It is the people participating in Usenet that make it worth the effort to read and maintain this document. For Usenet to function properly those people must be able to interact in productive ways. This document is intended as a guide to using the net in ways that will be pleasant and productive for everyone.
Starting Up
This document is not intended to teach you how to use Usenet.
Instead, it is a guide to using it politely, effectively and
efficiently. Communication by computer is new to almost
everybody, and there are certain aspects that can make it a
frustrating experience until you get used to them. This document
should help you avoid the worst traps.
The easiest way to learn how to use Usenet is to watch how others use it. Start reading the news and try to figure out what people are doing and why. After a couple of weeks you will start understanding why certain things are done and what things shouldn't be done. There are documents available describing the technical details of how to use the software. These are different depending on which programs you use to access the news. You can get copies of these from your system administrator. If you do not know who that person is, they can be contacted on most systems by mailing to account "news", "usenet" or "postmaster".
Never Forget that the Person on the Other Side is Human
Because your interaction with the network is through a computer it is
easy to forget that there are people "out there." Situations arise where
emotions erupt into a verbal free-for-all that can lead to hurt feelings.
Please remember that people all over the world are reading your words. Do not attack people if you cannot persuade them with your presentation of the facts. Screaming, cursing, and abusing others only serves to make people think less of you and less willing to help you when you need it.
If you are upset at something or someone, wait until you have had a chance to calm down and think about it. A cup of (decaf!) coffee or a good night's sleep works wonders on your perspective. Hasty words create more problems than they solve. Try not to say anything to others you would not say to them in person in a room full of people.
Don't Blame System Admins for their Users' Behavior
Sometimes, you may find it necessary to write to a system administrator
about something concerning his or her site. Maybe it is a case of the
software not working, or a control message escaped, or maybe one of the
users at that site has done something you feel requires comment. No
matter how steamed you may be, be polite to the sysadmin -- he or she may
not have any idea of what you are going to say, and may not have any part
in the incidents involved. By being civil and temperate, you are more
likely to obtain their courteous attention and assistance.
Never assume that a person is speaking for their organization
Many people who post to Usenet do so from machines at their office or
school. Despite that, never assume that the person is speaking for the
organization that they are posting their articles from (unless the person
explicitly says so). Some people put explicit disclaimers to this effect
in their messages, but this is a good general rule. If you find an
article offensive, consider taking it up with the person directly, or
ignoring it. Learn about "kill files" in your newsreader, and other
techniques for ignoring people whose postings you find offensive.
Be Careful What You Say About Others
Please remember -- you read netnews; so do as many as 3,000,000 other
people. This group quite possibly includes your boss, your friend's boss,
your girl friend's brother's best friend and one of your father's beer
buddies. Information posted on the net can come back to haunt you or the
person you are talking about.
Think twice before you post personal information about yourself or others. This applies especially strongly to groups like soc.singles and alt.sex but even postings in groups like talk.politics.misc have included information about the personal life of third parties that could get them into serious trouble if it got into the wrong hands.
Be Brief
Never say in ten words what you can say in fewer. Say it succinctly and
it will have a greater impact. Remember that the longer you make your
article, the fewer people will bother to read it.
Your Postings Reflect Upon You -- Be Proud of Them
Most people on Usenet will know you only by what you say and how well
you say it. They may someday be your co-workers or friends. Take some
time to make sure each posting is something that will not embarrass you
later. Minimize your spelling errors and make sure that the article is
easy to read and understand. Writing is an art and to do it well requires
practice. Since much of how people judge you on the net is based on your
writing, such time is well spent.
Use Descriptive Titles
The subject line of an article is there to enable a person with a
limited amount of time to decide whether or not to read your article.
Tell people what the article is about before they read it. A title like
"Car for Sale" to rec.autos does not help as much as "66 MG Midget for
sale: Beaverton OR." Don't expect people to read your article to find out
what it is about because many of them won't bother. Some sites truncate
the length of the subject line to 40 characters so keep your subjects
short and to the point.
Think About Your Audience
When you post an article, think about the people you are trying to
reach. Asking UNIX(*) questions on rec.autos will not reach as many of
the people you want to reach as if you asked them on comp.unix.questions
or comp.unix.internals. Try to get the most appropriate audience for your
message, not the widest.
It is considered bad form to post both to misc.misc, soc.net-people, or misc.wanted and to some other newsgroup. If it belongs in that other newsgroup, it does not belong in misc.misc, soc.net-people, or misc.wanted.
If your message is of interest to a limited geographic area (apartments, car sales, meetings, concerts, etc...), restrict the distribution of the message to your local area. Some areas have special newsgroups with geographical limitations, and the recent versions of the news software allow you to limit the distribution of material sent to world-wide newsgroups. Check with your system administrator to see what newsgroups are available and how to use them.
