line tells you the time again, the newsgroup name (or part of it, anyway),
the position in your message stack that this message occupies, how to get
help, and how much of the message is on screen. If you want to keep reading
this message, just hit your space bar (not your enter key!) for the next
screen and so on until done. When done, you'll be returned to the newsgroup
menu. For now hit Q (upper case this time), which quits you out of nn and
returns you to your host system's command line.
To get a look at another interesting newsgroup, type
nn comp.risks
and hit enter. This newsgroup is another moderated group, this time a
digest of all the funny and frightening ways computers and the people who run
and use them can go wrong. Again, you read articles by selecting their
letters. If you're in the middle of an article and decide you want to go
onto the next one, hit your n key.
Now it's time to look for some newsgroups that might be of particular
interest to you. Unix host systems that have nn use a program called nngrep
(ever get the feeling Unix was not entirely written in English?) that lets
you scan newsgroups. Exit nn and at your host system's command line, type
nngrep word
where word is the subject you're interested in. If you use a Macintosh
computer, you might try
nngrep mac
You'll get something that looks like this:
alt.music.machines.of.loving.grace
alt.religion.emacs
comp.binaries.mac
comp.emacs
comp.lang.forth.mac
comp.os.mach
comp.sources.mac
comp.sys.mac.announce
comp.sys.mac.apps
comp.sys.mac.comm
comp.sys.mac.databases
comp.sys.mac.digest
comp.sys.mac.games
comp.sys.mac.hardware
comp.sys.mac.hypercard
comp.sys.mac.misc
comp.sys.mac.programmer
comp.sys.mac.system
comp.sys.mac.wanted
gnu.emacs.announce
gnu.emacs.bug
gnu.emacs.gnews
gnu.emacs.gnus
gnu.emacs.help
gnu.emacs.lisp.manual
gnu.emacs.sources
gnu.emacs.vm.bug
gnu.emacs.vm.info
gnu.emacs.vms
Note that some of these obviously have something to do with Macintoshes
while some obviously do not; nngrep is not a perfect system. If you want to
get a list of ALL the newsgroups available on your host system, type
nngrep -a |more
or
nngrep -a |pg
and hit enter (which one to use depends on the Unix used on your host
system; if one doesn't do anything, try the other). You don't absolutely need
the |more or |pg, but if you don't include it, the list will keep scrolling,
rather than pausing every 24 lines. If you are in nn, hitting a capital Y
will bring up a similar list.
Typing `nn newsgroup' for every newsgroup can get awfully tiring after
awhile. When you use nn, your host system looks in a file called `.newsrc'.
This is basically a list of every newsgroup on the host system along with
notations on which groups and articles you have read (all maintained by the
computer). You can also use this file to create a "reading list" that brings
up each newsgroup to which you want to "subscribe." To try it out, type
nn
without any newsgroup name, and hit enter.
Unfortunately, you will start out with a `.newsrc' file that has you
"subscribed" to every single newsgroup on your host system! To delete a
newsgroup from your reading list, type a capital U while its menu is on the
screen. The computer will ask you if you're sure you want to "unsubscribe."
If you then hit a Y, you'll be unsubscribed and put in the next group.
With many host systems carrying 4,000 or more newsgroups, this will take
you forever.
Fortunately, there are a couple of easier ways to do this. Both involve
calling up your `.newsrc' file in a word or text processor. In a `.newsrc'
file, each newsgroup takes up one line, consisting of the group's name, an
exclamation point or a colon and a range of numbers.
Newsgroups with a colon are ones to which you are subscribed; those
followed by an exclamation point are "un-subscribed." To start with a clean
slate, then, you have to change all those colons to exclamation points. If
you know some UNIX, it's a one-liner, just type:
tr ':' '!' < .newsrc > temprc
and you're done. Without the `tr' command you must use a text editor.
If you know how to use emacs or vi, call up the `.newsrc' file (you might
want to make a copy of `.newsrc' first, just in case), and use the
search-and-replace function to make the change.
If you're not comfortable with these text processors, you can download the
`.newsrc' file, make the changes on your own computer and then upload the
revised file. Before you download the file, however, you should do a couple
of things. One is to type
cp .newsrc temprc
and hit enter. You will actually download this temprc file (note the name
does not start with a period - some computers, such as those using MS-DOS, do
not allow file names starting with periods). After you download the file,
open it in your favorite word processor and use its search-and-replace
function to change the exclamation points to colons. Be careful not to
change anything else! Save the document in ASCII or text format. Dial back
into your host system. At the command line, type
cp temprc temprc1
and hit enter. This new file will serve as your backup `.newsrc' file
just in case something goes wrong. Upload the temprc file from your computer.
This will overwrite the Unix system's old temprc file. Now type
cp temprc .newsrc
and hit enter. You now have a clean slate to start creating a reading
list.
It's a little easier to do this in rn, so let's try that out, and as long
as where there, see how it works.
If you type
rn news.announce.newusers
at your host system's command line, you'll see something like this:
******** 21 unread articles in news.announce.newusers--read now? [ynq]
If you hit your Y key, the first article will appear on your screen. If
you want to see what articles are available first, though, hit your
computer's `=' key and you'll get something like this:
152 Introduction to news.announce
153 A Primer on How to Work With the Usenet Community
154 What is Usenet?
155 Answers to Frequently Asked Questions
156 Hints on writing style for Usenet
158 Alternative Newsgroup Hierarchies, Part I
159 Alternative Newsgroup Hierarchies, Part II
160 Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette
161 USENET Software: History and Sources
162 A Guide to Social Newsgroups and Mailing Lists
163 How to Get Information about Networks
164 How to Create a New Newsgroup
169 List of Active Newsgroups
170 List of Moderators
171 Publicly Accessible Mailing Lists, Part I
172 Publicly Accessible Mailing Lists, Part II
173 Publicly Accessible Mailing Lists, Part III
174 How to become a USENET site
175 List of Periodic Informational Postings, Part I
176 List of Periodic Informational Postings, Part II
177 List of Periodic Informational Postings, Part III
End of article 158 (of 178)--what next? [npq]
Notice how the messages are in numerical order this time, and don't tell
you who sent them. Article 154 looks interesting. To read it, type in 154
and hit enter. You'll see something like this:
Article 154 (20 more) in news.announce.newusers (moderated):
From: spaf@cs.purdue.EDU (Gene Spafford)
Newsgroups: news.announce.newusers,news.admin,news.answers
Subject: What is Usenet?
Date: 20 Sep 92 04:17:26 GMT
Followup-To: news.newusers.questions
Organization: Dept. of Computer Sciences, Purdue Univ.
Lines: 353
Supersedes:
Archive-name: what-is-usenet/part1
Original from: chip@tct.com (Chip Salzenberg)
Last-change: 19 July 1992 by spaf@cs.purdue.edu (Gene Spafford)
The first thing to understand about Usenet is that it is widely
misunderstood. Every day on Usenet, the ``blind men and the elephant''
phenomenon is evident, in spades. In my opinion, more flame wars
arise because of a lack of understanding of the nature of Usenet than
from any other source. And consider that such flame wars arise, of
necessity, among people who are on Usenet. Imagine, then, how poorly
understood Usenet must be by those outside!
--MORE--(7%)
This time, the header looks much more like the gobbledygook you get in
e-mail messages. To keep reading, hit your space bar. If you hit your N key
(in lower case), you'll go to the next message in the numerical order.
To escape rn, just keep hitting your q key (in lower case), until you get
back to the command line. Now let's set up your reading list. Because rn
uses the same `.newsrc' file as nn, you can use one of the search-and-replace
methods described above. Or you can do this: Type
rn
and hit enter. When the first newsgroup comes up on your screen, hit your
u key (in lower case). Hit it again, and again, and again. Or just keep it
pressed down (if your computer starts beeping, let up for a couple of
seconds). Unsubscribing from every single group this way could take five or
ten minutes. Eventually, you'll be told you're at the end of the newsgroups,
and asked what you want to do next.
Here's where you begin entering newsgroups. Type
g newsgroup
(for example, `g comp.sys.mac.announce') and hit enter. You'll be asked
if you want to "subscribe." Hit your y key. Then type
g next newsgroup
(for example, `g comp.announce.newusers') and hit enter. Repeat until
done. This process will also set up your reading list for nn, if you prefer
that newsreader. But how do you know which newsgroups to subscribe? Typing a
lower-case l and then hitting enter will show you a list of all available
newsgroups. Again, since there could be more than 2,000 newsgroups on your
system, this might not be something you want to do. Fortunately, you can
search for groups with particular words in their names, using the l command.
Typing
l mac
followed by enter, will bring up a list of newsgroups with those letters
in them (and as in nn, you will also see groups dealing with emacs and the
like, in addition to groups related to Macintosh computers).
