From: gibbsm@ll.mit.edu (MargAret D. Gibbs)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.tv.soaps,news.answers
Subject: ALL: rec.arts.tv.soaps Monthly FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)
Summary: Frequently Asked Questions list for rec.arts.tv.soaps
Keywords: frequently asked questions faq
Date: 30 Sep 92 05:03:35 GMT
Expires: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 05:00:17 GMT
Followup-To: rec.arts.tv.soaps
Organization: M.I.T. Lincoln Laboratory
Supersedes: <tv/soaps/faq_715323611@athena.mit.edu>
X-Last-Updated: 1992/09/28



Archive-name: tv/soaps/faq

Last changed - 9/28/92
Changes since last posting - changed news.cs.indiana.edu in
			     list of mail servers
                           - added "Swan's Crossing" abbreviation
                             in section 3

Following is a list of helpful hints and posting information. All
new readers of rec.arts.tv.soaps are encouraged to read this.  If you
are already familiar with these subjects, just hit "n" to go to the
next article. These instructions will be posted once per month.
They are also available through anonymous ftp from pit-manager.mit.edu 
under /pub/usenet/news.answers/tv/soaps/faq, or send email to
mail-server@pit-manager.mit.edu with "send usenet/news.answers/tv/soaps/faq"
in the body of the message.  Send comments, corrections, additions to me, 
questions to the newsgroup (I don't know everything and can't answer 
everything). THANKS.

These instructions are broken up into the following catagories:
1. Special Abbreviations - to be used in the beginning of the Subject line.
2. the Subject line: (this applies to both rn and vn people - or whatever
   news program you use!)
3. KILL FILE: - for rn users
4. vn hints 
5. readnews information
6. vnews information
7. retrieving articles/replies
8. signature files
9. spoiler protection (how do I use that control-L thingie, anyway?)
10. how to post via email
11. What does [acronym] stand for?
12. Where's such-and-such an update?
13. Pointers for new posters (and old!)

First major hint - if you use rn to read your news, type h for help.
Read the instructions. They really do help.

1. Special Abbreviations - to be used in the beginning of the Subject line.

   AMC: SPOILER
   The AMC group has adopted this abbreviation to indicate that the 
   article contains spoilers that may have been obtained from the soap
   magazines or elsewhere. Make sure you use this if you reply to articles
   with spoilers, or if you mention spoilers you have heard on the net!

   AMC: TAN
   Many of the soap subgroups have adopted the TAN abbreviation (short for 
   TANgent) to indicate that the article contains personal comments, not 
   necessarily related to the soap. This way if you are not interested in 
   hearing about how many cats a person has, etc., you can put this subject 
   in your kill file (explained below).


2. the Subject line: (this applies to both rn and vn people - or whatever
   news program you use!)

The idea is, whenever you post about a specific soap, put the standard
soap abbreviation in the beginning of the Subject line. Be sure that if
you are replying to another post, you check the Subject line. If the 
original poster has inadvertently omitted the abbreviation - add it!

The complete list of soap abbreviations can be found in Melissa Wauford's
posting *** REC.ARTS.TV.SOAPS POSTING GUIDELINES ***.  If it is no
longer available on your system, you can retrieve it from the archives 
by sending mail to mail-server@pit-manager.mit.edu with 
"send usenet/news.answers/tv/soaps/abbrevs" in the body of the message.

If you have a general comment (not specific to one soap, like the soap 
opera awards or the soap opera magazine) you can just indicate the 
subject in the Subject line (or use "ALL", "ABC", etc. in the subject line).

If you reply to a post which is a general comment, don't change the subject 
line for no reason. For example:

some one posts:
Subject: ALL: Soap Opera Digest - comments

...and some one will reply:
Subject: ALL: More Comments on Soap Opera Digest

Don't do this!

The reason for all these rules has to do with the way the KILL file works.
(Sorry! I only know how to do this if you use rn to read your news.)

In the rn read your news program, you can set up a KILL file to automatically
delete articles of a given Subject. The KILL file is explained below.


3. KILL FILE: - for rn users

The easiest way to get this started is, whenever you see an article that 
you aren't interested in, type

[Shift] K

The subject will then automatically go into a local KILL file. If the KILL file 
doesn't already exist, one will be created. Then any time an article with
that subject comes up, it will automatically be deleted.

