XRBPOST: WHERE TO POST YOUR MESSAGES FROM :buglady@bronze.lcs.mit.edu SUBJECT:How to find the right place to post (FAQ) Message-ID: Newsgroups: news.announce.newusers,news.groups.questions,news.groups.reviews news.groups,news.newusers.questions,alt.config,alt.answers,news.answers Organization: Net Geeks Anonymous Archive-name: finding-groups/general Last-Modified: 94/09/07 Posting-Frequency: every 2 weeks. There are thousands of Usenet newsgroups, and it is sometimes difficult to find the right newsgroup to ask a question or start a discussion. This document gives some general methods of finding the right newsgroup or mailing list for a topic. Resources for new Usenet users Things that should not be posted to Usenet Finding the right newsgroup Crossposting to multiple newsgroups Choosing a good Subject: header Finding FAQs and other Periodical Postings Finding public mailing lists Starting a new Usenet newsgroup About this post Appendix: Anonymous FTP Subject: Resources for new Usenet users If you are new to Usenet, you should take the time to read the posts in news.announce.newusers (n.a.n.) carefully -- if they are not available in your newsreader, they also available by anonymous FTP (see below) in rtfm.mit.edu:/pub/usenet/news.announce.newusers/* A few that are most likely to be immediately helpful are: A_Primer_on_How_to_Work_With_the_Usenet_Community Answers_to_Frequently_Asked_Questions_about_Usenet Emily_Postnews_Answers_Your_Questions_on_Netiquette Hints_on_writing_style_for_Usenet Introduction_to_the_*.answers_newsgroups Rules_for_posting_to_Usenet What_is_Usenet? Another place you can look for helpful postings, or post general questions, is the group news.newusers.questions. Some of the useful articles regularly posted there are: Anonymous_FTP:_Frequently_Asked_Questions_(FAQ)_List FAQ:_How_to_find_people_s_E-mail_addresses FAQ:_International_E-mail_accessibility Internet_Services_Frequently_Asked_Questions_&_Answers_(FAQ) Welcome_to_news.newusers.questions!_(weekly_posting) rn_KILL_file_FAQ Subject: Things that should not be posted to Usenet 1) Requests for help with your local system or software When posting requests for help to Usenet, remember two things: people on your local machine can probably help you better and faster, and people on the Net do not know what your local configuration and problems are. You should always try to access local help (the 'man' command on Unix systems), or sending mail to your system maintainers/consultants (try 'usenet', 'news', or 'postmaster' on most Unix systems), before sending your question out to hundreds of thousands of people using dozens of system types. On some systems, you may also have local newsgroups, which can also be good places to ask site-specific questions about systems and software. Usenet news is not centrally controlled or distributed. It trickles around from one machine to another, at varying speeds. The rate at which news gets to your system, and the order of the articles you see, are determined by the way your system and its neighbors handle news. 2) Commercial Advertisements Some of the University networks connected to the InterNet prohibit using their bandwidth for commercial advertising. In addition, most Usenet users strongly disapprove of business advertising in non-business-related groups. In particular, anything that looks like a pyramid scheme or chain letter will draw floods of critical e-mail to both you and your machine administrators. Posting about a few items for sale, or a job opening, in an appropriate newsgroup (such as misc.forsale.* or misc.jobs.*) is OK; posting an ad for your business is probably not. See also: Subject: Finding the right newsgroup To find what groups are relevant for your subject, you might search through your local list of newsgroups (your .newsrc file on most Unix systems; use the command grep .newsrc), to see which group names seem related. Then subscribe to those groups, and look at some of the recent traffic, to make sure that your question is suitable for the group. (For example, questions about Microsoft Windows belong in comp.os.ms-windows.*, not comp.windows.*) [The asterisk, '*', means multiple objects (here, groups) are referenced.] On some systems, your .newsrc file won't contain the names of newsgroups you haven't subscribed to. In that case, read the documentation for your newsreader to find out how to add newsgroups, and use the methods mentioned below to find out the names of groups that might be available on your system. On some systems, the 'newsgroups' command will show you a file containing a one-line description of the purpose of each newsgroup (the newsgroups file), or longer descriptions of the purpose and contents of each newsgroup (the newsgroup charters.) Ask your local news administrator if these resources are available on your system. For widely-distributed newsgroups, you can also find the one-line descriptions in the following news.lists postings: List_of_Active_Newsgroups,_Part_I List_of_Active_Newsgroups,_Part_II Alternative_Newsgroup_Hierarchies,_Part_I Alternative_Newsgroup_Hierarchies,_Part_II The 'List' posts describe newsgroups in the comp, misc, news, rec, soc, sci, and talk hierarchies. The 'Alt' posts describe newsgroups in the alt, bionet, bit, biz, clarinet, gnu, hepnet, ieee, inet, info, k12, relcom, u3b, and