Because of the vast amount of messages transmitted over Usenet, most
systems carry messages for only a few days or weeks. So if there's a message
you want to keep, you should either turn on your computer's screen capture or
save it to a file which you can later download). To save a message as a file
in rn, type
s filename
where filename is what you want to call the file. Hit enter. You'll be
asked if you want to save it in "mailbox format." In most cases, you can
answer with an n (which will strip off the header). The message will now be
saved to a file in your News directory (which you can access by typing `cd
News' and then hitting enter).
Also, some newsgroups fill up particularly quickly - go away for a couple
of days and you'll come back to find hundreds of articles! One way to deal
with that is to mark them as "read" so that they no longer appear on your
screen. In nn, hit a capital J; in rn, a small c.
=====================
There are some newsgroups you might want to include in your reading list.
The `news. newusers.questions' newsgroup is where newcomers can ask questions
about how Usenet works. The newsgroup `news.announce.newsgroups' carries
information about new or proposed newsgroups.
The `news.answers' newsgroup is a fascinating one and can help you find
interesting newsgroups. Many newsgroups have regularly compiled lists of
"frequently asked questions" or FAQs related to the newsgroup's particular
discussions. The people who write these lists post them in `news.answers'.
You'll learn how to fight jet lag in an FAQ from the `rec.travel.air'
newsgroup; read more than you probably wanted to know about bloodhounds in an
FAQ from `rec.pet.dogs'; find answers to common questions about Windows in
`comp.os.ms-windows'. There's even a newsgroup set up just for these FAQs:
`news.answers'. This can be an interesting newsgroup to browse through,
because you'll find everything from tips on saving money on airline tickets
to facts about U.S. space missions.
Now to put your two cents in.
"Threads" are an integral part of Usenet. When somebody posts a message,
often somebody else will respond. Soon, a thread of conversation begins.
Following these threads is relatively easy. In nn, related messages are
grouped together. In rn, when you're done with a message, you can hit
control-N to read the next related message, or followup. As you explore
Usenet, it's probably a good idea to read discussions for a while before you
jump in. This way, you can get a feel for the particular newsgroup - each of
which has its own rhythms.
Eventually, though, you'll want to speak up. There are two main ways to
do this. You join an existing conversation, or you can start a whole new
thread.
If you want to join a discussion, you have to decide if you want to
include portions of the message you are responding to in your message. The
reason to do this is so people can see what you're responding to, just in
case the original message has disappeared from their system (remember that
most Usenet messages have a short life span on the average host system) or
they can't find it.
If you're using a Unix host system, joining an existing conversation is
similar in both nn and rn: hit your F key when done with a given article in
the thread. In rn, type a small f if you don't want to include portions of
the message you're responding to; an upper-case F if you do. In nn, type a
capital F. You'll then be asked if you want to include portions of the
original message.
And here's where you hit another Unix wall. When you hit your F key, your
host system calls up its basic Unix text editor. If you're lucky, that'll be
Pico, a very easy system. More likely, however, you'll get dumped into emacs
(or possibly vi), which you've already met in the chapter on e-mail.
The single most important emacs command is
control-x control-c
This means, depress your control key and hit x. Then depress the control
key and hit c. Memorize this. In fact, it's so important, it bears
repeating:
control-x control-c
These keystrokes are how you get out of emacs. If it works well, you'll
be asked if you want to send, edit, abort or list the message you were
working on. If it doesn't work well (say you accidentally hit some other
weird key combination that means something special to emacs) and nothing
seems to happen, or you just get more weird-looking emacs prompts on the
bottom of your screen, try hitting control-g. This should stop whatever emacs
was trying to do (you should see the word "quit" on the bottom of your
screen), after which you can hit control-x control-c. But if this still
doesn't work, remember that you can always disconnect and dial back in!
If you have told your newsreader you do want to include portions of the
original message in yours, it will automatically put the entire thing at the
top of your message. Use the arrow keys to move down to the lines you want
to delete and hit control-K, which will delete one line at a time.
You can then write your message. Remember that you have to hit enter
before your cursor gets to the end of the line, because emacs does not have
word wrapping.
When done, hit control-x control-c. You'll be asked the question about
sending, editing, aborting, etc. Chose one. If you hit Y, your host system
will start the process to sending your message across the Net.
The nn and rn programs work differently when it comes to posting entirely
new messages. In nn, type
:post
and hit enter in any newsgroup. You'll be asked which newsgroup to post a
message to. Type in its name and hit enter. Then you'll be asked for
"keywords." These are words you'd use to attract somebody scanning a
newsgroup. Say you're selling your car. You might type the type of car
here. Next comes a "summary" line, which is somewhat similar. Finally,
you'll be asked for the message's "distribution." This is where you put how
widely you want your message disseminated. Think about this one for a
second. If you are selling your car, it makes little sense to send a message
about it all over the world. But if you want to talk about the environment,
it might make a lot of sense. Each host system has its own set of
distribution classifications, but there's generally a local one (just for
users of that system), one for the city, state or region it's in, another for
the country (for example, usa), one for the continent (for Americans and
Canadians, na) and finally, one for the entire world (usually: world).
Which one to use? Generally, a couple of seconds' thought will help you
decide. If you're selling your car, use your city or regional distribution -
people in Australia won't much care and may even get annoyed. If you want to
discuss presidential politics, using a USA distribution makes more sense. If
you want to talk about events in the Middle East, sending your message to the
entire world is perfectly acceptable.
Then you can type your message. If you've composed your message offline
(generally a good idea if you and emacs don't get along), you can upload it
now. You may see a lot of weird looking characters as it uploads into emacs,
but those will disappear when you hit control-X and then control-C.
Alternately: "save" the message (for example, by hitting m in rn), log out,
compose your message offline, log back on and upload your message into a file
on your host system. Then call up Usenet, find the article you "saved."
Start a reply, and you'll be asked if you want to include a prepared message.
Type in the name of the file you just created and hit enter.
In rn, you have to wait until you get to the end of a newsgroup to hit F,
which will bring up a message-composing system. Alternately, at your host
system's command line, you can type
Pnews
and hit enter. You'll be prompted somewhat similarly to the nn system,
except that you'll be given a list of possible distributions. If you chose
"world," you'll get this message:
This program posts news to thousands of machines throughout the entire
civilized world. Your message will cost the net hundreds if not thousands of
dollars to send everywhere. Please be sure you know what you are doing.
*Are you absolutely sure that you want to do this? [ny]*
Don't worry - your message won't really cost the Net untold amounts,
although, again, it's a good idea to think for a second whether your message
really should go everywhere.
If you want to respond to a given post through e-mail, instead of
publicly, hit R in nn or r or R in rn. In rn, as with follow-up articles,
the upper-case key includes the original message in yours.
Most newsgroups are unmoderated, which means that every message you post
will eventually wind up on every host system within the geographic region you
specified that carries that newsgroup.
Some newsgroups, however, are moderated, as you saw earlier with
`comp.risks'. In these groups, messages are shipped to a single location
where a moderator, acting much like a magazine editor, decides what actually
gets posted. In some cases, groups are moderated like scholarly journals.
In other cases, it's to try to cut down on the massive number of messages
that might otherwise be posted.
You'll notice that many articles in Usenet end with a fancy "signature"
that often contains some witty saying, a clever drawing and, almost
incidentally, the poster's name and e-mail address. You too can have your
own "signature" automatically appended to everything you post. On your own
computer, create a signature file. Try to keep it to four lines or less,
lest you annoy others on the Net. Then, while connected to your host system,
type
cat >.signature
and hit enter (note the period before the s). Upload your signature file
into this using your communications software's ASCII upload protocol. When
done, hit control-D, the Unix command for closing a file. Now, every time
you post a message, this will be appended to it.
There are a few caveats to posting. Usenet is no different from a Town
Meeting or publication: you're not supposed to break the law, whether that's
posting copyrighted material or engaging in illegal activities. It is also
not a place to try to sell products (except in certain `biz.*' and explicit
for-sale newsgroups).
--
___________________ * _-_
\==============_=_/ ____.---'---`---.____ *
\_ \ \----._________.----/
* \ \ / / `-_-' *
* __,--`.`-'..'-_
/____ || *
`--.____,-' ...to boldly go where no man has gone before!
--
Disclaimer - These opiini^H^H damn! ^H^H ^Q ^[ .... :w :q :wq :wq! ^d X ^?
exit X Q ^C ^? :quitbye CtrlAltDel ~~q :~q logout save/quit :!QUIT
^[zz ^[ZZZZZZ ^H man vi ^ ^L ^[c ^# ^E ^X ^I ^T ? help helpquit ^D ^d
man help ^C ^c help exit ?Quit ?q CtrlShftDel"Hey, what does this button d..."
-- .signature(s)
************************************
================================================
Something about online communications seems to make some people
particularly irritable. Perhaps it's the immediacy and semi-anonymity of it
all. Whatever it is, there are whole classes of people you will soon think
seem to exist to make you miserable.
