From: rec-music-info@ph.tn.tudelft.nl (Leo Breebaart)
Subject: REC.MUSIC.INFO: Welcome to rec.music.info!
Followup-To: rec.music.misc
Summary: This is the introduction article to the moderated group
    	rec.music.info. It explains what the group is for and why
    	you might want to subscribe to it. It is posted bi-weekly.
Originator: recmusic@galaxy
Supersedes: <rec-music-info-welcome_719208003@ph.tn.tudelft.nl>
Reply-To: rec-music-info@ph.tn.tudelft.nl
Organization: Delft University of Technology
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1992 04:01:02 GMT
Expires: Fri, 18 Dec 1992 04:00:04 GMT

Archive-name: music/rec-music-info/welcome
Last-modified: 1992/10/23 16:12:55
Version: 1.9


*** Welcome to rec.music.info! ***


Welcome to rec.music.info, a group that aims to provide a noise-free source
of information and news for the entire rec.music hierarchy.

Two introductory articles about rec.music.info are posted to the group and
to news.answers each month. You are now reading the first article, which
explains what rec.music.info is, and answers some Frequently Asked Questions. 
The second article is titled "Submission Guidelines", and you only need to 
read it if you want to submit an article to rec.music.info.


 --- What is the purpose of rec.music.info?

The purpose or charter of r.m.info is to provide the Usenet community with
a resource for information, news, and facts about any and all things
musical.

All the other rec.music groups are intended for discussions and general
chit chat about music.  Rec.music.info will contain informational, factual
articles only. Followups are redirected to an appropriate other group, and
further discussion (if any) will not take place in r.m.info.

In order to ensure that r.m.info contains only appropriate articles, it was
decided to create the group as a moderated newsgroup.


 --- Eh, what is a 'followup', and what does 'moderated' mean?

If you are new to Usenet and are not familiar with the terminology, you
might want to read the general introductory articles found in the newsgroup
news.announce.newusers. Doing so will make your life on the net much
easier, and will probably save you from making silly beginner's mistakes.

If you think that at this moment you are reading an echo, a conference, or
a bboard, I'd also strongly suggest a trip over to news.announce.newusers.

For the rest of this article, I will assume you have a basic knowledge of
Usenet terminology and mechanics.


 --- OK, so now I know what 'moderated' means. Tell me more.

Rec.music.info is a moderated newsgroup, which means that all articles
submitted to the group will have to be approved by the moderator first.

The current moderator of the group (and the author of this article) is
Leo Breebaart.  Submissions to r.m.info as well as comments, criticisms,
suggestions or questions about the group can either be directly posted to
rec.music.info, or e-mailed to:

		 rec-music-info@ph.tn.tudelft.nl

But before you do so, please be sure to check out the "Submission
Guidelines" article.

The influence of the moderator is minimal and of an administrative nature,
consisting chiefly of weeding out obviously inappropriate articles, while
making sure correct headers etc. are used for the appropriate ones.


 --- Why does every article subject start with a capitalized word?

The subject of every article posted to r.m.info starts with a special
keyword. This will enable people to automatically select or kill entire
categories of information that they are/are not interested in. Because of
the keyword scheme we do not need separate newsgroups for e.g. chart
listings, or for concert dates, or for discographies.


 --- What are the keywords, and what do they mean?

At the moment there are 9 broad categories of rec.music.info articles.
New keywords will be added whenever necessary.

ADMIN:  Words of wisdom from the moderator. Used for newsgroup-related
information and administratrivia only. For messages that get crossposted
to other groups (like the one you are reading right now), I will use the 
less confusing REC.MUSIC.INFO: keyword.

CHART:  'Top <n>' lists from all over the world, usually posted
periodically. Considered worthless trivia by many folks, charts are
nonetheless hugely popular with even more people, so they make up a
significant amount of r.m.info contents.

DISCOGRAPHY:  Discographies for recording artists in any genre.

CONCERT:  Tour schedules, special appearances, festival line-ups,
this season's list of Boston Philharmonic performances -- you get the
picture.

RELEASE:  Announcements of new music releases.

NEWS:  "Freddie Mercury, the lead singer of Queen, died this weekend."

MAILINGLIST:  Announcements and information pertaining to any of the 
existing musical mailing lists.

FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions articles.

INFO:  Catch-all category for information that is useful but does not fit
any of the above categories. Examples: "List of good classical record shops
in Amsterdam", "Ftp site for Michael Jackson-related material established".


 --- Why don't you use genre related keywords like CLASSICAL or ROCK?

1] Because I want to refrain from making things needlessly complex, both
for myself and for the readers.

2] Because the categories in rec.music.info are ideally supposed to
transcend the separation of the individual newsgroups. I have no desire to
mirror the subdivision of the rec.music hierarchy in rec.music.info.


 --- What type of material is considered inappropriate?

There are three broad categories of articles which will be rejected by the
moderator:

1] Requests for information: rec.music.info is strictly a one-way street.
You people send me information; I then post it to r.m.info. Requests for
specific information belong in the normal newsgroups. If your request gets
answered, you might consider passing the answer on to r.m.info, though.

2] Reviews: there already is a dedicated, moderated newsgroup for musical
reviews: rec.music.reviews. All reviews should go there.

3] Commercial stuff: this is a vague category. "Me and my buddies have just
released our first CD" would probably still be accepted, but "We are looking 
for a guitarist" would be rejected.  Rec.music.marketplace is the best place 
for "things/persons wanted" and "things/persons offered" articles.


 --- Will the material appearing in rec.music.info be archived somewhere?

Yes. David Datta has generously donated space on his music FTP archive site
for a rec.music.info archive.

You can reach the archive by ftp'ing to cs.uwp.edu (131.210.1.4), and
going to the directory /pub/music/info.

Effectively this means that anything you post to rec.music.info will be
permanently stored, so your work will not be lost.


 --- Will rec.music.info be just another rock/pop oriented group?

I have only one answer to this: "not if I can help it". Unfortunately, that
*is* more or less happening to e.g. rec.music.reviews -- very few classical
or country or new age reviews appear there.

Regular readers from all the music groups on Usenet are hereby invited
to [a] give me ideas and feedback on how to make r.m.info interesting and
valuable to them as well (e.g. new keywords I did not think of); to [b]
scan their newsgroups for appropriate material and point the authors to
the direction of rec.music.info, and to [c] submit interesting articles
themselves.

-- 
Leo Breebaart -- Moderator rec.music.info
Submissions & other mail to: rec-music-info @ ph.tn.tudelft.nl
!!! Requests for information do *not* belong in r.m.info! !!!
Newsgroups: rec.music.info