🚀 go-pugleaf

I have been requested for a panel on how-to use news.  Unfortunately
that is not easy to do.

Roaming 

Some tips to start using news.

Your news interface is likely to vary.  You might not even call it "news"
(for instance the people in Notesfiles-land).  This is something you will
first need to become accustomed: different words, commands, and actions
are going to have different consequences on different systems, e.g.:
i) TABS, ii) '^L', etc.  Some systems don't even call them files,
they use names like "DATASET."  The question is: How do I explore news?
[Simple answer, jump to 1).]

Examples of different news systems: readnews (old), rn, rrn, xrn, nn,
vn, vnews, gnus, anu-news, bbs, and others.

News systems use files like ".newsrc" or ".notesrc" to archive those articles
you have read.  You should be able to read and edit these files.

News (notes) come as articles (files with numbers for filenames).
Each article is numbered relative to each system.  Article 50 in
some newsgroup on my machine might be 137 on your machine.  The news
system removes old articles at varying rates depending on the pocket
book (I mean disk size).  Typical expiration dates include 2 weeks,
1 week (my site), 3 days, or 1 day (hard up).

You can learn how to save, search, read, paginate, and respond, or
post articles.  This should give you a basic semantic idea of a news
interface.  It differs from electronic mail in several ways:
broadcast, asynchronous communication.  With the exception of some
newsgroups, you can't post anonymously.

1) Help:
	a) on a system: typical examples: '?', 'h', 'H', or '^H'
	should give you commands and other control information.
	A little experimentation should not hurt (excepting pyramid
	schemes and harassing posts/mail).  If your system has specific
	program function keys, try those (e.g., PF3, etc.), these may
	not work, so good luck.

	b) human: like your sys admin or another human.
	This help should provide the basics of moving around between articles
	(notes) news groups (notesfiles), etc.
	A little interpersonal contact might not hurt.

You can read other panels of this FAQ, but 1b) really is the best way to
learn.  Note: in some circumstances, it is useful to know a text editor.

2) What groups to read (intelligent person's guide to getting started)?

Two strategies:
1) restricted news reading: start news up on specific groups.
Problem: you need to know the groups in advance.
2) complete news lists: You have already started news to read this post.
Some how.  If you remove (or safer, rename) your .newsrc (or similar file),
and start news up raw.  You may receive something in excess of 800+
possible news groups to read (depending on your site).  Then take some
time and 'u'nsubscribe from the slew of topics you have no interest.

Try:
news.announce.newusers
news.announce.conferences
ba.general (questionable)
ba.announce
ba.seminars
ca.general (questionable)
soc.net-people
comp.newprod

(b|c)a.news: is not about presenting news.
It is about administering news systems.

Employment?
	misc.jobs.offered (offerings)
	misc.jobs.resumes (seeking)
	misc.jobs.contract (contract work specifically)
	misc.jobs.misc	(discussion, post no offers or resumes into this hole)
	ba.jobs.misc
	ba.jobs.misc
	misc.consumers.house

Pleasures of the "fleshhhhh"
	ba.singles,ba.food,alt.sex,soc.singles,soc.couples,....
	rec.food,rec.food.veggie,....
	To learn about these use option 2).

Parents some times like
	misc.kids

SPECIAL NOTE on MEDICAL and LEGAL ADVICE
sci.med and misc.legal exist for these topic areas.  You should understand
that it is not a good idea to simply asked for information in these areas.
You can certainly get opinions, but these are regulated professions and
it is possible to get bad advice (old wives' tales) if you are not careful.
If you need medical advice, consult a physician (or two for a second opinion).
If you need legal advice, initial consultations (anywhere, not just those TV
ads) can be minimal or free, talk to or Yellow Page (tm) Legal Aid.

Explore.  Use the hacker ethic.  Be warned that you can expect opinions
vastly different from what you might expect. (See Hacker's Dictionary,
definition of Flaming).

Your personal specific interest groups (the better ones are moderated)

What is moderation?  What are moderated news groups?
It is like editing and editors without some of the better qualities
of editing (frequently).
The readers of some news groups have chosen to designate a set of
people who approve the posting of articles.  To some this smacks of
censorship, but the purpose of the moderator is to enable a higher signal
to noise ratio in discussion.  A moderator is given allowance to suggest
editorial corrections: grammar, spelling, or to weed out "Me, too!" posts.
Where moderation is usually appropriate: the "comp," the "sci," groups,
inappropriate: "talk" and "soc" groups.  Other groups like say,
"rec.hunting" or "rec.humor.funny" have chosen moderation to avoid
debates like the morals of hunting which are debated in other groups or
discussions on the nature of humor.  The moderator is hopefully designated
as a defender of free-speech, but it is not usually as simple as that
(just like an editor). The better professional societies actually back
(fund, provide name) better groups (comp.risks), and some moderated
groups have such a high signal to noise ratio they even publish their
discussions in hardcopy form.

Posting
I have actually been asked for basic information on How-To post.
This has been left as an exercise for the reader.
NOTE: DO NOT post tests to general groups.  Specific test groups exist:
	ba.test, ca.test, misc.test.
One reason these groups exist is so a daemon can send an acknowledgement
to you via mail.

If you are a new news user, you we see these posts are automatically
posted on a regular basis.  These files are specially constructed
so that when you have learned enough from other "panels," you can use a feature
called Killfiles to selectively read them only when a modification takes place.
Articles have two parts: the header and the article body separated by
a blank line.  The header has fields describing Subject (highly abused),
author information, group (news), etc.  You can examine how this articles
header is created (it has some subtle features for good reasons).

Attribution:
Text from earlier articles, usually lines prefixed with:
> <- or similar charatcers (|,. etc.)
Cut down on attribution (minimize).
Two styles: Block or interleaved.  A type of reference.

Signatures:
News should not be regarded as a reliable network service.  Delivery,
propagation, etc. are not assured.  Articles may come out of sequence.
Mail delivery may not be as reliable either.  Please use signatures
at the bottom of articles to note mail information, show their "identity,"
and place political slogans, and the like.  Optional.  Some systems
automatically append posts from a .sig or .signature line.

FAQ: Frequently Answered Questions: automated posts, look for these when
reading, on topics which get repeated hashed to death.  An effort to answer
those mosted asked questions without generating extra needless traffic.
Before you say, "But what about new insights?" they are very rare.
Besides, the owner can incorporate the new insight (via email) and it becomes
old insight.  Like this file.