Rather than pausing and reflecting on a message as one might do with a
letter received on paper, it's just so easy to hit your R key and tell
somebody you don't really know what you really think of them. Even otherwise
calm people sometimes find themselves turning into raving madmen. When this
happens, flames erupt.
A flame is a particularly nasty, personal attack on somebody for something
he or she has written.
Periodically, an exchange of flames erupts into a flame war that begin to
take up all the space in a given newsgroup (and sometimes several; flamers
like cross-posting to let the world know how they feel). These can go on for
weeks (sometimes they go on for years, in which case they become "holy wars,"
usually on such topics as the relative merits of Macintoshes and IBMs).
Often, just when they're dying down, somebody new to the flame war reads all
the messages, gets upset and issues an urgent plea that the flame war be
taken to e-mail so everybody else can get back to whatever the newsgroup's
business is.
All this usually does, though, is start a brand new flame war, in which
this poor person comes under attack for daring to question the First
Amendment, prompting others to jump on the attackers for impugning this poor
soul... You get the idea.
Every so often, a discussion gets so out of hand that somebody predicts
that either the government will catch on and shut the whole thing down or
somebody will sue to close down the network, or maybe even the wrath of God
will smote everybody involved. This brings what has become an inevitable
rejoinder from others who realize that the network is, in fact, a resilient
creature that will not die easily: *"Imminent death of Usenet predicted. Film
at 11."*
Flame wars can be tremendously fun to watch at first. They quickly grow
boring, though. And wait until the first time you're attacked!
*Flamers* are not the only Net.characters to watch out for.
*Spewers* assume that whatever they are particularly concerned about
either really is of universal interest or should be rammed down the throats
of people who don't seem to care - as frequently as possible.
You can usually tell a spewer's work by the number of articles he posts in
a day on the same subject and the number of newsgroups to which he then sends
these articles - both can reach well into double digits. Often, these
messages relate to various ethnic conflicts around the world. Frequently,
there is no conceivable connection between the issue at hand and most of the
newsgroups to which he posts. No matter. If you try to point this out in a
response to one of these messages, you will be inundated with angry messages
that either accuse you of being an insensitive racist/American/whatever or
ignore your point entirely to bring up several hundred more lines of
commentary on the perfidy of whoever it is the spewer thinks is out to
destroy his people.
Closely related to these folks are the Holocaust revisionists, who
periodically inundate certain groups (such as `soc.history') with long rants
about how the Holocaust never really happened. Some people attempt to refute
these people with facts, but others realize this only encourages them.
*Blatherers* tend to be more benign. Their problem is that they just
can't get to the point - they can wring three or four screenfuls out of a
thought that others might sum up in a sentence or two. A related condition
is excessive quoting. People afflicted with this will include an entire
message in their reply rather than excising the portions not relevant to
whatever point they're trying to make. The worst quote a long message and
then add a single line:
"I agree!" or some such, often followed by a monster .signature.
There are a number of other Usenet denizens you'll soon come to recognize.
Among them:
Net.weenies
These are the kind of people who enjoy Insulting others, the kind of
people who post nasty messages in a sewing newsgroup just for the hell
of it.
Net.geeks
People to whom the Net is Life, who worry about what happens when they
graduate and they lose their free, 24-hour access.
Net.gods
The old-timers; the true titans of the Net and the keepers of its
collective history. They were around when the Net consisted of a couple
of computers tied together with baling wire.
Lurkers
Actually, you can't tell these people are there, but they are. They're
the folks who read a newsgroup but never post or respond.
Wizards
People who know a particular Net-related topic inside and out. Unix
wizards can perform amazing tricks with that operating system, for
example.
Net.saints
Always willing to help a newcomer, eager to share their knowledge with
those not born with an innate ability to navigate the Net, they are not
as rare as you might think. Post a question about something and you'll
often be surprised how many responses you get.
The last group brings us back to the Net's oral tradition. With few
written guides, people have traditionally learned their way around the Net by
asking somebody, whether at the terminal next to them or on the Net itself.
That tradition continues: if you have a question, ask.
Today, one of the places you can look for help is in the
`news.newusers.questions' newsgroup, which, as its name suggests, is a place
to learn more about Usenet. But be careful what you post. Some of the
Usenet wizards there get cranky sometimes when they have to answer the same
question over and over again. Oh, they'll eventually answer your question,
but not before they tell you should have asked your host system administrator
first or looked at the postings in `news.announce.newusers'.
======================================
Usenet's international reach raises interesting legal questions that have
yet to be fully resolved. Can a discussion or posting that is legal in one
country be transmitted to a country where it is against the law? Does the
posting even become illegal when it reaches the border? And what if that
country is the only path to a third country where the message is legal as
well? Several foreign colleges and other institutions have cut off feeds of
certain newsgroups where Americans post what is, in the U.S., perfectly legal
discussions of drugs or alternative sexual practices. Even in the U.S., some
universities have discontinued certain newsgroups their administrators find
offensive, again, usually in the `alt.*' hierarchy.
===========
Different commands are available to you in rn depending on whether you are
already in a newsgroup or reading a specific article. At any point, typing a
lower-case `h' will bring up a list of available commands and some terse
instructions for using them. Here are some of them:
After you've just called up rn, or within a newsgroup:
`c'
Marks every article in a newsgroup as read (or "caught up") so that you
don't have to see them again. The system will ask you if you are sure.
Can be done either when asked if you want to read a particular newsgroup
or once in the newsgroup.
`g'
Goes to a newsgroup, in this form:
`g news.group'
Use this both for going to groups to which you're already subscribed and
subscribing to new groups.
`h'
Provides a list of available commands with terse instructions.
`l'
Gives a list of all available newsgroups.
`p'
Goes to the first previous subscribed newsgroup with un-read articles.
`q'
Quits, or exits, rn if you have not yet gone into a newsgroup. If you
are in a newsgroup, it quits that one and brings you to the next
subscribed newsgroup.
Only within a newsgroup:
`='
Gives a list of all available articles in the newsgroup.
`m'
Marks a specific article or series of articles as "un-read" again so
that you can come back to them later. Typing `1700m' and hitting enter
would mark just that article as un-read. Typing `1700-1800m' and
hitting enter would mark all of those articles as un-read.
`s file'
Copies the current article to a file in your News directory, where
"file" is the name of the file you want to save it to. You'll be asked
if you want to use "mailbox" format when saving. If you answer by
hitting your `N' key, most of the header will not be saved.
`space'
Brings up the next page of article listings. If already on the last
page, displays the first article in the newsgroup.
`u'
Un-subscribe from the newsgroup.
`/text/'
Searches through the newsgroup for articles with a specific word or
phrase in the "subject:" line, from the current article to the end of
the newsgroup. For example,
`/EFF/'
would bring you to the first article with "EFF" in the "subject:" line.
`?text?'
The same as above except it searches in reverse order from the current
article.
Only within a specific article:
`C'
If you post an article and then decide it was a mistake, call it up on
your host system and hit this. The message will soon begin disappearing
on systems around the world.
`F'
Post a public response in the newsgroup to the current article.
Includes a copy of her posting, which you can then edit down using your
host system's text editor.
`f'
The same as above except it does not include a copy of the original
message in yours.
`m'
Marks the current article as "un-read" so that you can come back to it
later. You do not have to type the article number.
`Control-N'
Brings up the first response to the article. If there is no follow-up
article, this returns you to the first unread article in the newsgroup).
`Control-P'
Goes to the message to which the current article is a reply.
`n'
Goes to the next unread article in the newsgroup.
`N'
Takes you to the next article in the newsgroup even if you've already
read it.
`q'
Quits, or exits, the current article. Leaves you in the current
newsgroup.
`R'
Reply, via e-mail only, to the author of the current article. Includes
a copy of his message in yours.
`r'
The same as above, except it does not include a copy of his article.
`s |mail'
user Mails a copy of the article to somebody. For "user" substitute
her e-mail address. Does not let you add comments to the message first,
however.
`space'
Hitting the space bar shows the next page of the article, or, if at the
end, goes to the next un-read article.
===========
To mark a specific article for reading, type the letter next to it (in
lower case). To mark a specific article and all of its responses, type the
letter and an asterisk, for example:
a*
To un-select an article, type the letter next to it (again, in lower case).
`C'
Cancels an article (around the world) that you wrote. Every article
posted on Usenet has a unique ID number. Hitting a capital `C' sends
out a new message that tells host systems that receive it to find
earlier message and delete it.
`F'
To post a public response, or follow-up. If selected while still on a
newsgroup "page", asks you which article to follow up. If selected
while in a specific article, will follow up that article. In either
case, you'll be asked if you want to include the original article in
yours. Caution: puts you in whatever text editor is your default.
`N'
Goes to the next subscribed newsgroup with unread articles.
`P'
Goes to the previous subscribed newsgroup with unread articles.
