Dept. of Computer Sciences, Purdue Univ. Lines: 343 Approved: spaf@cs.purdue.EDU Supersedes: <6186@medusa.cs.purdue.edu> Original-from: looking!brad (Brad Templeton) [Most recent change: 29 January 1989 by looking!brad (Brad Templeton)] **NOTE: this is intended to be satirical. If you do not recognize it as such, consult a doctor or professional comedian. The recommendations in this article should recognized for what they are -- admonitions about what NOT to do. "Dear Emily Postnews" Emily Postnews, foremost authority on proper net behaviour, gives her advice on how to act on the net. ============================================================================ Dear Miss Postnews: How long should my signature be? -- verbose@portal A: Dear Verbose: Please try and make your signature as long as you can. It's much more important than your article, of course, so try and have more lines of signature than actual text. Try and include a large graphic made of ASCII characters, plus lots of cute quotes and slogans. People will never tire of reading these pearls of wisdom again and again, and you will soon become personally associated with the joy each reader feels at seeing yet another delightful repeat of your signature. Be sure as well to include a complete map of USENET with each signature, to show how anybody can get mail to you from any site in the world. Be sure to include ARPA gateways as well. Also tell people on your own site how to mail to you. Give indpendent addresses for Internet, UUCP, BITNET, Arpanet and CSNET, even if they're all the same. Aside from your reply address, include your full name, company and organization. It's just common courtesy -- after all, in some newsreaders people have to type an *entire* keystroke to go back to the top of your article to see this information in the header. By all means include your phone number and street address in every single article. People are always responding to usenet articles with phone calls and letters. It would be silly to go to the extra trouble of including this information only in articles that need a response by conventional channels! ------ Dear Emily: Today I posted an article and forgot to include my signature. What should I do? -- forgetful@myvax A: Dear Forgetful: Rush to your terminal right away and post an article that says, "Oops, I forgot to post my signature with that last article. Here it is." Since most people will have forgotten your earlier article, (particularly since it dared to be so boring as to not have a nice, juicy signature) this will remind them of it. Besides, people care much more about the signature anyway. See the previous letter for more important details. Also, be sure to include your signature TWICE in each article. That way you're sure people will read it. ------ Dear Ms. Postnews: I couldn't get mail through to somebody on another site. What should I do? -- eager@beaver.dam A: Dear Eager: No problem, just post your message to a group that a lot of people read. Say, "This is for John Smith. I couldn't get mail through so I'm posting it. All others please ignore." This way tens of thousands of people will spend a few seconds scanning over and ignoring your article, using up over 16 man-hours their collective time, but you will be saved the terrible trouble of checking through usenet maps or looking for alternate routes. Just think, if you couldn't distribute your message to 9000 other computers, you might actually have to (gasp) call directory assistance for 60 cents, or even phone the person. This can cost as much as a few DOLLARS (!) for a 5 minute call! And certainly it's better to spend 10 to 20 dollars of other people's money distributing the message than for you to have to waste $9 on an overnight letter, or even 25 cents on a stamp! Don't forget. The world will end if your message doesn't get through, so post it as many places as you can. ------ Q: What about a test message? A: It is important, when testing, to test the entire net. Never test merely a subnet distribution when the whole net can be done. Also put "please ignore" on your test messages, since we all know that everybody always skips a message with a line like that. Don't use a subject like "My sex is female but I demand to be addressed as male." because such articles are read in depth by all USEnauts. ------ Q: Somebody just posted that Roman Polanski directed Star Wars. What should I do? A: Post the correct answer at once! We can't have people go on believing that! Very good of you to spot this. You'll probably be the only one to make the correction, so post as soon as you can. No time to lose, so certainly don't wait a day, or check to see if somebody else has made the correction. And it's not good enough to send the message by mail. Since you're the only one who really knows that it was Francis Coppola, you have to inform the whole net right away! ------ Q: I read an article that said, "reply by mail, I'll summarize." What should I do? A: Post your response to the whole net. That request applies only to dumb people who don't have something interesting to say. Your postings are much more worthwhile than other people's, so it would be a waste to reply by mail. ------ Q: I collected replies to an article I wrote, and now it's time to summarize. What should I do? A: Simply concatenate all the articles together into a big file and post that. On USENET, this is known as a summary. It lets people read all the replies without annoying newsreaders getting in the way. Do the same when summarizing a vote. ------ Q: I saw a long article that I wish to rebut carefully, what should I do? A: Include the entire text with your article, and include your comments between the lines. Be sure to post, and not mail, even though your article looks like a reply to the original. Everybody *loves* to read those long point-by-point debates, especially when they evolve into name-calling and lots of "Is too!" -- "Is not!" -- "Is too, twizot!" exchanges. ------ Q: How can I choose what groups to post in? A: Pick as many as you can, so that you get the widest audience. After all, the net exists to give you an audience. Ignore those who suggest you should only use groups where you think the article is highly appropriate. Pick all groups where anybody might even be slightly interested. Always make sure followups go to all the groups. In the rare event that you post a followup which contains something original, make sure you expand the list of groups. Never include a "Followup-to:" line in the header, since some people might miss part of the valuable discussion in the fringe groups. ------ Q: How about an example? A: Ok. Let's say you want to report that Gretzky has been traded from the Oilers to the Kings. Now right away you might think rec.sport.hockey would be enough. WRONG. Many more people might be interested. This is a big trade! Since it's a NEWS article, it belongs in the news.