From: eugene@amelia.nas.nasa.gov (Eugene N. Miya)
Subject: [l/m 6/1/92] Getting news help ([b|c]a.general)
Followup-To: poster
Organization: NAS Program, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 93 12:01:12 GMT
Reply-To: eugene@amelia.nas.nasa.gov (Eugene N. Miya)
Distribution: ca

Panel 7

	Table of Contents of this Chain

7	General Help Reading News				<This panel>
14	Posting headers and cross-posting
15	Distribution Fields
21	Killfiles (with extreme prejudice)
28	Canceling posted news articles
1	Reminders on use of the *.general news.groups

I have been requested for a panel on how-to use news.  Unfortunately
that is not easy to do.

Roaming 

Some tips to start using news.

Your news interface is likely to vary.  You might not even call it "news"
(for instance the people in Notesfiles-land).  This is something you will
first need to become accustomed: different words, commands, and actions
are going to have different consequences on different systems, e.g.:
i) TABS, ii) '^L', etc.  Some systems don't even call them files,
they use names like "DATASET."  The question is: How do I explore news?
[Simple answer, jump to 1).]

Examples of different news systems: readnews (old), rn, rrn, xrn, nn,
vn, vnews, gnus, anu-news, bbs, and others.

News systems use files like ".newsrc" or ".notesrc" to archive those articles
you have read.  You should be able to read and edit these files.

News (notes) come as articles (files with numbers for filenames).
Each article is numbered relative to each system.  Article 50 in
some newsgroup on my machine might be 137 on your machine.  The news
system removes old articles at varying rates depending on the pocket
book (I mean disk size).  Typical expiration dates include 2 weeks,
1 week (my site), 3 days, or 1 day (hard up).

You can learn how to save, search, read, paginate, and respond, or
post articles.  This should give you a basic semantic idea of a news
interface.  It differs from electronic mail in several ways:
broadcast, asynchronous communication.  With the exception of some
newsgroups, you can't post anonymously.

1) Help:
	a) on a system: typical examples: '?', 'h', 'H', or '^H'
	should give you commands and other control information.
	A little experimentation should not hurt (excepting pyramid
	schemes and harassing posts/mail).  If your system has specific
	program function keys, try those (e.g., PF3, etc.), these may
	not work, so good luck.

	b) human: like your sys admin or another human.
	This help should provide the basics of moving around between articles
	(notes) news groups (notesfiles), etc.
	A little interpersonal contact might not hurt.

You can read other panels of this FAQ, but 1b) really is the best way to
learn.  Note: in some circumstances, it is useful to know a text editor.

2) What groups to read (intelligent person's guide to getting started)?

Two strategies:
1) restricted news reading: start news up on specific groups.
Problem: you need to know the groups in advance.
2) complete news lists: You have already started news to read this post.
Some how.  If you remove (or safer, rename) your .newsrc (or similar file),
and start news up raw.  You may receive something in excess of 1700+
possible news groups to read (depending on your site).  Then take some
time and 'u'nsubscribe from the slew of topics you have no interest.

Try:
news.announce.newusers
news.announce.conferences
ba.general (questionable)
ba.announce
ba.seminars
ca.general (questionable)
soc.net-people
comp.newprod

(b|c)a.news: is not about presenting news.
It is about administering news systems.

Employment?
	misc.jobs.offered (offerings)
	misc.jobs.resumes (seeking)
	misc.jobs.contract (contract work specifically)
	misc.jobs.misc	(discussion, post no offers or resumes into this hole)
	ba.jobs.misc
	ba.jobs.misc
	misc.consumers.house

Pleasures of the "fleshhhhh"
	ba.singles,ba.food,alt.sex,soc.singles,soc.couples,....
	rec.food,rec.food.veggie,....
	To learn about these use option 2).

Parents some times like
	misc.kids

SPECIAL NOTE on MEDICAL and LEGAL ADVICE
sci.med and misc.legal exist for these topic areas.  You should understand
that it is not a good idea to simply asked for information in these areas.
You can certainly get opinions, but these are regulated professions and
it is possible to get bad advice (old wives' tales) if you are not careful.
If you need medical advice, consult a physician (or two for a second opinion).
If you need legal advice, initial consultations (anywhere, not just those TV
ads) can be minimal or free, talk to or Yellow Page (tm) Legal Aid.