If you want to try a test of something, do not use a world-wide newsgroup! Messages in misc.misc that say "This is a test" are likely to cause large numbers of caustic messages to flow into your mailbox. There are newsgroups that are local to your computer or area that should be used. Your system administrator can tell you what they are.
Be familiar with the group you are posting to before you post! You shouldn't post to groups you do not read, or post to groups you've only read a few articles from -- you may not be familiar with the on-going conventions and themes of the group. One normally does not join a conversation by just walking up and talking. Instead, you listen first and then join in if you have something pertinent to contribute.
Be Careful with Humor and Sarcasm
Without the voice inflections and body language of personal
communications, it is easy for a remark meant to be funny to be
misinterpreted. Subtle humor tends to get lost, so take steps to make
sure that people realize you are trying to be funny. The net has
developed a symbol called the smiley face. It looks like ":-)" and points
out sections of articles with humorous intent. No matter how broad the
humor or satire, it is safer to remind people that you are being funny.
But also be aware that quite frequently satire is posted without any explicit indications. If an article outrages you strongly, you should ask yourself if it just may have been unmarked satire. Several self-proclaimed connoisseurs refuse to use smiley faces, so take heed or you may make a temporary fool of yourself.
Only Post a Message Once
Avoid posting messages to more than one newsgroup unless you are sure it
is appropriate. If you do post to multiple newsgroups, do not post to
each group separately. Instead, specify all the groups on a single copy
of the message. This reduces network overhead and lets people who
subscribe to more than one of those groups see the message once instead
of having to wade through each copy.
Please Rotate Messages With Questionable Content
Certain newsgroups (such as rec.humor) have messages in them that may be
offensive to some people. To make sure that these messages are not read
unless they are explicitly requested, these messages should be encrypted.
The standard encryption method is to rotate each letter by thirteen
characters so that an "a" becomes an "n". This is known on the network as
"rot13" and when you rotate a message the word "rot13" should be in the
"Subject:" line. Most of the software used to read Usenet articles have
some way of encrypting and decrypting messages. Your system administrator
can tell you how the software on your system works, or you can use the
Unix command
tr '[a-m][n-z][A-M][N-Z]' '[n-z][a-m][N-Z][A-M]'
Don't forget the single quotes!)
Summarize What You are Following Up
When you are following up someone's article, please summarize the parts
of the article to which you are responding. This allows readers to
appreciate your comments rather than trying to remember what the original
article said. It is also possible for your response to get to some sites
before the original article.
Summarization is best done by including appropriate quotes from the original article. Do not include the entire article since it will irritate the people who have already seen it. Even if you are responding to the entire article, summarize only the major points you are discussing.
When Summarizing, Summarize!
When you request information from the network, it is common courtesy to
report your findings so that others can benefit as well. The best way of
doing this is to take all the responses that you received and edit them
into a single article that is posted to the places where you originally
posted your question. Take the time to strip headers, combine duplicate
information, and write a short summary. Try to credit the information to
the people that sent it to you, where possible.
Use Mail, Don't Post a Follow-up
One of the biggest problems we have on the network is that when someone
asks a question, many people send out identical answers. When this
happens, dozens of identical answers pour through the net. Mail your
answer to the person and suggest that they summarize to the network. This
way the net will only see a single copy of the answers, no matter how
many people answer the question.
If you post a question, please remind people to send you the answers by mail and at least offer to summarize them to the network.
Read All Follow-ups and Don't Repeat What Has Already Been Said
Before you submit a follow-up to a message, read the rest of the
messages in the newsgroup to see whether someone has already said what
you want to say. If someone has, don't repeat it.
Check the Headers When Following Up
The news software has provisions to specify that follow-ups to an
article should go to a specific set of newsgroups -- possibly different
from the newsgroups to which the original article was posted. Sometimes
the groups chosen for follow-ups are totally inappropriate, especially as
a thread of discussion changes with repeated postings. You should
carefully check the groups and distributions given in the header and edit
them as appropriate. If you change the groups named in the header, or if
you direct follow-ups to a particular group, say so in the body of the
message -- not everyone reads the headers of postings.
Be Careful About Copyrights and Licenses
Once something is posted onto the network, it is *probably* in the
public domain unless you own the appropriate rights (most notably, if you
wrote the thing yourself) and you post it with a valid copyright notice;
a court would have to decide the specifics and there are arguments for
both sides of the issue. Now that the US has ratified the Berne
convention, the issue is even murkier (if you are a poster in the US).
