Newsgroups: rec.music.beatles.info,rec.music.beatles Subject: The rmb guide to netiquette Date: 11 Jan 1997 04:40:38 GMT INTRODUCTION TO NETIQUETTE Written and edited by saki (saki@evolution.bchs.uh.edu) and Edward Chen (edc@evolution.bchs.uh.edu) Last Update: 15 November 1996 ---- Imagine there's a newsgroup. It's easy if you try.... That's just what some people did about nine years ago---created a Usenet discussion group for Beatles fans worldwide. And now there are three of them: - rec.music.beatles (unmoderated): all Beatles-related topics - rec.music.beatles.info (moderated): news, press events, reviews - rec.music.beatles.moderated (moderated): in-depth analysis Each discussion group on Usenet has its own net-etiquette, its own set of regulars and characters. The rmb's are no exception. Usenet newsgroups have a long-standing cyber-heritage, and are quite different from chat rooms and Web sites. Our approach is almost like a public sounding-board where fans of all persuasions debate and discuss topics at many levels of expertise. Some are verbose, some are brief. And you don't have to read all three newsgroups to find your comfort level. There are a passel of new words and concepts to learn...not just ADT and flanging and revolving Leslie speakers, but "flame", "troll", and the distinction between private email and public debate. Politeness is a topic as old as the hills but it has its place here too. You might want to arm yourself with a few resource books and sail into the fracas...but here are some tips for navigating the netiquette waves of Cyber-Beatlemania. To make it quick (if you don't want to read any further): PLEASE: Be polite. Don't flame. Ignore flames and trolls. Stick to the topic. Don't post if you intend to email. Learn your news software. Learn netiquette. Edit the subject line if necessary. Don't quote the whole prior article. No chain letters. Do surveys by email. No binaries. And the details: (1) Try to be civil. It's a simple request. You can't see the face of the electronic companion next to you, but he or she is a real person, with real passions and interests. Respect is contagious. Whether or not you're used to using it in everyday life, try it here. It works wonders. (2) Flames are unpleasant. To "flame" a fellow rmb'er is to insult him or her. It hurts the target, and it hurts the newsgroup. Please try to refrain. Opinions are widely various; that's human nature. Fussing and fighting are counterproductive. Ignore flame wars as best you can. If you can't, take it to email, or to alt.flame. Or take a walk to calm down. In particular, please refrain from profanity, harassment, and verbal abuse; some people use r.m.b. as a resource, some for pleasure...and some are very young, under the age of consent. Please do not violate r.m.b. protocols by resorting inappropriate language or threats. (3) Ignore random flames. Many people will post silly messages such as "The Beatles suck. Oasis is much better" with the sole intent of provoking a response. If you react, they win. And that's what they want. They win, you lose...if you play. Don't. You'll feel better. Some newsgroups have even been infected with the equivalent of a living, human "virus"---strange folks who "troll" for thrills. Their daily delight comes from infiltrating various newsgroups and posting inappropriate, provocative, or insulting messages with the hope of forcing regular members to leave or lose their normally civil-minded tempers. *Don't fall for this*. You're smarter. Prove it. Don't respond to trolls. Silence and stark non-responsiveness will often work wonders. Give it a try. If you're just too exasperated, ask your system administrator to instruct you on establishing a filtering rule called a "kill" file, which will eliminate specific writers and/or threads of conversation from your news queue. If you're posting from newsreaders via Netscape or from AOL, you won't be able to use killfiles...sorry. Just ignore net irritants! (4) Stick to the subject! Remarks about politics, society, what a bad day you're having, etc., are not appropriate for r.m.b. unless there's discernable Beatles content in your post. Use your best judgment on this one, please. (5) There's a distinction between email and news. Even if you post via a mail gateway, please observe protocols. If your message is a *personal* one intended for one person's interest, please use email to send it to him or her. Please also consider net traffic and be mindful of contributing unnecessarily to it. This is your call. If your response is one line of commentary and not entirely relevant to the point, you might *seriously* consider using email instead. (6) Learn to use your newsreader! Most newsreaders include on-line instruction of some form or another. If you cannot access it yourself, contact your system administrator for help. If you are still having trouble, dozens of printed books (check your nearest bookstore), and the group news.announce.newusers exist for your edification. Your newsreader and editor will allow you to properly post, respond (with quotations), edit, and adjust wordwrap so everyone can read what you have to say. (7) Learn basic "netiquette". A fair number of conventions are helpful in making your posts more intelligible to the mainstream, and will help *you* understand what others are saying. Learning things such as the smiley ":-)", acronyms (BTW, IMHO, YMMV, RTFM, TANSTAAFL), emphasizing words (via *__*), not shouting (ALL CAPITAL LETTERS), and using reasonably approximate spelling should help you go far. (8) Check your Subject line and *edit it* if necessary; if you're responding to a previous article but have a slightly different slant, the old Subject may no longer be accurate. (9) Please don't quote an entire message; it's very bad form (people have already read it once!) Use your editor to delete extraneous lines; use your own best judgment. In general you can delete all but a line or two from the previous article, so people get the idea what you're answering. At the very least, please quote the name of the poster to whom you're responding, and a brief summary of his/her article. It helps others follow your train of thought. (10) Do not post chain letters to USENET. The most common electronic chain letter originated from a fellow named Dave Rhodes, and it *is* illegal, despite what the message itself says. Also, advertising is not welcomed on the net. If you have something to sell (a CD, record, memorabilia) or trade, a brief mention and solicitation of email responses is permissible; you can then conduct your commerce off-line. But regularly-appearing ads for discount phone services, diet fads, even mail-order record shopping are out of line. (11) If a survey seems interesting to you (viz., what's your favorite song, Beatle, food, etc.), please consider whether such a survey has already been done in the past. If you *still* want to carry one out, please ask for the results BY EMAIL ONLY and post a SUMMARY of the results. This will, one hopes, cut down on a lot of excessive articles and generate a more quality-conscious compendium of Beatles information. (12) Please don't post binary (graphic) files---jpeg, .gif, .bmp--- to rec.music.beatles. These files are too large for many readers to reliably download, and some sites will cut off a discussion newsgroup if it's too packed with stuff. Post to alt.binaries and mention it in r.m.b. That should work just fine. Do these things, and you'll be discussing arcane Beatles trivia like any expert! If you're still having trouble, obtain the long version of this file, available via e-mail (saki@evolution.bchs.uh.edu), anonymous ftp (bobcat.bbn.com), gopher, and WWW. Or look for the messages "Rules for for Posting to USENET," and "Hints on writing style for USENET" in news.announce.newusers. -- "Well, it's all right, even if you're old and grey; well it's all right, you've still got something to say". -------------------------------------------------------- saki@evolution.bchs.uh.edu * dlm3@midway.uchicago.edu