* hierarchy as well. If you are a news admin, or there is one on your machine, try news.admin. If not, use news.misc. The Oilers are probably interested in geology, so try sci.physics. He is a big star, so post to sci.astro, and sci.space because they are also interested in stars. Next, his name is Polish sounding. So post to soc.culture.polish. But that group doesn't exist, so cross-post to news.groups suggesting it should be created. With this many groups of interest, your article will be quite bizarre, so post to talk.bizarre as well. (And post to comp.std.mumps, since they hardly get any articles there, and a "comp" group will propagate your article further.) You may also find it is more fun to post the article once in each group. If you list all the newsgroups in the same article, some newsreaders will only show the the article to the reader once! Don't tolerate this. ------ Q: How do I create a newsgroup? A: The easiest way goes something like "inews -C newgroup ....", and while that will stir up lots of conversation about your new newsgroup, it might not be enough. First post a message in news.groups describing the group. Hold discussion for a short while, and then ask for a vote. Collect votes for 30 days. Every few days post a long summary of all the votes so that people can complain about bad mailers and double votes. It means you'll be more popular and get lots of mail. At the end of thirty days if you have 100 more yes votes than no votes you may create the group. No matter what the group, it is not necessary to get the approval of admins at backbone sites. They will be happy to create any group if it passes the above test. To liven up discussion, choose a good cross-match for your hierarchy and group. For example, comp.race.formula1 or soc.vlsi.design would be good group names. If you want your group created quickly, include an interesting word like "sex" or "bible." To avoid limiting discussion, make the name as broad as possible. ------ Q: I cant spell worth a dam. I hope your going too tell me what to do? A: Don't worry about how your articles look. Remember it's the message that counts, not the way it's presented. Ignore the fact that sloppy spelling in a purely written forum sends out the same silent messages that soiled clothing would when addressing an audience. ------ Q: How should I pick a subject for my articles? A: Keep it short and meaningless. That way people will be forced to actually read your article to find out what's in it. This means a bigger audience for you, and we all know that's what the net is for. If you do a followup, be sure and keep the same subject, even if it's totally meaningless and not part of the same discussion. If you don't, you won't catch all the people who are looking for stuff on the original topic, and that means less audience for you. ------ Q: What sort of tone should I take in my article? A: Be as outrageous as possible. If you don't say outlandish things, and fill your article with libelous insults of net people, you may not stick out enough in the flood of articles to get a response. The more insane your posting looks, the more likely it is that you'll get lots of followups. The net is here, after all, so that you can get lots of attention. If your article is polite, reasoned and to the point, you may only get mailed replies. Yuck! ------ Q: The posting software suggested I had too long a signature and too many lines of included text in my article. What's the best course? A: Such restrictions were put in the software for no reason at all, so don't even try to figure out why they might apply to your article. Turns out most people search the net to find nice articles that consist of the complete text of an earlier article plus a few lines. In order to help these people, fill your article with dummy original lines to get past the restrictions. Everybody will thank you for it. For your signature, I know it's tough, but you will have to read it in with the editor. Do this twice to make sure it's firmly in there. ------ Q: They just announced on the radio that Dan Quayle was picked as the Republican V.P. candidate. Should I post? A: Of course. The net can reach people in as few as 3 to 5 days. It's the perfect way to inform people about such news events long after the broadcast networks have covered them. As you are probably the only person to have heard the news on the radio, be sure to post as soon as you can. ------ Q: I have this great joke. You see, these three strings walk into a bar.... A: Oh dear. Don't spoil it for me. Submit it to rec.humor, and post it to the moderator of rec.humor.funny at the same time. I'm sure he's never seen that joke, and I know he loves to have jokes sent to rec.humor and rec.humor.funny at the same time. ------ Q: What computer should I buy? An Atari ST or an Amiga? A: Cross post that question to the Atari and Amiga groups. It's an interesting and novel question that I am sure they would love to investigate in those groups. ------ Q: What about other important questions? How should I know when to post? A: Always post them. It would be a big waste of your time to find a knowledgeable user in one of the groups and ask through private mail if the topic has already come up. Much easier to bother thousands of people with the same question. ------ Q: What is the measure of a worthwhile group? A: Why, it's Volume, Volume, Volume. Any group that has lots of noise in it must be good. Remember, the higher the volume of material in a group, the higher percentage of useful, factual and insightful articles you will find. In fact, if a group can't demonstrate a high enough volume, it should be deleted from the net. ------ Q: Emily, I'm having a serious disagreement with somebody on the net. I tried complaints to his sysadmin, organizing mail campaigns, called for his removal from the net and phoning his employer to get him fired. Everybody laughed at me. What can I do? A: Go to the daily papers. Most modern reporters are top-notch computer experts who will understand the net, and your problems, perfectly. They will print careful, reasoned stories without any errors at all, and surely represent the situation properly to the public. The public will also all act wisely, as they are also fully cognizant of the subtle nature of net society. Papers never sensationalize or distort, so be sure to point out things like racism and sexism wherever they might exist. Be sure as well that they understand that all things on the net, particularly insults, are meant literally. Link what transpires on the net to the causes of the Holocaust, if possible. If regular papers won't take the story, go to a tabloid paper -- they are always interested in good stories. By arranging all this free publicity for the net, you'll become very well known. People on the net will wait in eager anticipation for your every posting, and refer to you constantly. You'll get more mail than you ever dreamed possible -- the ultimate in net success. ------ Q: What does foobar stand for? A: It stands for you, dear. -- Gene Spafford NSF/Purdue/U of Florida Software Engineering Research Center, Dept. of Computer Sciences, Purdue University, W. Lafayette IN 47907-2004 Internet: spaf@cs.purdue.edu uucp: ...!{decwrl,gatech,ucbvax}!purdue!spaf