For all practical purposes, though, assume that you effectively give up
the copyright if you don't put in a notice. Of course, the *information*
becomes public, so you mustn't post trade secrets that way.
When posting material to the network, keep in mind that material that is UNIX-related may be restricted by the license you or your company signed with AT&T and be careful not to violate it. You should also be aware that posting movie reviews, song lyrics, or anything else published under a copyright could cause you, your company, or members of the net community to be held liable for damages, so we highly recommend caution in using this material.
Cite Appropriate References
If you are using facts to support a cause, state where they came from.
Don't take someone else's ideas and use them as your own. You don't want
someone pretending that your ideas are theirs; show them the same respect.
Mark or Rotate Answers and Spoilers
When you post something (like a movie review that discusses a detail of
the plot) which might spoil a surprise for other people, please mark your
message with a warning so that they can skip the message. Another
alternative would be to use the "rot13" protocol to encrypt the message
so it cannot be read accidentally. When you post a message with a spoiler
in it make sure the word "spoiler" is part of the "Subject:" line.
Spelling Flames Considered Harmful
Every few months a plague descends on Usenet called the spelling flame.
It starts out when someone posts an article correcting the spelling or
grammar in some article. The immediate result seems to be for everyone on
the net to turn into a 6th grade English teacher and pick apart each
other's postings for a few weeks. This is not productive and tends to
cause people who used to be friends to get angry with each other.
It is important to remember that we all make mistakes, and that there are many users on the net who use English as a second language. There are also a number of people who suffer from dyslexia and who have difficulty noticing their spelling mistakes. If you feel that you must make a comment on the quality of a posting, please do so by mail, not on the network.
Don't Overdo Signatures
Signatures are nice, and many people can have a signature added to their
postings automatically by placing it in a file called "$HOME/.signature".
Don't overdo it. Signatures can tell the world something about you, but
keep them short. A signature that is longer than the message itself is
considered to be in bad taste. The main purpose of a signature is to help
people locate you, not to tell your life story. Every signature should
include at least your return address relative to a major, known site on
the network and a proper domain-format address. Your system administrator
can give this to you. Some news posters attempt to enforce a 4 line limit
on signature files -- an amount that should be more than sufficient to
provide a return address and attribution.
Limit Line Length and Avoid Control Characters
Try to keep your text in a generic format. Many (if not most) of the
people reading Usenet do so from 80 column terminals or from workstations
with 80 column terminal windows. Try to keep your lines of text to less
than 80 characters for optimal readability. If people quote part of your
article in a followup, short lines will probably show up better, too.
Also realize that there are many, many different forms of terminals in use. If you enter special control characters in your message, it may result in your message being unreadable on some terminal types; a character sequence that causes reverse video on your screen may result in a keyboard lock and graphics mode on someone else's terminal. You should also try to avoid the use of tabs, too, since they may also be interpreted differently on terminals other than your own.
Please do not use Usenet as a resource for homework assignments
Usenet is not a resource for homework or class assignments. A common new
user reaction to learning of all these people out there holding
discussions is to view them as a great resource for gathering information
for reports and papers. Trouble is, after seeing a few hundred such
requests, most people get tired of them, and won't reply anyway.
Certainly not in the expected or hoped-for numbers. Posting student
questionnaires automatically brands you a "newbie" and does not usually
garner much more than a tiny number of replies. Further, some of those
replies are likely to be incorrect.
Instead, read the group of interest for a while, and find out what the main "threads" are - what are people discussing? Are there any themes you can discover? Are there different schools of thought?
Only post something after you've followed the group for a few weeks, after you have read the Frequently Asked Questions posting if the group has one, and if you still have a question or opinion that others will probably find interesting. If you have something interesting to contribute, you'll find that you gain almost instant acceptance, and your posting will generate a large number of follow-up postings. Use these in your research; it is a far more efficient (and accepted) way to learn about the group than to follow that first instinct and post a simple questionnaire.
Please do not use Usenet as an advertising medium
Advertisements on Usenet are rarely appreciated. In general, the louder
or more inappropriate the ad is, the more antagonism it will stir up. A
posting "Rules for posting to Usenet" has more on this in the section
about "Announcement of professional products or services". Try the biz.*
hierarchies instead.
Avoid posting to multiple newsgroups
Few things annoy Usenet readers as much as multiple copies of a posting
appearing in multiple newsgroups. (called 'spamming' for historical
reasons) A posting that is cross-posted (i.e lists multiple newsgroups on
the Newsgroups: header line) to a few appropriate newsgroups is fine, but
even with cross-posts, restraint is advised. For a cross-post, you may
want to set the Followup-To: header line to the most suitable group for
the rest of the discussion.