`G news.group'
Goes to a specific newsgroup. Can be used to subscribe to new
newsgroups. Hitting `G' brings up a sub-menu:
`u'
Goes to the group and shows only un-read articles.
`a'
Goes to the group and shows all articles, even ones you've already
read.
`s'
Will show you only articles with a specific subject.
`n'
Will show you only articles from a specific person.
`M'
Mails a copy of the current article to somebody. You'll be asked for
the recipient's e-mail address and whether you want to add any comments
to the article before sending it off. As with `F', puts you in the
default editor.
`:post'
Post an article. You'll be asked for the name of the group.
`Q'
Quit, or exit, nn.
`U'
Un-subscribe from the current newsgroup.
`R'
Responds to an article via e-mail.
`space'
Hitting the space bar brings up the next page of articles.
`X'
If you have selected articles, this will show them to you and then take
you to the next subscribed newsgroup with unread articles. If you don't
have any selected articles, it marks all articles as read and takes you
to the next unread subscribed newsgroup.
`=word'
Finds and marks all articles in the newsgroup with a specific word in
the "subject:" line, for example: `=modem'
`Z'
Shows you selected articles immediately and then returns you to the
current newsgroup.
`?'
Brings up a help screen.
`<'
Goes to the previous page in the newsgroup.
`>'
Goes to the next page in the newsgroup.
`$'
Goes to the last page in an article.
`^'
Goes to the first page in an article.
Some Usenet hints
=================
Case counts in Unix - most of the time. Many Unix commands, including
many of those used for reading Usenet articles, are case sensitive. Hit a
`d' when you meant a `D' and either nothing will happen, or something
completely different from what you expected will happen. So watch that case!
In nn, you can get help most of the time by typing a question mark (the
exception is when you are writing your own message, because then you are
inside the text-processing program). In rn, type a lower-case `h' at any
prompt to get some online help.
When you're searching for a particular newsgroup, whether through the l
command in rn or with nngrep for nn, you sometimes may have to try several
keywords. For example, there is a newsgroup dedicated to the GRATEFUL DEAD,
but you'd never find it if you tried, say, `l grateful dead', because the
name is `rec.music.gdead'. In general, try the smallest possible part of the
word or discussion you're looking for, for example, use "trek" to find
newsgroups about "Star Trek." If one word doesn't produce anything, try
another.
=============
Sometimes, you'll have an issue you think should be discussed in more than
one newsgroup. Rather than posting individual messages in each group, you
can post the same message in several groups at once, through a process known
as cross-posting.
Say you want to start a discussion about the political ramifications of
importing rare tropical fish from Brazil. People who read `rec.aquaria'
might have something to say. So might people who read `alt.politics.animals'
and `talk.politics.misc'.
Cross-posting is easy. When you get ready to post a message (whether
through Pnews for rn or the `:post' command in nn), you'll be asked in which
newsgroups. Type the names of the various groups, separated by a comma, but
no space, for example:
rec.aquaria,alt.politics.animals,talk.politics.misc
and hit enter. After answering the other questions (geographic
distribution, etc.), the message will be posted in the various groups (unless
one of the groups is moderated, in which case the message goes to the
moderator, who decides whether to make it public).
It's considered bad form to post to an excessive number of newsgroups, or
inappropriate newsgroups. Chances are, you don't really have to post
something in 20 different places. And while you may think your particular
political issue is vitally important to the fate of the world, chances are
the readers of `rec.arts.comics' will not, or at least not important enough
to impose on them. You'll get a lot of nasty e-mail messages demanding you
restrict your messages to the "appropriate" newsgroups.
=====================================
Net users sometimes like to think they are smarter or somehow better than
everybody else. They're not. If they were, nobody on the Net would ever
have heard of Craig Shergold, the Brain-Tumor Boy, or the evil FCC's plan to
tax your modem. Alas, both of these online urban legends are here to stay.
Just when they seem to have died off, somebody posts a message about one or
the other, starting a whole new round of flame wars on the subject.
For the record, here are the stories on both of them:
Craig Shergold
--------------
There once was a seven-year-old boy in England named Craig Shergold who
was diagnosed with a seemingly incurable brain tumor. As he lay dying, he
wished only to have friends send him postcards. The local newspapers got a
hold of the tear-jerking story. Soon, the boy's wish had changed: he now
wanted to get into the Guinness Book of World Records for the largest
postcard collection. Word spread around the world. People by the millions
sent him postcards.
Miraculously, the boy lived. An American billionaire even flew him to the
U.S. for surgery to remove what remained of the tumor. And his wish
succeeded beyond his wildest dreams - he made the Guinness Book of World
Records.
But with Craig now well into his teens, his dream has turned into a
nightmare for the post office in the small town outside London where he
lives. Like Craig himself, his request for cards just refuses to die,
inundating the post office with millions of cards every year. Just when it
seems like the flow is slowing, along comes somebody else who starts up a
whole new slew of requests for people to send Craig post cards (or greeting
cards or business cards - Craig letters have truly taken on a life of their
own and begun to mutate). Even Dear Abby has asked people to stop!
What does any of this have to do with the Net? The Craig letter seems to
pop up on Usenet as often as it does on cork boards at major corporations.
No matter how many times somebody like Gene Spafford posts periodic messages
to ignore them or spend your money on something more sensible (a donation to
the local Red Cross, say), somebody manages to post a letter asking readers
to send cards to poor little Craig.
The Modem Tax
-------------
In 1987, the Federal Communications Commission considered removing a tax
break it had granted CompuServe and other large commercial computer networks
for use of the national phone system. The FCC quickly reconsidered after
alarmed users of bulletin-board systems bombarded it with complaints about
this "modem tax."
Now, every couple of months, somebody posts an "urgent" message warning
Net users that the FCC is about to impose a modem tax. This is NOT true.
The way you can tell if you're dealing with the hoax story is simple: it
ALWAYS mentions an incident in which a talk-show host on KGO radio in San
Francisco becomes outraged on the air when he reads a story about the tax in
the New York Times.
Another way to tell it's not true is that it never mentions a specific FCC
docket number or closing date for comments. Save that letter to your
congressman for something else.
Big Sig
=======
There are .sigs and there are .sigs. Many people put only bare-bones
information in their .sig files - their names and e-mail addresses, perhaps
their phone numbers. Others add a quotation they think is funny or profound
and a disclaimer that their views are not those of their employer. Still
others add some ASCII-art graphics. And then there are those who go totally
berserk, posting huge creations with multiple quotes, hideous ASCII "barfics"
and more e-mail addresses than anybody could humanly need. College freshmen
unleashed on the Net seem to excel at these. You can see the best of the
worst in the `alt.fan.warlord' newsgroup, which exists solely to critique
.sigs that go too far, such as:
___________________________________________________________________________
|#########################################################################|
|#| |#|
|#| ***** * * ***** * * ***** ***** ***** |#|
|#| * * * * ** ** * * * * |#|
|#| * ****** *** * * * *** * ** ***** ***** |#|
|#| * * * * * * * * * * * |#|
|#| * * * ***** * * ***** ***** * * |#|
|#| |#|
|#| **** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** |#|
|#| * ** * * * * * * * * |#|
|#| **** * * ** ***** * * ** * * * |#|
|#| * ** * * * ** * * * * * * * |#|
|#| **** ***** ***** ** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** |#|
|#| |#|
|#| T-H-E M-E-G-A B-I-G .S-I-G C-O-M-P-A-N-Y |#|
|#| ~-----------------------------~ |#|
|#| "Annoying people with huge net.signatures for over 20 years..." |#|
|#| |#|
|#|---------------------------------------------------------------------|#|
|#| "The difference between a net.idiot and a bucket of shit is that at |#|
|#| least a bucket can be emptied. Let me further illustrate my point |#|
|#| by comparing these charts here. (pulls out charts) Here we have a |#|
|#| user who not only flames people who don't agree with his narrow- |#|
|#| minded drivel, but he has this huge signature that takes up many |#|
|#| pages with useless quotes. This also makes reading his frequented |#|
|#| newsgroups a torture akin to having at 300 baud modem on a VAX. I |#|
|#| might also add that his contribution to society rivals only toxic |#|
|#| dump sites." |#|
|#| -- Robert A. Dumpstik, Jr |#|
|#| President of The Mega Big Sig Company |#|
|#| September 13th, 1990 at 4:15pm |#|
|#| During his speech at the "Net.abusers |#|
|#| Society Luncheon" during the |#|
|#| "1990 Net.idiots Annual Convention" |#|
|#|_____________________________________________________________________|#|
|#| |#|
|#| Thomas Babbit, III: 5th Assistant to the Vice President of Sales |#|
|#| __ |#|
|#| ========== ______ Digital Widget Manufacturing Co. |#|
|#| \\ / 1147 Complex Incorporated Drive |#|
|#| )-======= Suite 215 |#|
|#| Nostromo, VA 22550-1147 |#|
|#| #NC-17 Enterpoop Ship :) Phone # 804-844-2525 |#|
the position in your message stack that this message occupies, how to get
help, and how much of the message is on screen. If you want to keep reading
this message, just hit your space bar (not your enter key!) for the next
screen and so on until done. When done, you'll be returned to the newsgroup
menu. For now hit Q (upper case this time), which quits you out of nn and
returns you to your host system's command line.
