🚀 go-pugleaf

 This is the official FAQ file for dfw.singles
 This file will be posted to dfw.singles once every ~7 days
 a text Version of this FAQ can always be found at 
 http://www.cirr.com/dfw/faqs/ 

 This file contains the following topics:

          1)What is this file?
          2)What is dfw.singles?
          3)Who is dfw.singles for?
          4)Guidelines for posting to dfw.singles.
          5)How dfw.singles is a companion to dfw.personals.
          6)Do women read and post to the group?
          7)GTGs, Social Outings, Net-gatherings.
          8)Kill Files
          9)How dfw.singles is a party in many ways.
          10)Excerpts taken from another regional singles group.
          11)Article format and posting guidelines
          12)Ending Statement.

**************************************************************
Item 1: What is this file?

This is, very simply, a file containing what people refer
to as "Frequently Asked Questions". It is nothing more than
a list of questions and answers for readers to use as a guide
line for the newsgroup.

***************************************************************

Item 2: What is dfw.singles?

dfw.singles is a newsgroup for singles as well as married
folks. It is meant for all people of Dallas/Ft. Worth, Tx. It is also
open to other communities. This is a newsgroup where people can meet and
communicate through the internet.

a)It is open to discussions related to romance, love, interaction among
people.

b)It is open to discussions related to forming new relationships of any
kind. Thus, conversations related to the above, as well as discussions
to allow social meetings by and for the readers on this group and
dfw.personals group, "gtg" is the net term for group get-togethers.

c)It is a newsgroup in which many and all forms of communication can be
found for the sole purpose of forming new friendships of any type.
 
d)The dfw.singles and the dfw.personals work as companions in the
same purpose, this will be further discussed later.
 
e)The above two groups are NOT moderated, thus all free speech values
are intact within these groups. This also means that no one person is in
control of who posts here, other than your local systems administrator
(sysadmin/sysop). The sysops are responsible for deciding which
newsgroups to carry locally and over seeing the newsgroups and files they
choose to carry. There are general guide lines for posting that are
highly recommended and are listed below.

***************************************************************


Item 3: Who is dfw.singles for?

dfw.singles is for everyone. You will find all types of
people. It is open to heterosexuals, homosexuals, bisexuals, singles
(available), married and people in open relationships so, in general, it
is open to the entire public.

***************************************************************

Item 4: Guidelines for posting to dfw.singles.

Keep in mind, as stated above, this is not a moderated group.
First, realize that posting is NOT a right but a privilege. This implies
access can be withdrawn by your local operators. This is usually a very
drastic step and usually after many violations/warnings. If you remember
that dfw.singles is a regional newsgroup to Dallas/Ft. Worth, Texas. meant for

a) discussion, 
b) joking with others, 
c) event notices and planning you will do just fine.

The basic rule of the road is, courtesy. Courtesy should always
be extended both on and off the group. So you may disagree with
someone's point of view, you may want to flame someone or you may want to
go through private e-mail, BUT always use courtesy no matter how upset
you may feel. It is one thing to flame someone on the group in humor and
wit but it is another to humiliate them, this is not advised.

I stress that all personal disputes be kept off the group. Take
your personal disputes into e-mail and or a newsgroup that serves that
purpose, i.e. alt.flame., dfw.flame, etc.

When addressing someone by private e-mail always show courtesy.
I read another FAQ where I saw the following statements and feel it is
best summed up by this: Never send a letter to a woman you don't know
which you would be ashamed or embarrassed to show your mother. In other
words DO NOT send wanna f**ks to posters.

Posting can take many shapes and forms: You can post discussion
topics that are either serious or light hearted in nature, you can even
use flames with wit and humor in your postings. It has been my experience
that by using all of those methods you will meet people (that is one of
the goals here). The point is, by posting in all its forms and allowing
readers to see you and your personality it will increase your chances of
someone responding to you. Posting to dfw.singles should NOT be
included with other groups. There are exceptions, with cautions. I
strongly urge you to keep all discussions to dfw.singles and use
caution in any cross postings. In other words NO personals ads in the
dfw.singles and NO chit-chat, discussions in dfw.personals.
dfw.personals is to be used for placing personal ads, responding to
these ads, discussion on how to write personal ads, and final
announcements for our net-gatherings. A note that in general cross
posting to many groups outside of this group is very dangerous and can
cause much headache among fellow readers. As well as cross posting into
other dfw groups.


