From: djdaneh@pbhyc.pacbell.com
Subject: WELCOME TO REC.ARTS.SF.REVIEWS
Organization: Pacific * Bell
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1992 19:24:35 GMT
Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written
Keywords: r.a.sf.r,FAQL,welcome,standards

			WELCOME TO REC.ARTS.SF.REVIEWS
		(last modified Mon Feb 03 10:00:02 PST 1992)

[NOTE:  This regular posting serves in lieu of a Frequently Asked
Questions List (FAQL).  If anything in this posting seems to require
expansion or clarification, please contact its maintainer, Dan'l
Danehy-Oakes, at djdaneh@pbhyc.pacbell.com.]

Rec.arts.sf.reviews (r.a.sf.r for short) is a forum for distributing
reviews of works of interest to fans of science fiction/speculative
fiction/fantasy/horror/and sometimes comics (sf/f/h/c for short).  
This "welcome" message consists of the following:

I.	Description of subject matter
II.	Minimum standards and recommended standards
III.	Mechanics
IV.	Rec.arts.sf.reviews archive

I.  Description of subject matter

Two types of articles will be posted to r.a.sf.r:

1.  Reviews and critical discussion of works (see below) of interest 
to fans of sf/f/h/c

   A.  A "review" consists of evaluative commentary on the work by 
   someone who has read (watched, listened to, experienced) the 
   work, designed to help those who have not read (watched, listened 
   to, experienced) the work make an informed decision as to whether 
   or not to do so.  

   B.  If you need a definition of what "critical discussion" is, you 
   should not attempt it.

2.  Reactions to (1) above.  Because this is NOT a "discussion group," 
in order to be posted to r.a.sf.r, reactions must add new commentary 
on the work.  Articles that simply argue or agree with the original 
posting will be returned to the sender unposted.  

In other words, it's generally preferable to write a new review or 
critical discussion rather than a reaction piece.

For purposes of r.a.sf.r, the term "works" will be interpreted fairly
liberally:
 
   1.  Any book, short story, novella, movie, album, magazine, "graphic 
   novel," sculpture, etc., etc., whose content is primarily sf/f/h/c is
   eligible for review on r.a.sf.r.  

   Two partial exceptions have been determined:

      A.  Individual episodes of continuing TV series ARE NOT subject 
      matter for r.a.sf.r.  "Arcs" of such series, or full seasons or 
      runs of such series, are.  Miniseries as a whole ARE appropriate 
      subject matter for r.a.sf.r.

      B.  Individual issues of continuing comic books ARE NOT subject 
      matter for r.a.sf.r.  "Series-within-series," or full runs of such 
      comics, are.  Limited series (in whatever "format") ARE 
      appropriate subject matter for r.a.sf.r.

   The reasons for these two restrictions are (a) because it seems 
   desirable to limit the size/volume/bandwidth of this newsgroup, and
   (b) because there are generally already outlets (such as 
   rec.arts.startrek and rec.arts.comics) for the ongoing, short-term 
   reviews of transient material.

   2.  Also acceptable for review in r.a.sf.r are

      A.  Non-sf/f/h/c works by creators generally associated with 
      sf/f/h/c.

      B.  Critical works about creators of sf/f/h/c or about the 
      fields of sf/f/h/c in general.

      C.  Works "of interest to fans of sf/f/h/c."  This is obviously a 
      rather vague term, and must be interpreted by the moderators (who 
      are reminded by the posting of this "welcome" message that they 
      are to interpret it fairly liberally).  

II.  Minimum standards and recommended standards.

1.  Subject lines

The Subject line of r.a.sf.r postings MUST include the title of the work 
and the creator's name.  Don't worry too much about this, the moderators 
will diddle them as needed.

Examples of ideal Subject lines:

Subject:  Review of Robert A. Heinlein's FARNHAM'S FREEHOLD
Subject:  Review:  Robert Forward's DRAGON'S EGG
Subject:  DHALGREN, by Delany -- Critique
Subject:  Critique of Lucasfilm's STAR WARS I

2. Bibliographic information

The value of a review increases when it is accompanied by some basic
bibliographic information which will help potential readers to find the
work or compare it with others.  Publishers usually include this
information on the book jacket and copyright page.  

At minimum, you must include:
   Author's name
   Title
   Publisher
   Place of publication
   Date of publication/Copyright date
   ISBN
   Price

It would also be nice to include information like:
   Series title and volume, if any 
      (e.g., "Volume 9 in the "Fleurs des Murs" saga")
   Copyright date, if different from publication date
   Media/format (e.g., hardcover, paperback, comic, videotape, etc.)