Here is a complete KILL file: WARNING!! This will delete all soaps! 
You will want to make sure you DON'T include the abbreviations for the
soaps that you want to see articles about.

NOTE - the description in () should NOT be included in the KILL file. It
is only for your reference.


/: *30/:j	(Thirty Something)
/alt.flame/h:j	(in response to a rash of posts that came from alt.flame)
/: *AMC/:j	(All My Children)
/: *ATWT/:j	(As the World Turns)
/: *AW/:j	(Another World)
/: *B&B/:j	(Bold and Beautiful)
/: *BB/:j	(sometimes used for Bold and Beautiful)
/: *B & B/:j	(sometimes used for Bold and Beautiful)
/: *CAPITOL/:j  (sorry, don't know)
/: *DAL/:j	(Dallas)
/: *Dark/:j	(Dark Shadows)
/: *DOOL/:j	(Days of Our Lives)
/: *DAYS/:j	(sometimes used for Days of Our Lives)
/: *EE/:j	(East Enders)
/: *GEN/:j	(Generations)
/: *GH/:j	(General Hospital)
/: *GL/:j	(Guiding Light)
/: *HF/:j	(Home Front)
/: *KL/:j	(Knots Landing)
/: *LA/:j	(LA Law)
/: *LOV/:j	(Loving)
/: *LUV/:j	(sometimes used for Loving)
/: *OLTL/:j	(One Life to Live)
/: *SB/:j	(Santa Barbara)
/: *SC/c:j	(Swan's Crossing)
/: *SOAP/:j	(Soap)
/: *Y&R/:j	(Young and Restless)
/: *Y & R/:j	(sometimes used for Young and Restless)

You can edit the KILL file by typing:

[Ctrl] k

while you are in the news.

If the file gets too big it will take too long to go through. You will
want to keep only the first word in the KILL file. For example, if an 
article with  the Subject "GH - Tuesday's Update" appears and you are
not interested in General Hospital, type [Shift] K, and:

/: *GH - Tuesday's Update/:j

will be in the KILL file. Then type [Ctrl] k, and edit the file to say:

/: *GH/:j

Then all the General Hospital articles will be deleted.

To learn more about rn KILL files, send a mail to
mail-server@pit-manager.mit.edu with "send usenet/news.answers/killfile-faq"
in the body of the message.


4. vn hints

	Hi, I am Dorothy.  I thought I was the only person who was
using VN instead of RN.  Nothing anybody ever said on the NET about
using RN made any sense to me because VN is -different- -- KILL FILES
meant nothing to me, at least how to get them to work.  So I read 
through the pitifully inadequate DOC that came with the VISUAL NEWS
READER (2/1/85) to see if I could find something that would make
reading the news easier and more fun and most of all FASTER.  I found
the "marker method" which took a long time to figure out, but I use it
all the time now and it has made VN a pleasure instead of a pain.
	I will try to describe it so will make sense to you.  It isn't
easy putting things like this into words.
	Say you are in rec.arts.tv.soaps with your cursor at the
beginning article.  If you are like me, you only care about two or
three soaps, mine are AMC, OLTL, and GH.  I also like to read through
the misc. ramblings -- they are fun, too.  Use the small j to run
through the group of articles.  When you come to one you want to read,
hit the small x, this will put a * beside the article, keep doing this
until you have everything you want to read marked with the *.  Next
step is to press Control r -- the program will prompt you with words
like string to search?  Type in an * and hit Return.  Your VN reader
will only present you with the articles you have selected, one by one
in order.  If you make a boo-boo and mark the wrong article simply hit
small x again and it will unmark it.  A capital X will unmark all
articles.  I suppose you know this already but if you do a small k, it
will move the cursor backwards to an article you may have missed
marking the first time.  You do -not- have to unmark to update the
entire page.  It took me awhile to "get into the rhythm of the process
but it is second nature now and gets me through the reading in a
fraction of time it used to take.  I hope this works for you as well.
I am sure as hell no computer programmer so I didn't understand KILL
files or any of that stuff, but this works just great for me.  
	Don't hesitate to E-mail me back.  I am sure no expert, but if
I can help at all, I would be glad to hear from you.
 
