This is the so called Frequently Answered Questions (FAQ) file for the
   Usenet newsgroup soc .culture .nordic. Its purpose is to introduce new
   readers to the group, provide some general information about the
   Nordic countries (Sweden, Finland, Norway, Denmark and Iceland) and to
   cover some of the topics frequently discussed in the group.
   
   It is organized in seven parts, this introduction and then one part
   each covering Norden in general, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and
   Sweden. Since the texts have grown rather extensive, these parts are
   posted to the news group, and to the soc.answers and news.answers
   groups, with rather long intervals. Then there are appendices. The
   appendices will be posted even less often, if at all.
   
   
   
  1.2.1 A notice to spaghetti publishers
  
   A spaghetti publisher [n.] is one whose philosophy at publishing is to
   throw it to the wall and see if it sticks. Recently, they have been
   busy putting out badly written Internet books, often exploiting FAQs
   and other copyrighted material available in the net. Please realize
   that this FAQ is:


 Copyright © 1994 & 1995 by Antti Lahelma
             1996-1998 by Antti Lahelma & Johan Olofsson,
             all rights reserved.

   It may be freely distributed in impermanent, electronic media (the
   networks that form the Internet, Usenet & FidoNet), provided that the
   content is not edited and the URL (or From:-header) and
   Last-modified-date are included. Including it in a commercial
   collection or compilation (such as a CD-ROM), or publishing it or
   parts of it in printed form without the expressed, written permission
   of the author is illegal.
   
   The editors, author, and contributors do not assume any responsibility
   for errors or damages resulting from the use of the information
   contained herein.
   
  1.2.2 What are FAQs?
  
   "FAQ" is an acronym for "Frequently Answered Questions". (Or
   Frequently Asked Questions, some would say.) These are documents on
   various topics, forming a veritable library of free information,
   usually put together by voluntary enthusiasts in order to answer
   certain questions that constantly come up in some newsgroup (hence the
   name). They are periodically posted to their home newsgroups and
   (usually) to news.answers, and archived at numerous sites, some of
   which were listed above.
   
   There is no guarantee of the accuracy of the information, but usually
   they are reasonably reliable because of the "social control" of the
   newsgroup(s) in question. For more information on FAQs, where they are
   kept, why they are written, how to write one yourself, etc., see the
   "FAQ About FAQs" at
   <ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/faqs/>.
   
   This FAQ, like many other soc.culture.*-FAQs, isn't really a proper
   list of frequently asked questions and their answers; it's more of a
   fact-file or an introduction brochure than a traditional Usenet FAQ,
   although some Q&A:s are included and hopefully more will be added in
   future.
   
   In some cases an author is noted for a portion of this FAQ. In other
   cases the text is compiled from several authors' contributions in the
   group. Intermediate forms occur. This has some detrimental
   consequences for the coherency of the faq - the good thing is that
   different Nordic opinions often get represented.
   
   The language in these articles is without doubt colored by the fact
   that almost all writers have other mother tongues than English - and
   so it will remain. Nevertheless: proposals for more idiomatic wordings
   are always cordially welcomed.
   
   Of course, since unlike most soc.culture.*-FAQs it -- instead of a
   single country & culture -- attempts to cover five, the articles can't
   go very deep or it's size will get simply too overwhelming. The
   self-evident exception is topics which has been very thoroughly
   discussed in the newsgroup.
   
   The s.c.nordic FAQ is still young (started by Antti Lahelma 24th of
   May 1994, the compilation was continued spring 1996 by
   Johan Olofsson), pretty much just a skeleton despite its size. It
   lacks much information that should be there, some of the more
   irrelevant parts may get deleted, corrections will be made, etc. It's
   not a finished product; FAQs aren't static. It'll get better with
   time, but your (yes, your) help is required; if you have anything in
   mind that could be added to the FAQ don't be shy to contact us
   (Antti Lahelma & Johan Olofsson), you don't have to be a pro or expert
   to write something. This is addressed especially to all you Norskies
   out there. :-)
   
   (A major part of the work to maintain the FAQ consists of tracking
   changed addresses to referred www-documents. Links to "personal"
   pages, i.e. to pages with a "~" in their url, have proved to be
   particularly prone to stop working after some time, why such links
   only exceptionally will be made.)
   
   All contributions, corrections and suggestions are warmly welcomed.
   Flames aren't.
   
   The latest version of the FAQ can be obtained at the world wide web at
   URL: <http://www.lysator.liu.se/nordic/index.html>.
   
   Other sites where the files can be obtained (however maybe not the
   very newest version - and without the few illustrations and extra
   tables of the www-version above - and maybe slightly distorted due to
   the conversion back and forth between html and normal text format?)
   are:
   
in Europe:
<http://www.lib.ox.ac.uk/internet/news/faq/soc.culture.nordic.html>
<http://www.cs.ruu.nl/wais/html/na-dir/nordic-faq/.html>
<ftp://ftp.cs.ruu.nl/pub/NEWS.ANSWERS/nordic-faq/>
<ftp://ftp.sunet.se/pub/usenet/rtfm.mit.edu/usenet-by-hierarchy/soc/culture/nor
dic/>


in North America:
<http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/hypertext/faq/usenet/nordic-faq/top.html>
<http://www.landfield.com/faqs/nordic-faq/>
<ftp://ftp.uu.net/usenet/news.answers/nordic-faq>
<ftp://ftp.seas.gwu.edu/pub/rtfm/soc/culture/nordic/>
<ftp://mirrors.aol.com/pub/rtfm/usenet/soc.culture.nordic/>


in Asia:
<ftp://ftp.hk.super.net/mirror/faqs/nordic-faq/>
<ftp://hwarang.postech.ac.kr/pub/usenet/news.answers/nordic-faq/>

...or by sending an e-mail request to your nearest mail-ftp service.