Obviously, for reviews of works other than novels, analogous information
is requested.  For example, for a movie "Authors" ==> producer, director,
and/or scenarist; "Publisher" ==> releasing studio; "ISBN" is pretty much
irrelevant; "Price" only becomes relevant upon release of a videotape.

We would like this information to be in the UNIX addbib(1) format, though 
we can hack that if necessary.  The reason for this is that it makes 
preparation of indices (see below) much, much easier.

On any Berkeley UNIX system, type "man addbib" for details.  The format
uses an alphabetical code to identify different types of information.
The following codes are or may be relevant to rasfr reviewers (an
asterisk [*] denotes a required datum):

*         %A   Author's name (use a separate %A line for each)
*	  %B   Anthology/collection title for individual stories/articles
          %C   City (place of publication)
*         %D   Date of publication
          %E   Editor (of book or series)
*         %G   Government order number (use this for ISBN)
          %H   Header commentary, printed before reference
*         %I   Issuer (publisher's name and imprint)
          %J   Journal containing article
          %K   Keywords  
	  %O   Comments/etc. (use for format/price, ordering info) 
          %P   Page number(s) (use for page count)
          %S   Series title
*         %T   Title of article or book
          %V   Volume number

Realistic-type examples (the format we want to encourage), first a
novel in a series, then a critical article in an anthology:

	%A Smith, Nancy Q.
	%T The Wizard and the Blonde
	%I NAL Roc Fantasy
	%C New York
	%D June 1991
	%G ISBN 0-123-45678-9
	%P 403 pp.
	%S The Wizard's Journey
	%V Book 3
	%O paperback, US$4.95

	%A Milligan, Sterling J.
	%T Delany's "Dhalgren": Masterpiece or Solecism?
	%B The Big Book of SF Criticism
	%E Oliver, Chad
	%E Greenberg, Martin
	%I Big Books
	%C Radnor, PA
	%D 1982
	%G No ISBN
	%P 552 pp.
	%O trade paperback, US$12.95
	%O order from Big Books, P.O. Box 123, Radnor PA 19304 USA

Note the use of mixed-case.  This is recommended (though not required)
because information may be lost otherwise.  (E.g., is that Charles de Lint,
or De Lint?)

3. Language/Style

Articles on r.a.sf.r should be written in some close relative of Standard
English.  This is not to say you must stick closely to Fowlers' rules; if
there is a Joe-Bob Briggs or a Harlan Ellison out there, the last thing 
we would want to do is stifle them.  But you should remember that not 
everyone in your audience reads English as a first language, and try to
keep your language understandable by, say, someone with an eighth-grade
education.

In other words, your content may be as simple or as abstruse as you 
like, but it should be communicated as clearly as possible.

For works in a foreign language, reviews either in that language or in
English will be accepted.  If none of the moderators is able to read the
language in which a review is written, we will pass it for posting with
a disclaimer stating that none of us was able to read it and we are not
responsible for content.

4. Spoilers

Reviews and critiques may give away surprise twists and/or endings of 
stories.  Reviewers and critics are hereby put upon their honor to inform 
their readers *IN* *ADVANCE* that this is the case (the Subject line is 
a good place for it), and to insert a control-L ("^L") or a screenful of 
blank space, to allow the readers to avoid these "spoilers."  

The control-L is preferable; however, we realize some primitive text 
editors still in use won't handle them.

The moderator may insert these for you, or bounce the article, if you 
commit a sufficiently annoying spoiler.

III.  Mechanics.

R.a.sf.r is moderated by one or more of several moderators.  These are

	    Michael C. Berch
	    Dan'l Danehy-Oakes  
	    Evelyn Leeper	
	    Wayne Throop	
	    Alan Wexelblat
	    Bill Wisner     

Articles are *NOT* to be mailed to these moderators directly.  They 
should be mailed to the rec.arts.sf.reviews submission address, from 
where they will be forwarded to the appropriate moderator.

The submission address using Internet protocol is 

	sf-reviews@presto.ig.com

The UUCP address is

	uunet!presto.ig.com!sf-reviews		or
	ames!bionet!ig!sf-reviews

Articles may also be posted using standard news software (such as
"postnews"), which will automatically send it to the moderator(s).

Suggestions, comments, offers to assist, etc., may be mailed to 

	rasfr-comments@presto.ig.com

Indices of material posted to rec.arts.sf.reviews will be posted on a 
quarterly basis.  

IV. Archive

The rec.arts.sf.reviews archives have been online since June of 1991.

Access is available via anonymous FTP and via WAIS (Wide-Area
Information Service) retrieval.  This should accommodate most of those
on the Internet (about 80% of the readership).  There may be a mail
archive server available in the future, as we are investigating various
archive server software packages.