                                         Dorothy
                       |```````````````````````````|
                       |       Dorothy (Dot)       |
                       | ken@csufres.csufresno.edu |
                       `````````````````````````````


5. readnews information

On my particular system, I have both "rn" and "readnews" available. You might 
want it see if you have "rn" available. I like "rn" much better; I will 
explain why in the following paragraphs.

To find out what is available, look at the man pages.
Type: "man readnews" and "man rn"
This will also give you a lot of interesting information.

If "rn" is not available, or if you like "readnews" better, there is a
function that is similar to the KILL file in "readnews". Instead of KILLing
Articles of a given subject, you read only Article with a given subject(s). 

For example, on my system, if you read All My Children, One Life to Live, and
Generations, type:

readnews -t OLTL AMC GEN

Rita sent email to me (thanks Rita) indicating that her system works 
slightly different from mine. She would have to type:

readnews -n rec.arts.tv.soaps -t OLTL AMC GEN

This way you would not have to go through all the Articles about the other
soaps.

The only problem is, if someone doesn't use the standard soap abbreviation,
or if there is a different subject, like "Soap Opera Digest Awards" then
you would miss the Article. That's why I like "rn" better.

In "rn", I KILL all the standard soap abbreviations except for those I read
(AMC and GEN). That way, I get everything except the other soaps, instead of
only my soaps.

Try reading the man page and experimenting. If you figure anything else out,
let me know, and I will share the info with everyone else when I post the 
"FAQ" info each month.

[The above section was probably written by Sandra Macika.  If you positively
know who wrote it, please email me:  gibbsm@ll.mit.edu.  Rita Prisco
(roxy@cbnewsj.cb.att.com) also contributed to the above section.]

6. vnews information

Hi.  Are you using VNEWS?  If so, this is what you have to do to filter
out soaps in which you aren't interested.  (I find it easiest to do a "d" 
first, and get the directory of the whole group.  It makes the rest of it 
run faster.)

At the command prompt, type: k/whatever subject you do not want to read.  
It must be a lower case k.

Do this for each soap in which you are not interested.  For me, that means 
I do:

k/amc <CR>   (where <CR> means I hit the return key.  NOT THE
ENTER KEY)
k/y&r <CR>
k/oltl, etc., etc.

noonan@sonata.enet.dec.com (E Grace Noonan)

7. retrieving articles/replies

Have you ever typed a long summary or reply and somehow blew it (hit the
wrong key, system went down, aborted accidentally, etc)? There is a way 
to retrieve your file! Look in any one of the following files - located
in your home directory:

dead.letter
dead.article
.article
.letter

Note that the latter two files will not be seen if you do a regular "ls".
To see files the begin with a ".", you must type "ls -a".

8. How do I get the news software to include a signature with my
   postings? [from Gene Spafford's postings in news.announce.newusers]

     This is a question that is best answered by examining the
     documentation for the software you're using, as the answer
     varies depending on the software.

     However, if you're reading news on a Unix machine, then you can
     probably get a signature to appear on your outgoing messages by
     creating a file called ".signature" in your home directory.  Two
     important things to remember are:

     a. Many article-posting programs will restrict the length of the
        signature.  For example, the "inews" program will often only
        include the first four lines.  This is not something you
        should be trying to find a way to defeat; it is there for
        a reason.  If your signature is too long, according to the
        software, then shorten it.

     b. Under some news configurations, your .signature file must be
        world-readable, and your home directory world-executable, for
        your signature to be included correctly in your articles.  If
        your .signature does not get included, try running these
        commands:
           chmod a+x $HOME
           chmod a+r $HOME/.signature

                           Don't Overdo Signatures

  Signatures are nice, but 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 major, known site on the network and a proper
  domain-format address.   Your system administrator can give this to
  you.  

9. Spoiler protection: How to use a Control-L

Sometimes people get advance notice of what's going to happen on a soap.
Some people like reading these spoilers; others would rather be surprised.
If you're going to post a spoiler, it's a good idea to protect the 
information with a Control-L, as well as by putting "spoiler" in the 
subject line.  The Control-L will allow some newsreaders to stop displaying 
text in the post, until the reader intervenes.

Be sure to use the Ctrl-L as the first character on a line, otherwise
it can't do its job.  Likewise, if you're following up to a post with a
Ctrl-L, remember to remove any previous characters on the line which your 
news software inserts.