   
   
  1.2.3 Who are the net-gods and goddesses of s.c.n?
  
   These are some of the people who have helped and provided material for
   the FAQ:
   
                The Unofficial Asgard of Soc.Culture.Nordic
                                      

 Ruth M. Sylte
 Antti Lahelma
 Jan Böhme
 Ahrvid Engholm
 Arne Kolstad
 Einar Indriðason
 Kari Yli-Kuha
 Eugene Holman
 Jacob Sparre Andersen
 Halldór Árnason
 Lars Aronsson
 Gunnar Blix
 Stan Brown
 Lee Choquette
 Gunnar Davíðsson
 Hiski Haapoja
 Mauri Haikola
 Malte Lewan
 Nils O. Monaghan
 Tor Slettnes
 Kurt Swanson
 Björn Vennström

   Big thanks to all of you. And apologies to anyone I may have
   forgotten.
   
   Special thanks to Jens Christian Madsen for providing a lot of help
   with the Danish part of the FAQ.
   
   In reality, of course, there's only one true Goddess, but that's
   another story...
   
   
   
  1.2.4 Why are all the names and stuff garbled?
  
   The Nordic alphabets contain letters that aren't in the English
   alphabet and consequently may cause problems with viewing if your
   system hasn't been properly set. In this document, they are typed in
   the ISO-8859-1 multi-lingual 8-bit character set, also known as
   Latin-1, which is the most available of the 8-bit character set, and
   also the standard for hypertext HTML documents.
   
   If your system strips the 8th bit, they may appear for example as the
   letters {fedv}, which can be quite confusing, making e. g. some Nordic
   place-names appear different from what they should be. In case 8-bit
   characters don't show well on your screen, please consider testing
   another setup.
   
   Here's a short guide to the most common of the letters:
letter      description
-+--+-      -+--+--+---
  ä         'a' diaeresis
  æ         'ae' written as a single letter
  ö         'o' diaeresis
  ø         'o' with a slash through it
  å         'a' with a ring above it
  ð         "eth"; a vertically mirrored '6'
            with a slash through the tail
  þ         "thorn"; a 'p' with the vertical
            line extended above the loop


There are capital letters also
==============================

  Á         capital A-acute (á)
  Å         capital A-ring (å)
  Ä         capital A-diaeresis (ä)
  Æ         capital AE-ligature (æ)
  Ð         capital eth (ð)
  É         capital E-acute (é)
  Í         capital I-acute (í)
  Ó         capital O-acute (ó)
  Ø         capital O-slash (ø)
  Ö         capital O-diaeresis (ö)
  Þ         capital thorn (þ)
  Ú         capital U-acute (ú)
  Ý         capital Y-acute (ý)

  ---> PLEASE NOTICE <---
  
   If the above letters aren't displayed correctly, read the GRAPHEMES
   FAQ by Tor Slettnes on how to view them (in part 1.8 of this document,
   where also a direction to their pronunciation is included).
   
   The Latin-1 character set is commonly used in s.c.nordic and some
   other newsgroups; you will need it anyway in order to be able to
   properly follow them. In the future it will probably become the
   standard set all over the Internet. Setting it up is no big job, and
   you'll be in the forefront of progress if you do! :-)
   
   [ However, the Latin-6 (ISO-8859-10) character set would strictly
   speaking be more appropriate since it covers also letters neccessary
   for the Saami and Greenlandish languages. ]
   
   
   
  1.2.5 What should I know about copyright laws and the Usenet?
  
   Don't worry, you don't have to wade through law books, but there are a
   few basic things it is good be aware of. First of all, all material
   posted to Usenet, no matter how irrelevant or unimportant it may seem,
   is automatically copyrighted unless it is unambiguously declared to be
   public domain.
   There does not have to be any kind of copyright notice, although a
   notice does strenghten the protection a bit, nor does there have to be
   financial interests involved. That the author posts it to the net
   (equivalent to publishing it in a newspaper) does not mean that he or
   she is giving it away for for anyone to use and exploit as they
   please. Most countries of the world have signed the Berne convention
   on which these principles are based, so there isn't very much
   variation in the legistlation from one country to another.
   
   There are, however, two doctrines that make possible e.g. quoting the
   material in your own article, reposting it, and most of the other
   standard Usenet procedures, without violating the poster's copyright:
   "fair use" and "implied license". Because there are few precedents, it
   isn't fully clear yet how these apply to Usenet, or if e.g. the
   possible implied license of net articles extends beyond the net;
   obviously, these laws weren't made with the internet in mind. But it
   seems obvious that if for example you wish to publish something posted
   to the net in printed form, you should contact the author first.
   
   Posting someone's private e-mail without permission, on the other
   hand, is not only immoral and a serious breach of netiquette, but is
   also less likely to be acceptable as fair use, and can hardly be
   considered as having implied license to publish. In addition to
   violating copyright, it can also get you in legal trouble over issues
   such as invasion of privacy and public defamamation. You can refer to
   someone's mail to you and you can summarize the content, but you
   should never post it without permission.
   
   Of course, these things are highly theoretical (at least so far) and
   you shouldn't expect to have to worry much about them. But it's a good
   thing to be aware of, should you e.g. make an enemy out of some
   notorious kook who could attempt to harass you with legal procedure.
   Such things have been known to happen. For more information e.g. on
   the fair use and implied license principles, read the Copyright FAQ by
   Terry Carroll, (available at
   <ftp://ftp.aimnet.com/pub/users/carroll/law/copyright/faq/>), or the
   more compact FAQ called "10 Big Myths About Copyright Explained" by
   Brad Templeton.
   

[ the sections above are available at the www-page
  http://www.lysator.liu.se/nordic/scn/faq12.html ]