Die FAQ zur MAUS Freiburg

Andere wichtige FAQs und Hinweise


RFC 1855 - eine Netiquette



One-to-Many Communication
NetNews is a globally distributed system which allows people to
communicate on topics of specific interest. It is divided into
hierarchies, with the major divisions being: sci - science related
discussions; comp - computer related discussions; news - for
discussions which center around NetNews itself; rec - recreational
activities; soc - social issues; talk - long-winded never-ending
discussions; biz - business related postings; and alt - the alternate
hierarchy. Alt is so named because creating an alt group does not go
through the same process as creating a group in the other parts of the
hierarchy. There are also regional hierarchies, hierarchies which are
widely distributed such as Bionet, and your place of business may have
its own groups as well. Recently, a "humanities" hierarchy
was added, and as time goes on its likely more will be added. For
longer discussions on News see references [2,8,22,23] in the Selected
Bibliography.
- In NetNews parlance, "Posting" refers to posting a new
article to a group, or responding to a post someone else has posted.
"Cross-Posting" refers to posting a message to more than one
group. If you introduce Cross-Posting to a group, or if you direct
"Followup-To:" in the header of your posting, warn readers!
Readers will usually assume that the message was posted to a specific
group and that followups will go to that group. Headers change this
behavior.
- Read all of a discussion in progress (we call this a thread)
before posting replies. Avoid posting "Me Too" messages,
where content is limited to agreement with previous posts. Content of
a follow-up post should exceed quoted content.
- Send mail when an answer to a question is for one person only.
Remember that News has global distribution and the whole world
probably is NOT interested in a personal response. However, don't
hesitate to post when something will be of general interest to the
Newsgroup participants.
- Check the "Distribution" section of the header, but
don't depend on it. Due to the complex method by which News is
delivered, Distribution headers are unreliable. But, if you are
posting something which will be of interest to a limited number or
readers, use a distribution line that attempts to limit the
distribution of your article to those people. For example, set the
Distribution to be "nj" if you are posting an article that
will be of interest only to New Jersey readers.
- If you feel an article will be of interest to more than one
Newsgroup, be sure to CROSSPOST the article rather than individually
post it to those groups. In general, probably only five-to-six groups
will have similar enough interests to warrant this.
- Consider using Reference sources (Computer Manuals, Newspapers,
help files) before posting a question. Asking a Newsgroup where
answers are readily available elsewhere generates grumpy
"RTFM" (read the fine manual - although a more vulgar
meaning of the word beginning with "f" is usually implied)
messages.
- Although there are Newsgroups which welcome advertising, in
general it is considered nothing less than criminal to advertise
off-topic products. Sending an advertisement to each and every group
will pretty much guarantee your loss of connectivity.
- If you discover an error in your post, cancel it as soon as
possible.
- DO NOT attempt to cancel any articles but your own. Contact your
administrator if you don't know how to cancel your post, or if some
other post, such as a chain letter, needs canceling.
- If you've posted something and don't see it immediately, don't
assume it's failed and re-post it.
- Some groups permit (and some welcome) posts which in other
circumstances would be considered to be in questionable taste. Still,
there is no guarantee that all people reading the group will
appreciate the material as much as you do. Use the Rotate utility
(which rotates all the characters in your post by 13 positions in the
alphabet) to avoid giving offense. The Rot13 utility for Unix is an
example.
- In groups which discuss movies or books it is considered
essential to mark posts which disclose significant content as
"Spoilers". Put this word in your Subject: line. You may add
blank lines to the beginning of your post to keep content out of
sight, or you may Rotate it.
- Forging of news articles is generally censured. You can protect
yourself from forgeries by using software which generates a
manipulation detection "fingerprint", such as PGP (in the
US).
- Postings via anonymous servers are accepted in some Newsgroups
and disliked in others. Material which is inappropriate when posted
under one's own name is still inappropriate when posted anonymously.
- Expect a slight delay in seeing your post when posting to a
moderated group. The moderator may change your subject line to have
your post conform to a particular thread.
- Don't get involved in flame wars. Neither post nor respond to
incendiary material.