Explore:
Use the hacker ethic.  (Learn to distinguish hackers from crackers.  Note
crackers to your system admin.  Do not use email to do this.  Some crackers
check for detection.)
Be warned that you can expect opinions vastly different from what you might
expect. (See The Hacker's Dictionary definition of Flaming).

Find your personal specific interest groups (the better ones are moderated).

What is moderation?  What are moderated news groups?
It is like editing and editors without some of the better qualities
of editing (frequently).
The readers of some news groups have chosen to designate a set of
people who approve the posting of articles.  To some this smacks of
censorship, but the purpose of the moderator is to enable a higher signal
to noise ratio in discussion.  A moderator is given allowance to suggest
editorial corrections: grammar, spelling, or to weed out "Me, too!" posts.
Where moderation is usually appropriate: the "comp," the "sci," groups,
inappropriate: "talk" and "soc" groups.  Other groups like say,
"rec.hunting" or "rec.humor.funny" have chosen moderation to avoid
debates like the morals of hunting which are debated in other groups or
discussions on the nature of humor.  The moderator is hopefully designated
as a defender of free-speech, but it is not usually as simple as that
(just like an editor). The better professional societies actually back
(fund, provide name) better groups (comp.risks), and some moderated
groups have such a high signal to noise ratio they even publish their
discussions in hardcopy form.

Posting:
I have actually been asked for basic information on How-To post.
This has been left as an exercise for the reader.
NOTE: DO NOT post tests to general groups.  Specific test groups exist:
	ba.test, ca.test, misc.test.
One reason these groups exist is so a daemon can send an acknowledgement
to you via mail.

If you are a new news user, you we see these posts are automatically
posted on a regular basis.  These files are specially constructed
so that when you have learned enough from other "panels," you can use a feature
called Killfiles to selectively read them only when a modification takes place.
Articles have two parts: the header and the article body separated by
a blank line.  The header has fields describing Subject (highly abused),
author information, group (news), etc.  You can examine how this articles
header is created (it has some subtle features for good reasons).

Attribution:
Text from earlier articles, usually lines prefixed with:
> <- or similar charatcers (|,. etc.)
Cut down on attribution (minimize).
Two styles: Block or interleaved.  A type of reference.

Signatures:
News should not be regarded as a reliable network service.  Delivery,
propagation, etc. are not assured.  Articles may come out of sequence.
Mail delivery may not be as reliable either.  Please use signatures
at the bottom of articles to note mail information, show their "identity,"
and place political slogans, and the like.  Optional.  Some systems
automatically append posts from a .sig or .signature line.
Try to keep them short (about no more than 4 lines).
Avoid ASCII graphics.

FAQ: Frequently Answered Questions:
Automated posts, look for these when reading; on topics repeated, hashed to
death.  An effort to answer those most asked questions without generating
extra needless traffic.
Before you say, "But what about new insights?"  They are very rare.
Besides, the owner can incorporate the new insight (via email) and it becomes
old insight.  Like this file.

SOME USEFUL LIMITS

If you are going to post or email it is useful to know several things.
They pertain to time, space, and other network sites.

1) If you are going to post, articles propagate from your host based on
arrangements with your neighbors whostore and forward your messages.
How long they keep your post is up to them.  Default news software keeps
mail two weeks.  Our hosts, for instance, ONLY keep news 1 week.  Some sites
trash news in as little as 1-3 days.  This wrecks havoc for some posts like
want ads, seminar announcements. etc.

News delivery should not be regarded as "reliable."

2) Size of posts.  Some people like to post ASCII encoded pictures
(some called GIFs).  Specific newsgroups exist for posting GIFs.  GIFs
can be very large and posting to general groups is taken by
some disk starved sites as a hostile act just short of invasion (and clearly
worse than want ads in general).  But note: some feeds only allow
message passing to 100K bytes default (some, we have one site
with a 30KB message size limit).  What happens to larger messages is
system dependent.  Sometimes you thrash on undeliverable messages which
are too large to pass (network constipation).  Those special newsgroups
can be optional for a site.  Consuming someone's disk with GIFs has
clearly come to be perceived as a hostile act: a denial of service attack.
Don't do this.  The consequences can be quite serious.  Keep messages small.