Anonymous FTP Retrieval

The archive is on the host turbo.bio.net (NOT presto.ig.com which hold the 
moderation/submission address for the group; presto is down the hall from 
turbo, and they're both on the same Ethernet, but we run them for different 
groups).  The IP address of turbo.bio.net is 134.172.3.69.

The files are in the directory "sf-reviews".  The article files are
named "archiveYY.Q" where "YY" are the last two digits of the year and
"Q" is the quarter [1,2,3,4].  The current quarter's messages are in
the file "archive".

Index files for each quarter are also available, and have the same
names as the article files, with the suffix ".index" (example:
archive91.3.index).  The index files contain the From, Subject,
Message-ID, and Date headers of each article, plus the "%"
bibliographic codes.

Here's a sample anonymous FTP session; those who are familiar with FTP
can skip over this part.  The sample shows a UNIX ftp client; the
dialogue may be slightly different for those on other implementations.

	% ftp turbo.bio.net
	Connected to turbo.bio.net.
	220 turbo.bio.net FTP server (SunOS 4.1) ready.
	Name (turbo.bio.net:mcb): anonymous
	331 Guest login ok, send ident as password.
	Password: guest    [This doesn't print -- use any string like "guest"]
	230 Guest login ok, access restrictions apply.
	ftp> ls -l
	200 PORT command successful.
	150 ASCII data connection for /bin/ls (134.172.3.5,1060) (0 bytes).
	total 11
	-rw-r--r--  1 root            0 Apr  9  1988 .hushlogin
	drwxrwsr-x  2 lear          512 Jul 20  1990 bin
	drwxrwsr-x  3 113           512 Dec 30 05:17 chalkhills
	drwxrwsr-x  2 lear          512 Jul 31 18:54 dev
	drwxrwsr-x  2 lear          512 Jan  8  1991 etc
	drwxrwsr-x  3 lear          512 Sep 30 17:52 ietf-nntp
	drwxrwsr-x  2 242           512 Dec 13 23:46 jitr
	drwxrwsr-x  2 lear          512 Jan  8  1991 nan
	drwxrwsr-x  2 lear          512 Oct 30 22:26 pub
	drwxrwsr-x  2 242           512 Dec 24 19:15 sf-reviews
	drwxrwsr-x  3 lear          512 Jul 20  1990 usr
	drwxrwsr-x  2 105          1024 Jan  2 23:11 weather
	226 ASCII Transfer complete.
	remote: -l
	696 bytes received in 1.2 seconds (0.59 Kbytes/s)
	ftp> cd sf-reviews
	250 CWD command successful.
	ftp> ls -l
	200 PORT command successful.
	150 ASCII data connection for /bin/ls (134.172.3.5,1061) (0 bytes).
	total 779
	-rw-r--r--  1 242          3028 Oct 23 23:39 README
	-rw-r--r--  1 242         11521 Dec 24 19:26 WELCOME
	-rw-rw-rw-  1 242        275152 Dec 30 17:42 archive
	-rw-r--r--  1 242        104465 Jul 31 19:16 archive91.2
	-rw-r--r--  1 242          6995 Dec 20 00:45 archive91.2.index
	-rw-r--r--  1 242        335935 Oct  8 20:20 archive91.3
	-rw-r--r--  1 242         18484 Dec 20 00:45 archive91.3.index
	-rw-r--r--  1 242           198 Dec 20 00:43 report.awk
	-rw-r--r--  1 242           176 Dec 20 00:38 summary.awk
	226 ASCII Transfer complete.
	remote: -l
	531 bytes received in 0.04 seconds (13 Kbytes/s)
	ftp> get archive
	200 PORT command successful.
	150 ASCII data connection for archive (275152 bytes).
	226 ASCII Transfer complete.
	local: archive remote: archive
	280761 bytes received in 14 seconds (20 Kbytes/s)
	ftp> quit
	221 Goodbye.
	% 

Please let us know if there are any problems with the archive.


WAIS Retrieval

WAIS (Wide-Area Information Service) is an access protocol for material
kept as online information sources.  If your Internet site has a WAIS
client available (there are various implementations for X, Macintosh,
NeXT, Windows, and dumb CRTs) you can perform indexed, full-text
searches of the sf-reviews archives.

Since there are several implementations of WAIS clients, we will not
attempt to detail the session here.  The name of the WAIS source
(registered in the Directory of Servers) is "sf-reviews.src".  The
source host is "turbo.bio.net" and the service (TCP port) is 210.
With the simple command-line interface "waissearch", you can use the
following command line

	waissearch -h turbo.bio.net -p 210 -d sf-reviews keyword

where "keyword" should be replaced by something like an author's name,
reviewer's name, book title, or just some significant word in a
review.

Using the multiple window-based tools are much easier and permit more
sensitive searching, using multiple sources, etc.   Your site manager
should have information about these.