To get a look at another interesting newsgroup, type
nn comp.risks
and hit enter. This newsgroup is another moderated group, this time a
digest of all the funny and frightening ways computers and the people who run
and use them can go wrong. Again, you read articles by selecting their
letters. If you're in the middle of an article and decide you want to go
onto the next one, hit your n key.
Now it's time to look for some newsgroups that might be of particular
interest to you. Unix host systems that have nn use a program called nngrep
(ever get the feeling Unix was not entirely written in English?) that lets
you scan newsgroups. Exit nn and at your host system's command line, type
nngrep word
where word is the subject you're interested in. If you use a Macintosh
computer, you might try
nngrep mac
You'll get something that looks like this:
alt.music.machines.of.loving.grace
alt.religion.emacs
comp.binaries.mac
comp.emacs
comp.lang.forth.mac
comp.os.mach
comp.sources.mac
comp.sys.mac.announce
comp.sys.mac.apps
comp.sys.mac.comm
comp.sys.mac.databases
comp.sys.mac.digest
comp.sys.mac.games
comp.sys.mac.hardware
comp.sys.mac.hypercard
comp.sys.mac.misc
comp.sys.mac.programmer
comp.sys.mac.system
comp.sys.mac.wanted
gnu.emacs.announce
gnu.emacs.bug
gnu.emacs.gnews
gnu.emacs.gnus
gnu.emacs.help
gnu.emacs.lisp.manual
gnu.emacs.sources
gnu.emacs.vm.bug
gnu.emacs.vm.info
gnu.emacs.vms
Note that some of these obviously have something to do with Macintoshes
while some obviously do not; nngrep is not a perfect system. If you want to
get a list of ALL the newsgroups available on your host system, type
nngrep -a |more
or
nngrep -a |pg
and hit enter (which one to use depends on the Unix used on your host
system; if one doesn't do anything, try the other). You don't absolutely need
the |more or |pg, but if you don't include it, the list will keep scrolling,
rather than pausing every 24 lines. If you are in nn, hitting a capital Y
will bring up a similar list.
Typing `nn newsgroup' for every newsgroup can get awfully tiring after
awhile. When you use nn, your host system looks in a file called `.newsrc'.
This is basically a list of every newsgroup on the host system along with
notations on which groups and articles you have read (all maintained by the
computer). You can also use this file to create a "reading list" that brings
up each newsgroup to which you want to "subscribe." To try it out, type
nn
without any newsgroup name, and hit enter.
Unfortunately, you will start out with a `.newsrc' file that has you
"subscribed" to every single newsgroup on your host system! To delete a
newsgroup from your reading list, type a capital U while its menu is on the
screen. The computer will ask you if you're sure you want to "unsubscribe."
If you then hit a Y, you'll be unsubscribed and put in the next group.
With many host systems carrying 4,000 or more newsgroups, this will take
you forever.
Fortunately, there are a couple of easier ways to do this. Both involve
calling up your `.newsrc' file in a word or text processor. In a `.newsrc'
file, each newsgroup takes up one line, consisting of the group's name, an
exclamation point or a colon and a range of numbers.
Newsgroups with a colon are ones to which you are subscribed; those
followed by an exclamation point are "un-subscribed." To start with a clean
slate, then, you have to change all those colons to exclamation points. If
you know some UNIX, it's a one-liner, just type:
tr ':' '!' < .newsrc > temprc
and you're done. Without the `tr' command you must use a text editor.
If you know how to use emacs or vi, call up the `.newsrc' file (you might
want to make a copy of `.newsrc' first, just in case), and use the
search-and-replace function to make the change.
If you're not comfortable with these text processors, you can download the
`.newsrc' file, make the changes on your own computer and then upload the
revised file. Before you download the file, however, you should do a couple
of things. One is to type
cp .newsrc temprc
and hit enter. You will actually download this temprc file (note the name
does not start with a period - some computers, such as those using MS-DOS, do
not allow file names starting with periods). After you download the file,
open it in your favorite word processor and use its search-and-replace
function to change the exclamation points to colons. Be careful not to
change anything else! Save the document in ASCII or text format. Dial back
into your host system. At the command line, type
cp temprc temprc1
and hit enter. This new file will serve as your backup `.newsrc' file
just in case something goes wrong. Upload the temprc file from your computer.
This will overwrite the Unix system's old temprc file. Now type
cp temprc .newsrc
and hit enter. You now have a clean slate to start creating a reading
list.
It's a little easier to do this in rn, so let's try that out, and as long
as where there, see how it works.
If you type
rn news.announce.newusers
at your host system's command line, you'll see something like this:
******** 21 unread articles in news.announce.newusers--read now? [ynq]
If you hit your Y key, the first article will appear on your screen. If
you want to see what articles are available first, though, hit your
computer's `=' key and you'll get something like this:
152 Introduction to news.announce
153 A Primer on How to Work With the Usenet Community
154 What is Usenet?
155 Answers to Frequently Asked Questions
156 Hints on writing style for Usenet
158 Alternative Newsgroup Hierarchies, Part I
159 Alternative Newsgroup Hierarchies, Part II
160 Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette
161 USENET Software: History and Sources
162 A Guide to Social Newsgroups and Mailing Lists
163 How to Get Information about Networks
164 How to Create a New Newsgroup
169 List of Active Newsgroups
170 List of Moderators
171 Publicly Accessible Mailing Lists, Part I
172 Publicly Accessible Mailing Lists, Part II
173 Publicly Accessible Mailing Lists, Part III
174 How to become a USENET site
175 List of Periodic Informational Postings, Part I
176 List of Periodic Informational Postings, Part II
177 List of Periodic Informational Postings, Part III
End of article 158 (of 178)--what next? [npq]
Notice how the messages are in numerical order this time, and don't tell
you who sent them. Article 154 looks interesting. To read it, type in 154
and hit enter. You'll see something like this:
Article 154 (20 more) in news.announce.newusers (moderated):
From: spaf@cs.purdue.EDU (Gene Spafford)
Newsgroups: news.announce.newusers,news.admin,news.answers
Subject: What is Usenet?
Date: 20 Sep 92 04:17:26 GMT
Followup-To: news.newusers.questions
Organization: Dept. of Computer Sciences, Purdue Univ.
Lines: 353
Supersedes:
Archive-name: what-is-usenet/part1
Original from: chip@tct.com (Chip Salzenberg)
Last-change: 19 July 1992 by spaf@cs.purdue.edu (Gene Spafford)
The first thing to understand about Usenet is that it is widely
misunderstood. Every day on Usenet, the ``blind men and the elephant''
phenomenon is evident, in spades. In my opinion, more flame wars
arise because of a lack of understanding of the nature of Usenet than
from any other source. And consider that such flame wars arise, of
necessity, among people who are on Usenet. Imagine, then, how poorly
understood Usenet must be by those outside!
--MORE--(7%)
This time, the header looks much more like the gobbledygook you get in
e-mail messages. To keep reading, hit your space bar. If you hit your N key
(in lower case), you'll go to the next message in the numerical order.
To escape rn, just keep hitting your q key (in lower case), until you get
back to the command line. Now let's set up your reading list. Because rn
uses the same `.newsrc' file as nn, you can use one of the search-and-replace
methods described above. Or you can do this: Type
rn
and hit enter. When the first newsgroup comes up on your screen, hit your
u key (in lower case). Hit it again, and again, and again. Or just keep it
pressed down (if your computer starts beeping, let up for a couple of
seconds). Unsubscribing from every single group this way could take five or
ten minutes. Eventually, you'll be told you're at the end of the newsgroups,
and asked what you want to do next.
Here's where you begin entering newsgroups. Type
g newsgroup
(for example, `g comp.sys.mac.announce') and hit enter. You'll be asked
if you want to "subscribe." Hit your y key. Then type
g next newsgroup
(for example, `g comp.announce.newusers') and hit enter. Repeat until
done. This process will also set up your reading list for nn, if you prefer
that newsreader. But how do you know which newsgroups to subscribe? Typing a
lower-case l and then hitting enter will show you a list of all available
newsgroups. Again, since there could be more than 2,000 newsgroups on your
system, this might not be something you want to do. Fortunately, you can
search for groups with particular words in their names, using the l command.
Typing
l mac
followed by enter, will bring up a list of newsgroups with those letters
in them (and as in nn, you will also see groups dealing with emacs and the
like, in addition to groups related to Macintosh computers).