If your editor is emacs or uemacs, you type first Ctrl-Q and then the
control character you want to appear. (So for Ctrl-L the entire sequence
would be Ctrl-Q Ctrl-L). (By Ctrl-Q I mean hold down the control key and
press q at the same time, then release both)

If you use vi, you have to be in insert mode (where you can type directly
into the file rather than move around) and then you can just press Ctrl-L.
(thanks to Ellen Sasse: sasse@netcom.com)

10. How to post via email: 

Usenet News MailServers exist at ucbvax.berkeley.edu, pws.bull.com,
cs.utexas.edu and news.cs.indiana.edu.  These servers allow you to post 
to a Usenet newsgroup via email, and can be useful if you have read-only 
access to Usenet news. To use them, mail your post to rec-arts-tv-soaps@host, 
where "host" is either ucbvax.berkeley.edu, pws.bull.com, or cs.utexas.edu; 
or mail your post to rec.arts.tv.soaps@news.cs.indiana.edu.  Please remember
to put the Soap Abbreviation in your subject line.

11. Acronyms commonly used by posters:

   BH: Butt-Head or Better Half
   BTW: By The Way
   CUL:  See You Later
   FAQ:  Frequently Asked Question
   FF: Fast Forward
   FYI:  For Your Information
   IMHO:  In My Humble (or Honest) Opinion
   IMNSHO:  In My Not So Humble Opinion
   IOAS: It's Only A Soap...
   IOASOG: It's Only A Soap Opera Group
   JTYLTK: Just thought you'd like to know
   JTYMLTK: Just thought you might like to know
   OTF:  On The Floor
   OTFL:  On The Floor Laughing
   RATS:  Rec.Arts.TV.Soaps
   RSN:  Real Soon Now
   SO: Significant Other
   TTFN:  Ta-Ta For Now
   TTYL: Talk To You Later

12. Where's such-and-such an update?
    (For soaps which have regular updaters, ie AMC)

Remember that the updaters are real people with real jobs and real school
work just like you.  Let's put it this way, if someone works 8-5 and
watches a soap opera episode after work, it might be difficult for
them to have the update done by early the next morning.  Also, there
is often a bit of lag time between the time an article is posted
and when the article reaches your news site.  So *please* don't post
an article on Tuesday asking where Monday's update is... you might
upset the Monday updater enough that he or she will stop doing the 
updates altogether!

13. Pointers for new posters (and old!)

There is a lot more information available on the usenet network which
is not contained in the scope of this FAQ.  

The news.announce.newusers newsgroup contains explanatory postings for 
new users.  Its purpose is to provide a base set of information with 
which all participants in the USENET should be familiar in order to make 
the USENET (and r.a.t.s.!) a better place for all of us.

If you have not already done so, you are strongly encouraged to read
these postings before posting any messages.  In particular, the following 
postings in news.announce.newusers are especially useful for new users:
        A Primer on How to Work With the Usenet Community
        Answers to Frequently Asked Questions
        Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette
        Hints on writing style for Usenet
        Rules for posting to Usenet
        What is Usenet?

The articles in news.announce.newusers are posted in such a way that
each version should stay around at each site until the new version is
posted.  However, some sites are configured incorrectly so that this
does not occur.  If the articles listed above do not appear in the
news.announce.newusers newsgroup at your site, you can get copies of
them using email.  Simply send an email message to
mail-server@pit-manager.mit.edu containing any or all of:
send usenet/news.answers/usenet-primer/part1
send usenet/news.answers/usenet-faq/part1
send usenet/news.answers/emily-postnews/part1
send usenet/news.answers/usenet-writing-style/part1
send usenet/news.answers/posting-rules/part1
send usenet/news.answers/what-is-usenet/part1

Other good sources of information on the USENET network are the
newsgroups news.newusers.questions (be sure to read its weekly FAQ
before posting a question yourself), and news.software.readers
(for newsreader-specific questions).  Also, news.answers contains
most of the FAQ's posted to each newsgroup, including the soaps-faq
and soaps-abbrevs postings.  Happy hunting!


--
Margaret D. Gibbs		"Practice random kindness and 
Assistant Staff			 senseless acts of beauty"
MIT Lincoln Laboratory
gibbsm@ll.mit.edu