🚀 go-pugleaf

What baffles me (and everybody else in the USA) is *why* is it 'ch'.whatever.

Chile?
Chicago (illinois, USA)?
Chicano (people of South American ancestry, particularly Mexican ancestry,
living in the USA)
China I would have understood...

...but *Switzerland*?  I'm baffled.

Can you please answer me with a sentence or two about the origin of the
decision to name the hierarchy 'ch.'?

On Thu, 22 Feb 2001 15:51:22 +0100, B. Weidmann <b.weidmann@pobox.com> wrote:

>The ch.market.* Newsgroups
>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
>Notes concerning clarity of articles in the newsgroup:
>
>- Please place for sale and wanted ads for computer equipment only in 
>  ch.market.comp and not in ch.market or the ch.comp.* newsgroups.
>- No crossposting[1] within ch.market.*.
>- No MIME and no binary files (programs, image files)
>- No HTML in the newsgroups, not even as an alternative.
>- Please do not use your "vcard" in messages. Acceptable are 
>  signatures[2] of up to a maximum of 4 lines.
>- Only quote as much as is really needed. 
>- Do not quote entire postings and threads and do not quote or attach
>  the original poster's text after your own. Just quote the most
>  important sentences or comments.
>- Mark the text you are quoting by typing the special quote mark (>) 
>  before each quoted sentence. Do not use tabs or initials.
>- Your lines shouldn't exceed approximately 70 characters across.
>- Leave an empty line between the quoted text and your own comments.
>
>[1] Crossposting: Sending the identical newsgroup article to a number
>of Newsgroups, e.g. "Newsgroups: ch.group1,ch.group2". The article is
>only transmitted once from news system to news system. Crossposting
>should rarely be used. Under no circumstances should you post
>identical newsgroup articles singly to various newsgroups.
>[2]Signature: A short addition of maximum 4 lines, which is separated
>from the body of the text by the character "-- " containing short
>information about the author, homepage, profession, favourite
>quotation etc.
>=====================================================================
>
>Please use the correct newsgroup when posting (and use only one for
>that particular posting!). In Usenet, and especially in the
>ch.market.* newsgroups the repeated posting of the same article is
>frowned upon.
>In general use "V:" to denote that you are selling something (means
>"Verkaufe") and "S:" to denote that you are looking for something
>(means "Suche").
>For sale and wanted ads from countries other than Switzerland have no
>place here, unless they directly pertain to Switzerland, or they are
>posted from a directly neighbouring region.
>
>Here is a description of the currently existing newsgroups in the 
>ch.market.hierarchy:
>
>ch.market.comp          Sell/Buy computers, expansions and peripherals
>ch.market.jobs          Offer/Want work
>ch.market               Sell/Buy various
>
>ch.market.comp
>--------------
>For selling and buying computer, peripherals, software, hardware,
>computer literature, training courses and anything else directly
>pertaining to computers and which is only of interest to computer
>users. The item for sale or wanted should be clearly visible in the
>subject line. If several different items are offered, then the subject
>line should at least show the computer system.
>
>ch.market.jobs
>--------------
>Offers and want ads for work and jobs belong in this newsgroup.
>
>ch.market
>---------
>For small ads to sell or swap various items which are not covered by
>special newsgroups. Possible subjects are 
>
>- sale / wanted of various items
>- House, car etc. to rent
>- Commercial notices.
>
>Please note the word "notices" in the last item. Numerous pages
>and several kilobytes of hype about goods does not belong in this
>newsgroup.
>
>Do not post the following in ch.market :
>
>-Sale and want ads for computers, software, hardware, computer
> literature... etc. -> ch.market.comp
>-Jobs and other offers of work and jobs wanted -> ch.market.jobs
>======================================================================
>
>General information concerning the ch.* hierarchy and general rules 
>for the publication of articles to Usenet newsgroups can be found
>in the monthly posting to ch.* newsgroups and FAQ by Felix Rauch 
>as well as at the URLs given below.
>
>http://www.use-net.ch/Usenet/
>http://www.faqs.org/usenet/
>
>======================================================================
>
>Last Edit: Tuesday. 8. September 1998
>
>The original charters for the newer ch.* newsgroups as well as various
>texts by Boris Piwinger (3.14@detebe.org) and Felix Rauch
>(felix@nice.ch) were used for this "Mini-FAQ".
>
>The author of this text is Benjamin Weidmann (b.weidmann@pobox.com).
>Translation from german to english by Dane Kurth.
>Corrections, additions and translations of this article are welcome.
>
>[Followup-To: ch.admin]