Because of the vast amount of messages transmitted over Usenet, most
systems carry messages for only a few days or weeks. So if there's a message
you want to keep, you should either turn on your computer's screen capture or
save it to a file which you can later download). To save a message as a file
in rn, type
s filename
where filename is what you want to call the file. Hit enter. You'll be
asked if you want to save it in "mailbox format." In most cases, you can
answer with an n (which will strip off the header). The message will now be
saved to a file in your News directory (which you can access by typing `cd
News' and then hitting enter).
Also, some newsgroups fill up particularly quickly - go away for a couple
of days and you'll come back to find hundreds of articles! One way to deal
with that is to mark them as "read" so that they no longer appear on your
screen. In nn, hit a capital J; in rn, a small c.
=====================
There are some newsgroups you might want to include in your reading list.
The `news. newusers.questions' newsgroup is where newcomers can ask questions
about how Usenet works. The newsgroup `news.announce.newsgroups' carries
information about new or proposed newsgroups.
The `news.answers' newsgroup is a fascinating one and can help you find
interesting newsgroups. Many newsgroups have regularly compiled lists of
"frequently asked questions" or FAQs related to the newsgroup's particular
discussions. The people who write these lists post them in `news.answers'.
You'll learn how to fight jet lag in an FAQ from the `rec.travel.air'
newsgroup; read more than you probably wanted to know about bloodhounds in an
FAQ from `rec.pet.dogs'; find answers to common questions about Windows in
`comp.os.ms-windows'. There's even a newsgroup set up just for these FAQs:
`news.answers'. This can be an interesting newsgroup to browse through,
because you'll find everything from tips on saving money on airline tickets
to facts about U.S. space missions.
Now to put your two cents in.
"Threads" are an integral part of Usenet. When somebody posts a message,
often somebody else will respond. Soon, a thread of conversation begins.
Following these threads is relatively easy. In nn, related messages are
grouped together. In rn, when you're done with a message, you can hit
control-N to read the next related message, or followup. As you explore
Usenet, it's probably a good idea to read discussions for a while before you
jump in. This way, you can get a feel for the particular newsgroup - each of
which has its own rhythms.
Eventually, though, you'll want to speak up. There are two main ways to
do this. You join an existing conversation, or you can start a whole new
thread.
If you want to join a discussion, you have to decide if you want to
include portions of the message you are responding to in your message. The
reason to do this is so people can see what you're responding to, just in
case the original message has disappeared from their system (remember that
most Usenet messages have a short life span on the average host system) or
they can't find it.
If you're using a Unix host system, joining an existing conversation is
similar in both nn and rn: hit your F key when done with a given article in
the thread. In rn, type a small f if you don't want to include portions of
the message you're responding to; an upper-case F if you do. In nn, type a
capital F. You'll then be asked if you want to include portions of the
original message.
And here's where you hit another Unix wall. When you hit your F key, your
host system calls up its basic Unix text editor. If you're lucky, that'll be
Pico, a very easy system. More likely, however, you'll get dumped into emacs
(or possibly vi), which you've already met in the chapter on e-mail.
The single most important emacs command is
control-x control-c
This means, depress your control key and hit x. Then depress the control
key and hit c. Memorize this. In fact, it's so important, it bears
repeating:
control-x control-c
These keystrokes are how you get out of emacs. If it works well, you'll
be asked if you want to send, edit, abort or list the message you were
working on. If it doesn't work well (say you accidentally hit some other
weird key combination that means something special to emacs) and nothing
seems to happen, or you just get more weird-looking emacs prompts on the
bottom of your screen, try hitting control-g. This should stop whatever emacs
was trying to do (you should see the word "quit" on the bottom of your
screen), after which you can hit control-x control-c. But if this still
doesn't work, remember that you can always disconnect and dial back in!
If you have told your newsreader you do want to include portions of the
original message in yours, it will automatically put the entire thing at the
top of your message. Use the arrow keys to move down to the lines you want
to delete and hit control-K, which will delete one line at a time.
You can then write your message. Remember that you have to hit enter
before your cursor gets to the end of the line, because emacs does not have
word wrapping.
When done, hit control-x control-c. You'll be asked the question about
sending, editing, aborting, etc. Chose one. If you hit Y, your host system
will start the process to sending your message across the Net.
The nn and rn programs work differently when it comes to posting entirely
new messages. In nn, type
:post
and hit enter in any newsgroup. You'll be asked which newsgroup to post a
message to. Type in its name and hit enter. Then you'll be asked for
"keywords." These are words you'd use to attract somebody scanning a
newsgroup. Say you're selling your car. You might type the type of car
here. Next comes a "summary" line, which is somewhat similar. Finally,
you'll be asked for the message's "distribution." This is where you put how
widely you want your message disseminated. Think about this one for a
second. If you are selling your car, it makes little sense to send a message
about it all over the world. But if you want to talk about the environment,
it might make a lot of sense. Each host system has its own set of
distribution classifications, but there's generally a local one (just for
users of that system), one for the city, state or region it's in, another for
the country (for example, usa), one for the continent (for Americans and
Canadians, na) and finally, one for the entire world (usually: world).
Which one to use? Generally, a couple of seconds' thought will help you
decide. If you're selling your car, use your city or regional distribution -
people in Australia won't much care and may even get annoyed. If you want to
discuss presidential politics, using a USA distribution makes more sense. If
you want to talk about events in the Middle East, sending your message to the
entire world is perfectly acceptable.
Then you can type your message. If you've composed your message offline
(generally a good idea if you and emacs don't get along), you can upload it
now. You may see a lot of weird looking characters as it uploads into emacs,
but those will disappear when you hit control-X and then control-C.
Alternately: "save" the message (for example, by hitting m in rn), log out,
compose your message offline, log back on and upload your message into a file
on your host system. Then call up Usenet, find the article you "saved."
Start a reply, and you'll be asked if you want to include a prepared message.
Type in the name of the file you just created and hit enter.
In rn, you have to wait until you get to the end of a newsgroup to hit F,
which will bring up a message-composing system. Alternately, at your host
system's command line, you can type
Pnews
and hit enter. You'll be prompted somewhat similarly to the nn system,
except that you'll be given a list of possible distributions. If you chose
"world," you'll get this message:
This program posts news to thousands of machines throughout the entire
civilized world. Your message will cost the net hundreds if not thousands of
dollars to send everywhere. Please be sure you know what you are doing.
*Are you absolutely sure that you want to do this? [ny]*
Don't worry - your message won't really cost the Net untold amounts,
although, again, it's a good idea to think for a second whether your message
really should go everywhere.
If you want to respond to a given post through e-mail, instead of
publicly, hit R in nn or r or R in rn. In rn, as with follow-up articles,
the upper-case key includes the original message in yours.
Most newsgroups are unmoderated, which means that every message you post
will eventually wind up on every host system within the geographic region you
specified that carries that newsgroup.
Some newsgroups, however, are moderated, as you saw earlier with
`comp.risks'. In these groups, messages are shipped to a single location
where a moderator, acting much like a magazine editor, decides what actually
gets posted. In some cases, groups are moderated like scholarly journals.
In other cases, it's to try to cut down on the massive number of messages
that might otherwise be posted.
You'll notice that many articles in Usenet end with a fancy "signature"
that often contains some witty saying, a clever drawing and, almost
incidentally, the poster's name and e-mail address. You too can have your
own "signature" automatically appended to everything you post. On your own
computer, create a signature file. Try to keep it to four lines or less,
lest you annoy others on the Net. Then, while connected to your host system,
type
cat >.signature
and hit enter (note the period before the s). Upload your signature file
into this using your communications software's ASCII upload protocol. When
done, hit control-D, the Unix command for closing a file. Now, every time
you post a message, this will be appended to it.
There are a few caveats to posting. Usenet is no different from a Town
Meeting or publication: you're not supposed to break the law, whether that's
posting copyrighted material or engaging in illegal activities. It is also
not a place to try to sell products (except in certain `biz.*' and explicit
for-sale newsgroups).
--
___________________ * _-_
\==============_=_/ ____.---'---`---.____ *
\_ \ \----._________.----/
* \ \ / / `-_-' *
* __,--`.`-'..'-_
/____ || *
`--.____,-' ...to boldly go where no man has gone before!
--
Disclaimer - These opiini^H^H damn! ^H^H ^Q ^[ .... :w :q :wq :wq! ^d X ^?
exit X Q ^C ^? :quitbye CtrlAltDel ~~q :~q logout save/quit :!QUIT
^[zz ^[ZZZZZZ ^H man vi ^ ^L ^[c ^# ^E ^X ^I ^T ? help helpquit ^D ^d
man help ^C ^c help exit ?Quit ?q CtrlShftDel"Hey, what does this button d..."
-- .signature(s)
************************************
================================================
Something about online communications seems to make some people
particularly irritable. Perhaps it's the immediacy and semi-anonymity of it
all. Whatever it is, there are whole classes of people you will soon think
seem to exist to make you miserable.
