Summary: This posting provides information intended to aid first-time posters to alt.astrology
Archive-name: astrology/posting Posting-Frequency: monthly to alt.astrology,alt.answers,news.answers Last-modified: 2004/10/31 Version: 2.3 URL: http://mandrake.polarhome.com/~astrofaq/posting/ Copyright: (c) 1997-2004 Sherilyn <sherilyn@bluebottle.com> Maintainer: Sherilyn <sherilyn@bluebottle.com> See reader questions & answers on this topic! - Help others by sharing your knowledge CONTENTS 0. Introduction 1. What is the status of this FAQ? What about other FAQs? 2. What is Netiquette? 3. What is Net abuse? 4. What is alt.astrology for? 5. What can be done about people posting things I find objectionable? 6. What about Flames? 0. Introduction. Welcome to alt.astrology, a public alt.* newsgroup for discussion of all things astrological. The purpose of this FAQ is to enable you to find your feet quickly and to make effective posts. It isn't about astrology. 1. What is the status of this FAQ? The purpose of a FAQ (so called because many FAQs contain answers to Frequently Asked Questions) is to provide a central source of useful information. It is not intended to be authoritative, because no FAQ is ever authoritative. In common with most unmoderated alt.* newsgroups, alt.astrology has no charter, except for a brief one-line description of the purpose: "discussion on serious astrology, tarot, etc". There exists no voting mechanism to govern administration of an alt.* newsgroup. This isn't the only FAQ, and it certainly isn't the only FAQ you should read if you have particular questions to post that may have been asked before. In particular, I recommend you pay a visit to the old group FAQ which used to be maintained by L. M. P. McPherson. A copy of that FAQ is at: http://mandrake.polarhome.com/~astrofaq/astrology/ The Debating FAQ, useful tips for debating astrology: http://mandrake.polarhome.com/~astrofaq/debating/ 2. What is Netiquette? Since the purpose of USENET is communication, some people who have used USENET effectively for a long time have produced guidelines for posters, collectively known as _netiquette_. In order to learn some basic netiquette, I recommend the new USENET user subscribe to the newsgroup news.announce.newusers, and read any information supplied on their own ISP's website. The following document, which is posted directly to the above newsgroup, is recommended reading before you post to USENET. http://www.faqs.org/faqs/usenet/primer/part1/ The following URL can be used to scan _all_ regular FAQs posted to news.announce.newusers. http://www.faqs.org/faqs/by-newsgroup/news/news.announce.newusers.html In particular, find out if it is possible for your posting software to quote postings you are responding to. Quoting the part of a posting that you are responding to gives people who read it a better chance of understanding what you are saying (if you don't care about whether readers other than the person you are responding to understand the context of your response, your response should probably be made in email.) Beware of quoting more than necessary. It is seldom necessary to quote a whole message. Some posting software automatically quotes the whole message when you choose to respond, but you should delete the portions of the message that are not relevant to your response. 3. What is Net abuse? Net abuse is defined as abuse _of_ the net, not abuse _on_ the net. The most common form of net abuse is known as SPAM. This is defined in the SPAM FAQ: http://www.killfile.org/~tskirvin/faqs/spam.html Read your ISP's Acceptable Use Policy (AUP), if they have one. The purpose of an AUP is to delineate the conditions under which, in the better interests of the USENET community, your ISP may take action to limit or curtail your ability to post to USENET. Typical bans are on commercial postings in non-commercial newsgroups (such as alt.astrology) and binary (non-text) postings in non-binary newsgroups (such as alt.astrology). As ad hoc guidelines: Do not repeatedly make posts of no significant or of the same byte-for-byte content (spam) Do not make commercial posts to alt.astrology Do not make binary posts to alt.astrology If you want to learn more about net abuse on USENET and how to fight it effectively, or if you have ideas to contribute, subscribe to news.admin.net-abuse.usenet. Here is an excellent primer on anti-spam countermeasures which you may find useful. http://www.mall-net.com/spamfaq.html 4. What is alt.astrology for? This newsgroup is for the discussion of all things pertaining to serious astrology; discussion on related subjects such as tarot is also on topic. The charter (actually just a list of all control messages concerning this group, including the original "newgroup" posting that first created the group in 1991) is in a compressed unix text file at: ftp://ftp.isc.org/pub/usenet/control/alt/ and any control messages concerning alt.astrology are automatically collected and added to it. A decompressed copy of that file as it was in April 2001 is at http://mandrake.polarhome.com/~astrofaq/control/alt_astrology.txt 5. What can be done about people posting things I find objectionable? You will almost certainly see opinions you don't agree with on alt.astrology, and sometimes you will even see posts that are just downright nasty. The correct way to deal with such posts is described in the USENET Primer (see section 2 of this FAQ): '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.' 6. What about Flames? A "flame" is an angry post. Sometimes you will find angry posts in follow-up to your own. The temptation may then be to make an angry post in response. Think first. Remember, just because somebody calls you a bad name, doesn't mean you have to respond in kind. Rise above it--people really will respect you for it. When people respond to flames with more flames, this leads to a "flame war" which is liable to render the news thread uninteresting--people who are genuinely interested in discussing astrology will tend to avoid it, so the participants simply spend more and more time shouting at one another and the only result is that they all get a deservedly poor reputation. You will find that keeping your sense of humor will help you to get the most out of any newsgroup. -- Sherilyn <sherilyn@bluebottle.com> User Contributions:
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Last Update March 27 2014 @ 02:11 PM
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