From: frank@rover.uchicago.edu (Frank - Hardware Hacker - Borger)
Subject: Re: WATCH OUT! THAT GARTH POSTING IS LOADED!
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Reply-To: frank@rover.uchicago.edu
Organization: Joint Center for Radiation Therapy
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 17:07:00 GMT

	Experienced netters learn, (some the hard way,) about followup bombs.
	New netters, however, (and all of us were new at one time...) can easily
	get burned. For any netter who does not understand what happens when
	somebody plays with their "Follow-up To" lines, here's what happens.

	A/ A normal netter, Ken,  posts a normal note. (Note that there is
	   no Followup-to or X-ref line.)

>From: Ken_Ziolkowski@transarc.com
>Newsgroups: rec.music.country.western
>Subject: KGARth in Pittsburgh???

>  I don't know if this is some sort of New Year's
>practical joke, but evidently a radio station in
>Pittsburgh has switched to an all Garth Brooks
>format.
.. 		(rest of post deleted)

	B/ Then ... some bimbo named Roger posts a reply with cross-references
	   to other news groups and followup's set to even more newsgroups
	   (note the Xref: and Followup-to: lines in the following header)

>Xref: uchinews rec.music.country.western:7227 talk.bizarre:77026
>Newsgroups: rec.music.country.western,talk.bizarre
>Path: uchinews!linac!uwm.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sdd.hp.com!
>	wupost!udel!gatech!concert!uvaarpa!murdoch!Turing.ORG!carasso
>From: carasso@Turing.ORG (Roger Carasso)
>Subject: GARTH BROOKS 24 HOURS A DAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
>Followup-To: rec.music.country.western,misc.test,misc.jobs.offered,rec.pets,
>	rec.arts.startrek.current,talk.bizarre
>Keywords: cows, pigs, boots, mules, mud, beer, trucks
..	(rest of post deleted)

	C/ Then, anyone responding to this posting in rec.music.country.western
	   automagically has their reply posted to all the other groups.

	D/ Readers of misc.jobs, for instance, become very annoyed having to
	   wade through 47 posts about Garth, while they are trying to find
	   a job. They, understandably, flame back at the poster. Unfortunately,
	   it takes some detective work to work backwards thru posts to find out
	   who STARTED the whole storm. Also, new netters wonder why somebody
	   from misc.jobs is griping about an article they thought they posted
	   to rec.music.country.western.

	E/ Users who have gotten burned retract their article, hoping to shut
	   off further flames from irate netters. This causes more problems if
	   the bimbo included misc.test in the reply to, because the cancel
	   message will also go to many newsservers, resulting in a flurry of
	   e-mail messages to your account telling you "your test posting has
	   been received at blah-blah-blah".

	I leave it as an exercise to the net reader to figure out an appropriate
	remedy to apply to the bimbos who cause these storms.

   Frank R. Borger - Physicist    __       Internet:  Frank@rover.uchicago.edu
Michael Reese - Univ. of Chicago |___      Phone : 312-791-8075 fax : 567-7455
  Center for Radiation Therapy   | |_) _   
                                   | \|_)  Show me a sane man and I will cure
    "Birthplace of Softball"          |_)  him for you. - C. G. Jung
Newsgroups: rec.music.country.western