So you now want to post and are looking for possible guidelines
for this. First, take a step back and think about what you want to say,
and the point you wish to make. Do not just rush in without thinking
about it.

a)Try to minimize what you want to say, and if by chance it turns out be
a very long post you may want to put on the subject line (LONG). This
will alert the readers that it is a long post, as some people pay big
money for time and space.

b)Avoid using capitals as this is looked upon as shouting at the readers.
Tailor your line length to 80 characters or less, as this is the most
common for a screen display. I would recommend maybe 74 characters per
line or less.

c)This is a written medium, so I suggest that you try good spelling and
grammar. However, as one of those people who does not type except by
hunt and peck method and tends not to pay attention to spelling much, I
do not recommend we have spelling flame wars here as I will roast anyone
that does, but in fine humor and wit. The overall point is you should
try to present yourself the best way you can and that this is not
dfw.spelling.class.

e)Things NOT appreciated in dfw.singles:
                1)Evangelizing
                2)Commercial solicitations
                3)Posting image or sound files
                4)Cross posting articles of discussion into
                  non-regional groups that could result in  flame wars.
                5)Personal disputes.
                6)Quoting someone else's article in the entirety, to
                  only add one line.
	        7)Posting personal ads in dfw.singles. There is
                  dfw.personals for this. However, dfw.singles
                  people should not cause a major flame war if someone
                  does this from time to time. Send the person a
                  short note reminding them of no personals, and where
                  they can post them, maybe a flame or two but unlike
                  some *.singles groups this should not become the major
                  focus of dfw.singles (flaming personals ads). That
                  also goes for posting discussions into dfw.personals
                  that are out of character.
                6)Posting someone's private e-mail. Private e-mail is
                 just that, private do not post other peoples private
                 e-mail on the group. I tend to believe there are
                 exceptions to this, with a stress in caution. If
                 you are receiving hate mail, nasty letters,
                 wannaf**ks I personally do not think this is wrong.
                 It will serve many purposes, reduce amount of people
                 sending these, it will allow peer pressure on these
                 types of people and will put a fast stop to it.I do 
                 recommend caution and also to suggest that if
                 someone is getting this type of mail, you can send a
                 note to that persons admin, abuse@ or just send to
                 postmaster@that.persons.domain with a note informing
                 them of the activities you are receiving from their
                 user.
f)Canceling of Articles and Cross Posting:

Article or follow up will be canceled under the following conditions:
 a)If your article or follow up contains 7 or more newsgroups in the
   header.
 b)If your article is cross posted to groups inappropriately, i.e. a
   personal ad in the singles group, a discussion in the
   personals group, these are only a few examples.
 c)Your article or follow up is cross posted to cause a flame war
   among the various groups you have posted to.
 d)Binaries by standard Usenet policy belong in binary groups. Please
   do not post binaries.
 e)There is no commercial advertising in this group.

In general, the above guidelines follow that of other regional Usenet
groups and spamming guidelines.

g)The proper way to advertise on the internet:

  First, please keep in mind that Usenet is not the proper place to
  advertise. Usenet news was, and is, a place for discussion, this has
  been a very long standard on Usenet. For advertising your Web Page or
  BBS the best ways in which to do this are:
   a)Make sure your URL is listed on the search engines so people can
     easily find it.
   b)Get in touch with other Web page authors that have pages that are
     similar in nature to yours and set up mutual links between the two
     pages.
   c)For Usenet:
    1)Enter into Discussions that relate to what you may be
      advertising. If you have a dating service, there are a number
      of times when we have discussions on places to meet others,
      what people have found at a given dating service, etc.
      It is within these discussions you can easily offer input and
      information on a specific service.
    2)It is also considered wise to put a pointer to your URL in
      your signature file such that people can see this (note, not
      actually an ad but just a pointer) when they read your
      discussions on Usenet. Now part of this is done to help keep
      the spam down and the actual purpose of the newsgroup going.
      I am sure one can imagine what a newsgroup would look like if
      all it had was nothing more then commercials, one after
      another. There are thousands of web page dating services,
      matchmaking BBS's, not to mention the 900 numbers and if all
      of these places started advertising on a given newsgroup it
      would become nothing more than a non-stop commercial which is
      NOT the purpose of this group.

h)Binaries:

dfw.singles is not a binary newsgroup. Binary files are much larger
than a normal post, require more drive space on a server and take much
longer to download. Because of this many binary newsgroups are not
carried by all providers and posting binary files to a non-binary group
could cause the group to be DROPPED by some providers. Therefore, it is a
usenet standard to post binary files only in binary groups. Do NOT post
binary files in dfw.singles.

So what do you do if you want to have people see a binary? In your ad put
a pointer to a:
  1)FTP site one can download your file from
  2)Web site that they can see your binary at
  3)You may post your binary to alt.binaries.misc (separate posting,
    not cross posted) with a pointer in your ad letting people know
    where it is at.
  4)State in your ad that you can e-mail the binary upon request. But
    please do not post binaries to a non-binary newsgroup.