PROBLEM:
Lastly, a long-term problem (help stop this problem):

Article: 1 of news.announce.important
Newsgroups: news.announce.important
From: Gene Spafford <spaf@cs.purdue.edu>
Subject: DO NOT SENT ANY {GET WELL, POST, BUSINESS} CARDS TO CRAIG SHERGOLD!

If you call the ``Children's Make a Wish'' foundation, you will find
that they are not soliciting any form of card for Craig Shergold or
anyone else.  Better yet, if you call the Guinness people (US
publisher is "Facts on File" @ 212-683--2244 ext. 336), you can get
this same story confirmed.  You will also find that they will no
longer endorse or support any effort to break this record.

Many years ago, Craig Shergold had a brain tumor, believed inoperable.
He sought to set the Guinness record for get-well cards.  The call was
well-publicized, and he did, indeed set the record (consult a recent
edition of the book --- he has received in excess of 16 million cards
to date; he officially set the record as of 17 Nov 1989).

As part of this whole story, his plight caught the attention of John
Kluge, the US billionaire, who paid for Craig to come to the US and
receive specialized treatment.  As a result, Craig has recovered
completely from his tumor.  He is also no longer seven, but well into
his teens (you can see how out-of-date the request for cards is from
this -- it's like circulating a letter encouraging people to vote for
Carter for President).

The problem is that the mimeographed sheets and letters seeking cards
for Craig have continued to be circulated.  As a result, cards
continue to pour in to the post office for Royal Marsden Hospital in
England.  Worse, the appeal has mutated into various other versions,
such as an appeal for business cards, one for postcards, and another
version that appeals for holiday cards.

The Shergold family has publicly appealed many times that people cease
to mail them cards and letters, and that no more appeals be made on
their behalf. One easily accessible way to verify this is with the
article on page 24 of the 19 July 1990 NY Times.  People Magazine wrote
an article about it on June 1, 1991, page 63.  Even Ann Landers has
carried an item on this [6/23/91], but people still keep trying to send
cards.  Both Guinness and Royal Marsden have repeatedly issued press
releases asking people to stop circulating requests for cards, as they
are creating an undue burden on both the hospital and the postal service.

The Guinness people have discontinued the category to prevent this
kind of thing from ever happening again, and are doing their utmost to
kill any further mailings.  The Royal Marsden Hospital is at a loss
what to do with the cards that continue to arrive --- most are being
sold to stamp collectors and paper recyclers, and none go on to Craig.

This appeal for Craig, as well as many urban legends, regularly appear
on electronic bulletin boards around the world, and in many
organizational newsletters and bulletins.  It is both heartening and
unfortunate that there are so many well-meaning people who continue to
propagate these stories.  It is too bad that so many people are
unwilling to verify their information before passing such things
along, especially when a simple phone call will suffice to do so.  In
this case, opening a recent copy of a book carried by nearly every
library and bookstore would illuminate the situation.

If you would still like to do something for a dying child, consider
making a donation to a charity such as UNICEF or to the International
Red Cross (Red Crescent, Red Magen David).  Many thousands of children
are dying daily around the world from disease and starvation, and
countless millions more are suffering from the ravages of war, famine,
disease, and natural disaster.  Think how many of them might be helped
by the millions of dollars in postage spent on cards to Craig
Shergold....   Addresses (in US) are:

	UNICEF               American National Red Cross       
	1 UN Plaza	     17th & D Streets                  
	New York, NY 10017   Washington, DC 20006              
			     Attn: international children's aid

[Also, I encourage you to save this announcement, in either electronic
or hard copy form, and to post it to any bulletin board you've seen the
original plea on.  If you see it in the future, as you probably will,
you can attach a copy of this announcement.  Wouldn't it be great to
finally kill this story, which spreads like a virus? - MRH]
	
-- 
Professor Gene Spafford
Dept. of Computer Sciences
Purdue University
W. Lafayette IN 47907-1398
spaf@cs.purdue.edu

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