Rather than pausing and reflecting on a message as one might do with a
letter received on paper, it's just so easy to hit your R key and tell
somebody you don't really know what you really think of them. Even otherwise
calm people sometimes find themselves turning into raving madmen. When this
happens, flames erupt.
A flame is a particularly nasty, personal attack on somebody for something
he or she has written.
Periodically, an exchange of flames erupts into a flame war that begin to
take up all the space in a given newsgroup (and sometimes several; flamers
like cross-posting to let the world know how they feel). These can go on for
weeks (sometimes they go on for years, in which case they become "holy wars,"
usually on such topics as the relative merits of Macintoshes and IBMs).
Often, just when they're dying down, somebody new to the flame war reads all
the messages, gets upset and issues an urgent plea that the flame war be
taken to e-mail so everybody else can get back to whatever the newsgroup's
business is.
All this usually does, though, is start a brand new flame war, in which
this poor person comes under attack for daring to question the First
Amendment, prompting others to jump on the attackers for impugning this poor
soul... You get the idea.
Every so often, a discussion gets so out of hand that somebody predicts
that either the government will catch on and shut the whole thing down or
somebody will sue to close down the network, or maybe even the wrath of God
will smote everybody involved. This brings what has become an inevitable
rejoinder from others who realize that the network is, in fact, a resilient
creature that will not die easily: *"Imminent death of Usenet predicted. Film
at 11."*
Flame wars can be tremendously fun to watch at first. They quickly grow
boring, though. And wait until the first time you're attacked!
*Flamers* are not the only Net.characters to watch out for.
*Spewers* assume that whatever they are particularly concerned about
either really is of universal interest or should be rammed down the throats
of people who don't seem to care - as frequently as possible.
You can usually tell a spewer's work by the number of articles he posts in
a day on the same subject and the number of newsgroups to which he then sends
these articles - both can reach well into double digits. Often, these
messages relate to various ethnic conflicts around the world. Frequently,
there is no conceivable connection between the issue at hand and most of the
newsgroups to which he posts. No matter. If you try to point this out in a
response to one of these messages, you will be inundated with angry messages
that either accuse you of being an insensitive racist/American/whatever or
ignore your point entirely to bring up several hundred more lines of
commentary on the perfidy of whoever it is the spewer thinks is out to
destroy his people.
Closely related to these folks are the Holocaust revisionists, who
periodically inundate certain groups (such as `soc.history') with long rants
about how the Holocaust never really happened. Some people attempt to refute
these people with facts, but others realize this only encourages them.
*Blatherers* tend to be more benign. Their problem is that they just
can't get to the point - they can wring three or four screenfuls out of a
thought that others might sum up in a sentence or two. A related condition
is excessive quoting. People afflicted with this will include an entire
message in their reply rather than excising the portions not relevant to
whatever point they're trying to make. The worst quote a long message and
then add a single line:
"I agree!" or some such, often followed by a monster .signature.
There are a number of other Usenet denizens you'll soon come to recognize.
Among them:
Net.weenies
These are the kind of people who enjoy Insulting others, the kind of
people who post nasty messages in a sewing newsgroup just for the hell
of it.
Net.geeks
People to whom the Net is Life, who worry about what happens when they
graduate and they lose their free, 24-hour access.
Net.gods
The old-timers; the true titans of the Net and the keepers of its
collective history. They were around when the Net consisted of a couple
of computers tied together with baling wire.
Lurkers
Actually, you can't tell these people are there, but they are. They're
the folks who read a newsgroup but never post or respond.
Wizards
People who know a particular Net-related topic inside and out. Unix
wizards can perform amazing tricks with that operating system, for
example.
Net.saints
Always willing to help a newcomer, eager to share their knowledge with
those not born with an innate ability to navigate the Net, they are not
as rare as you might think. Post a question about something and you'll
often be surprised how many responses you get.
The last group brings us back to the Net's oral tradition. With few
written guides, people have traditionally learned their way around the Net by
asking somebody, whether at the terminal next to them or on the Net itself.
That tradition continues: if you have a question, ask.
Today, one of the places you can look for help is in the
`news.newusers.questions' newsgroup, which, as its name suggests, is a place
to learn more about Usenet. But be careful what you post. Some of the
Usenet wizards there get cranky sometimes when they have to answer the same
question over and over again. Oh, they'll eventually answer your question,
but not before they tell you should have asked your host system administrator
first or looked at the postings in `news.announce.newusers'.
======================================
Usenet's international reach raises interesting legal questions that have
yet to be fully resolved. Can a discussion or posting that is legal in one
country be transmitted to a country where it is against the law? Does the
posting even become illegal when it reaches the border? And what if that
country is the only path to a third country where the message is legal as
well? Several foreign colleges and other institutions have cut off feeds of
certain newsgroups where Americans post what is, in the U.S., perfectly legal
discussions of drugs or alternative sexual practices. Even in the U.S., some
universities have discontinued certain newsgroups their administrators find
offensive, again, usually in the `alt.*' hierarchy.
===========
Different commands are available to you in rn depending on whether you are
already in a newsgroup or reading a specific article. At any point, typing a
lower-case `h' will bring up a list of available commands and some terse
instructions for using them. Here are some of them:
After you've just called up rn, or within a newsgroup:
`c'
Marks every article in a newsgroup as read (or "caught up") so that you
don't have to see them again. The system will ask you if you are sure.
Can be done either when asked if you want to read a particular newsgroup
or once in the newsgroup.
`g'
Goes to a newsgroup, in this form:
`g news.group'
Use this both for going to groups to which you're already subscribed and
subscribing to new groups.
`h'
Provides a list of available commands with terse instructions.
`l'
Gives a list of all available newsgroups.
`p'
Goes to the first previous subscribed newsgroup with un-read articles.
`q'
Quits, or exits, rn if you have not yet gone into a newsgroup. If you
are in a newsgroup, it quits that one and brings you to the next
subscribed newsgroup.
Only within a newsgroup:
`='
Gives a list of all available articles in the newsgroup.
`m'
Marks a specific article or series of articles as "un-read" again so
that you can come back to them later. Typing `1700m' and hitting enter
would mark just that article as un-read. Typing `1700-1800m' and
hitting enter would mark all of those articles as un-read.
`s file'
Copies the current article to a file in your News directory, where
"file" is the name of the file you want to save it to. You'll be asked
if you want to use "mailbox" format when saving. If you answer by
hitting your `N' key, most of the header will not be saved.
`space'
Brings up the next page of article listings. If already on the last
page, displays the first article in the newsgroup.
`u'
Un-subscribe from the newsgroup.
`/text/'
Searches through the newsgroup for articles with a specific word or
phrase in the "subject:" line, from the current article to the end of
the newsgroup. For example,
`/EFF/'
would bring you to the first article with "EFF" in the "subject:" line.
`?text?'
The same as above except it searches in reverse order from the current
article.
Only within a specific article:
`C'
If you post an article and then decide it was a mistake, call it up on
your host system and hit this. The message will soon begin disappearing
on systems around the world.
`F'
Post a public response in the newsgroup to the current article.
Includes a copy of her posting, which you can then edit down using your
host system's text editor.
`f'
The same as above except it does not include a copy of the original
message in yours.
`m'
Marks the current article as "un-read" so that you can come back to it
later. You do not have to type the article number.
`Control-N'
Brings up the first response to the article. If there is no follow-up
article, this returns you to the first unread article in the newsgroup).
`Control-P'
Goes to the message to which the current article is a reply.
`n'
Goes to the next unread article in the newsgroup.
`N'
Takes you to the next article in the newsgroup even if you've already
read it.
`q'
Quits, or exits, the current article. Leaves you in the current
newsgroup.
`R'
Reply, via e-mail only, to the author of the current article. Includes
a copy of his message in yours.
`r'
The same as above, except it does not include a copy of his article.
`s |mail'
user Mails a copy of the article to somebody. For "user" substitute
her e-mail address. Does not let you add comments to the message first,
however.
`space'
Hitting the space bar shows the next page of the article, or, if at the
end, goes to the next un-read article.
===========
To mark a specific article for reading, type the letter next to it (in
lower case). To mark a specific article and all of its responses, type the
letter and an asterisk, for example:
a*
To un-select an article, type the letter next to it (again, in lower case).
`C'
Cancels an article (around the world) that you wrote. Every article
posted on Usenet has a unique ID number. Hitting a capital `C' sends
out a new message that tells host systems that receive it to find
earlier message and delete it.
`F'
To post a public response, or follow-up. If selected while still on a
newsgroup "page", asks you which article to follow up. If selected
while in a specific article, will follow up that article. In either
case, you'll be asked if you want to include the original article in
yours. Caution: puts you in whatever text editor is your default.
`N'
Goes to the next subscribed newsgroup with unread articles.
`P'
Goes to the previous subscribed newsgroup with unread articles.
`G news.group'
Goes to a specific newsgroup. Can be used to subscribe to new
newsgroups. Hitting `G' brings up a sub-menu:
`u'
Goes to the group and shows only un-read articles.