vmsnet hierarchies. They will not describe groups that are available only in your region or institution. (These posts also available in garbo.uwasa.fi:/pc/doc-net/newsgrps.zip) Once you have checked local resources, and the formal newsgroup descriptions, if you are still uncertain as to what groups are 'right' for your post, you can ask in news.groups.questions - this group is designed for people to ask what existing newsgroup is appropriate for a given topic or sub-topic of discussion. Very few sites carry all available newsgroups (there are thousands). Your local news administrator can help you access newsgroups that are not currently available, or explain why certain groups are not available at your site. If your site does not carry the newsgroup(s) where your post belongs, do NOT post it in other, inappropriate groups. Subject: Crossposting to multiple newsgroups Think very carefully before crossposting to more than one, or perhaps two, newsgroups. It is considered highly inappropriate to broadcast your message to a wide selection of newsgroups merely to have more people read it. Note also that many people automatically ignore articles posted to more than two or three groups. Follow the general rules of Netiquette (Usenet etiquette) described in the news.announce.newusers postings above. Often, even when an article is appropriate for multiple newsgroups, it is desirable to redirect all followup discussion into one particular newsgroup. You can do this by adding a Followup-To header line that lists the single newsgroup where further discussion will go. (You should also mention in the body of the article that you have redirected followups to that group, so that people interested in following the subject can find it.) For example: Newsgroups: rec.pets.cats,misc.consumers.house Followup-To: rec.pets.cats Subject: Need product to remove cat odor from carpets [Followups redirected to rec.pets.cats] Text of article Subject: Choosing a good Subject: header Many people scan the Subject lines of newsgroups, and choose to only read articles with a Subject line that is of interest to them. (This is the '=' command in rn - check the documentation of your newsreader to see if this ability is available to you.) If your Subject line does not contain useful information about the contents of your post, relatively few people will read it. For example, you are more likely to get useful replies with a subject of "Need file conversion utility from PC-Write to WordPerfect" than with a subject of "Help!". Some newsgroups have a 'standard' for what information should be contained in the Subject line - for example, postings in misc.jobs.offered are expected to contain the job title and location in the Subject line, and postings in rec.games.board are expected to list the name of the specific game. It is always a good idea to scan the contents of a newsgroup to see if there is a common format in use. If you are following up to another post, make sure that the Subject is relevant to your post, too. If you change the topic away from the original one, you should probably change the Subject line, too. Subject: Finding FAQs and other Periodical Postings Once you decide what newsgroup(s) are relevant to your question, make sure that you're not asking questions that are frequently asked and answered. In addition to looking at recent traffic in the group, check whether your question is included in a FAQ (Frequently Asked/Answered Questions) list. Most FAQs are archived at rtfm.mit.edu, in directory /pub/usenet/your.group.name, if they're not available in your newsreader in the specific group or in *.answers. Many groups also have a periodic introductory post that describes the content and purpose of the newsgroup - if one exists, you should read it before posting. A listing of many of the periodical postings on Usenet can be found in news.lists or its archives, as List_of_Periodic_Informational_Postings,_Part_*_* If you have access to the World Wide Web (often reached through the Mosaic software), you can access the FAQs in HTML format at http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/hypertext/faq/usenet/FAQ-List.html These FAQs are easy to browse through. Subject: Finding public mailing lists There are a great many public mailing lists, on a wide range of topics. Some of them cover specific topics that aren't often discussed on Usenet, while others duplicate the topics of one or more newsgroups. A listing of many of the public lists is in news.lists and archives, as List of Publicly Accessible Mailing Lists, Part */* Starting a new Usenet newsgroup If you can't find a newsgroup or mailing list that holds discussion on a specific topic, it is probably a bad idea to start a new newsgroup for it. Most successful newsgroups are started to split off a sub-topic that is already being discussed on one or more other newsgroups. You might try posting an article on the appropriate *.misc newsgroup, and see if there are others who are interested in the subject. If you really think it is appropriate to start a new newsgroup, some general guidelines can be found in: news.announce.newgroups: How_to_Create_a_New_Usenet_Newsgroup alt.config: So_You_Want_to_Create_an_Alt_Newsgroup New newsgroups in the comp, misc, news, rec, sci, soc, and