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From: werner@rascal.ics.utexas.edu (Werner Uhrig)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.announce
Subject: COMP.SYS.MAC.ANNOUNCE: " Just the Basics" (Version 94/1)
Summary: Infrequently Posted Basic Information you should know about this newsgroup
Message-ID: <CMM.0.90.2.759029660.werner@rascal.ics.utexas.edu>
Date: 20 Jan 94 01:42:01 GMT
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Reply-To: werner@cs.utexas.edu (Werner Uhrig)
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Approved: werner@rascal.ics.utexas.edu (Comp.sys.mac.announce Moderator)
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Table of Contents
___________________
What is Comp.Sys.Mac.Announce?
How Does it Work?
About Moderating
What this newsgroup is NOT available for
How News-software recognizes "authorized messages"
Old CSMA-traffic Available for FTP
Can't FTP?
Troubles?
Suggestions? Ideas?
Should Something Be Added to This Article?
What is Comp.Sys.Mac.Announce?
------------------------------
Comp.sys.mac.announce is moderated as a service group,
meaning that the/this moderator intends to adjust policies
as would seem to benefit (and be desired by) the majority
of comp.sys.mac.* readers...
... essentially, the intent is to provide a low-volume forum
exclusively for information which is considered to be (highly)
important to become aware of in a timely manner for (all) users
To be brief, I frequently summarize the moderating filter with:
Must Be IMPORTANT to Know About to MOST Mac Users,
VERY IMPORTANT to MANY, or VITAL to SOME....
How Does it Work?
-----------------
Any time you post to a moderated newsgroup, the news-software
at YOUR news-host intercepts the article and sends it as email
to the moderator (and, btw, if you crosspost to any unmoderated
groups, the article will not appear there immediately, and not
at all unless/until the moderator decides to crosspost there also)
Your news-software is kept informed automagically about which
newsgroups are moderated and what the email-address is at which
the moderator EXPECTS to receive news-articles...
(in my case, it is CSMA@rascal.ics.utexas.edu)
for further details read up on news on your machine, and ask
questions of your news/site-administrator, or post it to an
appropriate newsgroup (news.groups, for example); do read all
articles posted regularly to news.announce.newusers FIRST !
About Moderating:
-----------------
Moderators do not (often) author articles, nor do they
search for appropriate information elsewhere, digesting
and forwarding it from other groups or sources (though
all of this certainly does happen). Articles are posted
(or submitted) by interested netters familiar with the
purpose of the group, and the moderator plays the role
of editor ensuring that articles remain focused and relevant.
Moderating is a volunteer job and rejecting articles is
"no fun at all" (for either parties, of course); so the
desirable goal from everyone's perspective should be to
see the group achieve its goal (of quick dissemination
of all "important" news and information) with the least
amount of fuss.
Having to reformat, spell-check, condense, rewrite, or
even reject articles is certainly not considered part
of the fun of moderating; nor is explaining or discussing
the finer points of the moderating policies or differences
between accepted and rejected articles. Your cooperation to
make this mostly unnecessary is warmly appreciated.
NOTE: Submitted articles must be free of copyright and other
use restrictions and the moderator reserves the right
and option, to "fold and mutilate" any message (edit, modify,
condense, rewrite, etc.) in whatever manner s/he sees fit,
(including combining with other articles, adding comments,
and reposting to other newsgroups and/or mailing-lists
(using perfectly good judgement and taste, of course ;-)
What this newsgroup is NOT available for (so, please, don't bother):
-------------------------------------------------------------------
(i) questions or personal requests
(try any of the topical comp.sys.mac.* groups)
(ii) for sale announcements of ANY kind
(misc.forsale.computer.mac was created for that!)
(iii) announcements of new products or product variations
the moderator makes exceptions, occasionallly, for items
of relevance to, practically, all Mac users; at most a small
subset of Apple's press releases do pass that test, however.
(comp.newprod is the ONLY group in the non-commercial
USEnet hierarchy created for (some) such traffic...)
(iv) update or new version announcements (except if they
remedy a particularly insiduous bug or are otherwise
"verrrry interesting"! :-)
it is tempting to call for the creation of new groups, such as
comp.sys.mac.newprod and comp.sys.mac.updates (and many would
support such a motion, but new volunteers to do the work would
have to step forward)
How News-software recognizes "authorized messages":
---------------------------------------------------
Your news software "knows" about moderated newsgroups and
who the moderator is through messages posted to a special
Control-newsgroup. It recognizes "approved" articles by
the pressence of a special message header (the news-software
does not bother the reader by displaying many of the administra-
tive headers accompanying each message; the reader often has
control over such things by setting certain parameters which
depend on your specific news software, however)
generally, there is a verbose command which allows you to view
all headers of a message (v for 'verbose' in most UNIX-based readers)
Old CSMA-traffic Available for FTP:
------------------------------------
Archives of group traffic (plus some additional information) is
available for anonymous FTP in directory mac/csma from host
RASCAL.ICS.UTEXAS.EDU
in files:
articles.current (many/most) articles of the current
and previous month
articles.recent (most/all) articles of the previous year
Can't FTP?
----------
If you don't have FTP access, send e-mail to
mail-server@RTFM.MIT.EDU
and include a line containing
"send usenet/news.answers/finding-sources"
in the message body.
Instructions on how to use FTP- sites via e-mailed commands will
reach you shortly.
Troubles?
---------
readers occassionally report that they do not get to see all posted
articles; sometimes this can be remedied by your news-admin (in any
case you should consult her about such problems, as she can/should
avoid expiring articles in groups like this for 30 days -- or not at
all is what I recommend to avoid that each and every Mac-user creates
a personal and duplicate collection of articles)
Suggestions? Ideas?
-------------------
For people who wish to be actively involved in determining the
contents of (present and future) Macintosh oriented moderated
newsgroups, I have set up a (automatically administrated by
MajorDomo, a relative of LISTSERV) mailing-list for feedback
and discussions (named CSMA-FORUM)
for more information (such as how to subscribe and unsubscribe)
please send an email message addressed to
MAJORDOMO@rascal.ics.utexas.edu
and include as message text the line
INFO CSMA-FORUM
Should Something Be Added to This Article?
------------------------------------------
I welcome suggestions of information to add to this article
(especially when ready and written up so I can simply include it),
but this article is not intended to grow much larger...