`a'
Goes to the group and shows all articles, even ones you've already
read.
`s'
Will show you only articles with a specific subject.
`n'
Will show you only articles from a specific person.
`M'
Mails a copy of the current article to somebody. You'll be asked for
the recipient's e-mail address and whether you want to add any comments
to the article before sending it off. As with `F', puts you in the
default editor.
`:post'
Post an article. You'll be asked for the name of the group.
`Q'
Quit, or exit, nn.
`U'
Un-subscribe from the current newsgroup.
`R'
Responds to an article via e-mail.
`space'
Hitting the space bar brings up the next page of articles.
`X'
If you have selected articles, this will show them to you and then take
you to the next subscribed newsgroup with unread articles. If you don't
have any selected articles, it marks all articles as read and takes you
to the next unread subscribed newsgroup.
`=word'
Finds and marks all articles in the newsgroup with a specific word in
the "subject:" line, for example: `=modem'
`Z'
Shows you selected articles immediately and then returns you to the
current newsgroup.
`?'
Brings up a help screen.
`<'
Goes to the previous page in the newsgroup.
`>'
Goes to the next page in the newsgroup.
`$'
Goes to the last page in an article.
`^'
Goes to the first page in an article.
Some Usenet hints
=================
Case counts in Unix - most of the time. Many Unix commands, including
many of those used for reading Usenet articles, are case sensitive. Hit a
`d' when you meant a `D' and either nothing will happen, or something
completely different from what you expected will happen. So watch that case!
In nn, you can get help most of the time by typing a question mark (the
exception is when you are writing your own message, because then you are
inside the text-processing program). In rn, type a lower-case `h' at any
prompt to get some online help.
When you're searching for a particular newsgroup, whether through the l
command in rn or with nngrep for nn, you sometimes may have to try several
keywords. For example, there is a newsgroup dedicated to the GRATEFUL DEAD,
but you'd never find it if you tried, say, `l grateful dead', because the
name is `rec.music.gdead'. In general, try the smallest possible part of the
word or discussion you're looking for, for example, use "trek" to find
newsgroups about "Star Trek." If one word doesn't produce anything, try
another.
=============
Sometimes, you'll have an issue you think should be discussed in more than
one newsgroup. Rather than posting individual messages in each group, you
can post the same message in several groups at once, through a process known
as cross-posting.
Say you want to start a discussion about the political ramifications of
importing rare tropical fish from Brazil. People who read `rec.aquaria'
might have something to say. So might people who read `alt.politics.animals'
and `talk.politics.misc'.
Cross-posting is easy. When you get ready to post a message (whether
through Pnews for rn or the `:post' command in nn), you'll be asked in which
newsgroups. Type the names of the various groups, separated by a comma, but
no space, for example:
rec.aquaria,alt.politics.animals,talk.politics.misc
and hit enter. After answering the other questions (geographic
distribution, etc.), the message will be posted in the various groups (unless
one of the groups is moderated, in which case the message goes to the
moderator, who decides whether to make it public).
It's considered bad form to post to an excessive number of newsgroups, or
inappropriate newsgroups. Chances are, you don't really have to post
something in 20 different places. And while you may think your particular
political issue is vitally important to the fate of the world, chances are
the readers of `rec.arts.comics' will not, or at least not important enough
to impose on them. You'll get a lot of nasty e-mail messages demanding you
restrict your messages to the "appropriate" newsgroups.
=====================================
Net users sometimes like to think they are smarter or somehow better than
everybody else. They're not. If they were, nobody on the Net would ever
have heard of Craig Shergold, the Brain-Tumor Boy, or the evil FCC's plan to
tax your modem. Alas, both of these online urban legends are here to stay.
Just when they seem to have died off, somebody posts a message about one or
the other, starting a whole new round of flame wars on the subject.
For the record, here are the stories on both of them:
Craig Shergold
--------------
There once was a seven-year-old boy in England named Craig Shergold who
was diagnosed with a seemingly incurable brain tumor. As he lay dying, he
wished only to have friends send him postcards. The local newspapers got a
hold of the tear-jerking story. Soon, the boy's wish had changed: he now
wanted to get into the Guinness Book of World Records for the largest
postcard collection. Word spread around the world. People by the millions
sent him postcards.
Miraculously, the boy lived. An American billionaire even flew him to the
U.S. for surgery to remove what remained of the tumor. And his wish
succeeded beyond his wildest dreams - he made the Guinness Book of World
Records.
But with Craig now well into his teens, his dream has turned into a
nightmare for the post office in the small town outside London where he
lives. Like Craig himself, his request for cards just refuses to die,
inundating the post office with millions of cards every year. Just when it
seems like the flow is slowing, along comes somebody else who starts up a
whole new slew of requests for people to send Craig post cards (or greeting
cards or business cards - Craig letters have truly taken on a life of their
own and begun to mutate). Even Dear Abby has asked people to stop!
What does any of this have to do with the Net? The Craig letter seems to
pop up on Usenet as often as it does on cork boards at major corporations.
No matter how many times somebody like Gene Spafford posts periodic messages
to ignore them or spend your money on something more sensible (a donation to
the local Red Cross, say), somebody manages to post a letter asking readers
to send cards to poor little Craig.
The Modem Tax
-------------
In 1987, the Federal Communications Commission considered removing a tax
break it had granted CompuServe and other large commercial computer networks
for use of the national phone system. The FCC quickly reconsidered after
alarmed users of bulletin-board systems bombarded it with complaints about
this "modem tax."
Now, every couple of months, somebody posts an "urgent" message warning
Net users that the FCC is about to impose a modem tax. This is NOT true.
The way you can tell if you're dealing with the hoax story is simple: it
ALWAYS mentions an incident in which a talk-show host on KGO radio in San
Francisco becomes outraged on the air when he reads a story about the tax in
the New York Times.
Another way to tell it's not true is that it never mentions a specific FCC
docket number or closing date for comments. Save that letter to your
congressman for something else.
Big Sig
=======
There are .sigs and there are .sigs. Many people put only bare-bones
information in their .sig files - their names and e-mail addresses, perhaps
their phone numbers. Others add a quotation they think is funny or profound
and a disclaimer that their views are not those of their employer. Still
others add some ASCII-art graphics. And then there are those who go totally
berserk, posting huge creations with multiple quotes, hideous ASCII "barfics"
and more e-mail addresses than anybody could humanly need. College freshmen
unleashed on the Net seem to excel at these. You can see the best of the
worst in the `alt.fan.warlord' newsgroup, which exists solely to critique
.sigs that go too far, such as:
___________________________________________________________________________
|#########################################################################|
|#| |#|
|#| ***** * * ***** * * ***** ***** ***** |#|
|#| * * * * ** ** * * * * |#|
|#| * ****** *** * * * *** * ** ***** ***** |#|
|#| * * * * * * * * * * * |#|
|#| * * * ***** * * ***** ***** * * |#|
|#| |#|
|#| **** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** |#|
|#| * ** * * * * * * * * |#|
|#| **** * * ** ***** * * ** * * * |#|
|#| * ** * * * ** * * * * * * * |#|
|#| **** ***** ***** ** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** |#|
|#| |#|
|#| T-H-E M-E-G-A B-I-G .S-I-G C-O-M-P-A-N-Y |#|
|#| ~-----------------------------~ |#|
|#| "Annoying people with huge net.signatures for over 20 years..." |#|
|#| |#|
|#|---------------------------------------------------------------------|#|
|#| "The difference between a net.idiot and a bucket of shit is that at |#|
|#| least a bucket can be emptied. Let me further illustrate my point |#|
|#| by comparing these charts here. (pulls out charts) Here we have a |#|
|#| user who not only flames people who don't agree with his narrow- |#|
|#| minded drivel, but he has this huge signature that takes up many |#|
|#| pages with useless quotes. This also makes reading his frequented |#|
|#| newsgroups a torture akin to having at 300 baud modem on a VAX. I |#|
|#| might also add that his contribution to society rivals only toxic |#|
|#| dump sites." |#|
|#| -- Robert A. Dumpstik, Jr |#|
|#| President of The Mega Big Sig Company |#|
|#| September 13th, 1990 at 4:15pm |#|
|#| During his speech at the "Net.abusers |#|
|#| Society Luncheon" during the |#|
|#| "1990 Net.idiots Annual Convention" |#|
|#|_____________________________________________________________________|#|
|#| |#|
|#| Thomas Babbit, III: 5th Assistant to the Vice President of Sales |#|
|#| __ |#|
|#| ========== ______ Digital Widget Manufacturing Co. |#|
|#| \\ / 1147 Complex Incorporated Drive |#|
|#| )-======= Suite 215 |#|
|#| Nostromo, VA 22550-1147 |#|
|#| #NC-17 Enterpoop Ship :) Phone # 804-844-2525 |#|