talk hierarchies are first proposed/discussed in news.groups. New newsgroups for the alt hierarchy should be first proposed/discussed in alt.config. Talk to someone local about starting new local newsgroups. Send mail to your local news admin to find out where to start. It is recommended that you have several months experience with USENET and watching the group creation process in action for other groups before you attempt to run your own proposal. In particular, read both news.announce.newgroups and news.groups to see the way proposals are presented and the sort of pitfalls you can stumble into. Make sure you have read and fully understand the postings "How to Create a New Usenet Newsgroup" and "Usenet Newsgroup Creation Companion" in news.announce.newusers. If you want to start a mailing list, you should talk to your system administrator about what mailing list tools are supported for your environment. Depending on your environment and the needs of your list, there are a variety of methods available. Subject: About this post Following these suggestions will help not only to ensure that your post reaches its intended audience, but to make Usenet more useful for all of us. The following people have contributed to this article: jimj@eecs.umich.edu (Jim Jewett) msb@sq.com (Mark Brader) jlaiho@ichaos.nullnet.fi (Juha Laiho) bobmcc@tcs.com (Bob McCormick) schweppe@bumetb.bu.edu (Edmund Schweppe) ts@uwasa.fi (Prof. Timo Salmi) Mark-Moraes@deshaw.com (Mark Moraes) lieberma@cs.rpi.edu (Adam Lieberman) Questions about the contents of this article, suggestions for improvement, and corrections should be sent to buglady@bronze.lcs.mit.edu This article is copyrighted by its author, Aliza R. Panitz (buglady@bronze.lcs.mit.edu). It may be copied and redistributed, in its entirety, for free redistribution. In particular, you are encouraged to save this article and send it to people who post inappropriate material to your newsgroups. All other rights reserved. Subject: Appendix: Anonymous FTP [This help file was written for the roguelike games FAQ; some of the hints and examples may not be relevant here.] Pretty much everything mentioned here is available by anonymous FTP. FAQ lists cross-posted to news.answers and *.answers can be gotten from rtfm.mit.edu (18.181.0.24), under /pub/usenet/news.answers or under /pub/usenet/more.specific.group.name "anonymous FTP" is just a way for files to be stored where anyone on the Internet can retrieve them over the Net. For example, to retrieve the latest version of the Moria FAQ, do the following: > ftp rtfm.mit.edu /* connect to the site; a message follows */ > anonymous /* type this when it asks for your name */ > /* type your address as the password */ > cd /pub/usenet /* go to the directory you want to be in */ > cd rec.games.moria /* one level down (no slash). */ > dir /* (or ls) look at what's there */ > get r.g.m_F_A_Q /* get the file; case-sensitive */ > quit /* stop this mysterious thing */ If your FTP program complains that it doesn't know where the site you want to use is, type the numerical address instead of the sitename: > ftp 18.181.0.24 /* connect with numerical address */ If you don't have ftp access, send e-mail to mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu with the single word "help" in the body of the message. Getting binary files (executables, or any compressed files) is only slightly more difficult. You need to set binary mode inside FTP before you transfer the file. > binary /* set binary transfer mode */ > ascii /* set back to text transfer mode */ FAQs and other text documents are generally ascii files; everything else is generally binary files. Compressed text files turn into binary files, though. Some common extensions on binary files in archive sites are: .Z Compressed; extract with uncompress .tar.Z Compressed 'tape archive'; uncompress then untar or tar -xvf .gz or .z Gnu gzip; use gunzip (prep.ai.mit.edu:/pub/gnu/gzip.*.tar) .tgz Gnu gzip of a tar archive; read the gzip man page. .sit (Mac) StufIt archive .zip (PC) Extract with Zip or Unzip .zoo (PC) Yet another archive/compress program .lzh (Unix and PC) Yet another... .arj (PC) and another... .lha (Amiga) Common archive format. .exe (PC) Self-extracting archives - just execute them. [Note: sometimes non-archived executables are stored.] .uue or .UUE Transfer as text file; use uudecode to convert to binary .hqx (Mac) BinHex format; transfer in text mode Generic help can be found in the FAQs of comp.binaries. for how to transfer, extract, and virus-check binary files. (At rtfm.mit.edu) If you can't FTP from your site, use one of the following ftp-by-mail servers: ftpmail@decwrl.dec.com ftpmail@src.doc.ic.ac.uk ftpmail@cs.uow.edu.au ftpmail@grasp.insa-lyon.fr For complete instructions, send a message reading "help" to the server. Some FTP sites, such as rtfm.mit.edu, have dedicated mailservers that will send you files only from that site; it causes less network load to use local FTP servers where they exist. If you don't know exactly what you're looking for, or exactly where it is, there are programs and servers that can help you. For more info, send e-mail to mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu with the body of the message reading send usenet/news.answers/finding-sources