      ***************************************************************
 
 
Item 5: How dfw.singles is a companion to dfw.personals.
        dfw.singles and dfw.personals are very similar in nature.
        They both serve the same purpose, to meet and make new friendships.
        dfw.singles, in a very basic way, has everything that dfw.personals
        has BUT does not have personal ads found in the dfw.personals.
        All conversation topics, discussions, planning GTGs can be found
        in dfw.singles. To the readers of dfw.personals, please
        remember.... no personals ads in dfw.singles, that also means that
        chit-chat and discussions are meant for dfw.singles not
        dfw.personals. These two groups are a package deal and in general
        serve the same people and same goals, so it will be to all party's 
        benefits to allow everyone in on the same things. In general terms
        dfw.singles is to allow discussion and interaction so others can
        learn, enjoy and might even get to know one another better this way.
        dfw.personals can then be used to place a personal ad and allow
        a brief summary for the readers to respond to. If by chance you do
        not have or your provider does not carry both of these groups, write
        to your system administrator requesting the missing group. I tend
        to believe if you subscribed to one, your site carries the other.

      ***************************************************************
 
Item 6: Do women read and post to the group?

       Yes, women do read and post to these groups. Women may
        not be as high in numbers as men on the internet and on these groups,
        but they are out there. Women, in general, tend towards being a
        lurker (reader, not poster). There are many reasons for this of which
        I will only mention a few.� In part because women who post will get
        flooded with mail and wannaf**ks so they tend to lurk and read
        what is going on, then respond in private. I am hoping as this
        group grows that this does not become an issue, that in a local,
        close group such as this that fear and shyness will not hold
        women back from interacting. Women, please do not feel shy when
        posting. Men, please show the utmost courtesy when responding
        to women as you are having a major affect on people here.

     ***************************************************************
Item 7: GTGs, Social Outings, Net-gatherings.
 
        GTG, the term is used to imply a meeting of the
        members of a given newsgroup. So a gathering of net folks of
        any kind. It is a soul objective, to make new friends and 
	interactalong with dfw.personals group to form these GTGs. 
        To start a GTG you just post the following in dfw.singles: 
	(subject header): ( GTG ) .In the text of this message you 
	announce you want to call a GTG (meeting, outing, etc.). You 
	may want to use another subject header as well. One that will 
	catch the readers eye. You then give the details of this meeting
	in your post. GTGs can be anywhere and anytime and anything.� It 
	is best to give plenty of notice in advance with details. Your 
	event should not conflict with, be planned on the same day as 
	another dfw.singles event.

        So lets say you want a GTG, post message to both
	groups with the details something like this:

  GTG :  Sat 17 of July at 3:00pm
 
  Place: Location of GTG (bar,club) or instructions to obtain direction
        if a personal address

  Details: What is it about, a bar, ice cream place, hiking, etc

	It is best to announce at least several days in advance so if there
are
	problems we can (as a group) try to work them out. With this type of
	post, announcement, we then can, as a group, discuss and plan it 
	out so it all works for most people. I would like to keep this very 
	open for further suggestions and comments from people. It is the best 
	idea I could come up with at the moment, and feel the most important 
	thing is to get a gathering going by just announcing it.

       ***************************************************************
 
Item 8: Kill Files

     There are a large number of news reading programs/software for various
     systems. It will be hard to describe kill files for each type of program
     that is on the market. The main point is to know that your specific news
     reading software has a means to kill/filter out various articles that
     you do not wish to read. It is best to read up on your specific software
     and become familiar with the various ways to use kill files and filters.

        ***************************************************************

Item 9: How dfw.singles is a party in many ways.

	A singles newsgroup is nothing more than an electronic version
	of a party you may attend. In most parties you will usually find
	(being very general here) three types of social interaction:

	1)The person who will sit in the corner watching everyone.� These
folks
	are referred to as "Lurkers" on newsgroups.� They read and are here,
but
	never seen.� This person may enjoy this very much or may be shy and or
	nervous.� He/she may pull someone aside in private for conversation.�
On
	a newsgroup this is known as e-mail.

	2)The other type is somebody who came to the party, will be usually
very
	quiet and end up leaving the party for hours before coming back (in a
	newsgroup can be days or weeks).� May mingle with a few folks in the
party.

	3)The third type are the ones who are very active, very lively, will
	mingle all night long....go from conversation to conversation.� This
	person will usually meet many people over the course of the night, may
	make many friends as a result.

	One other important note: It may appear on the newsgroup, that many
folks
	know each other, are the best of friends.� This is most of time, not
the
	case.� Sometimes it is easier to interact on a computer for some
people.
	This may appear as being friendly and knowing many people, but is not
	always the case.

 ***************************************************************

Item 10: Excerpts taken from another regional singles group.

 Q: Just what is appropriate on dfw.singles?
 
 A: Apart from what has been mentioned above, pretty much
 anything goes. Think of dfw.singles as the electronic version of
 something that's partway between a cocktail party and a soap
 opera. Except at this sort of cocktail party all the guests
 have bags over their heads and communicate by leaving messages
 on a sofa, where some messages become irretrievably lost down
 the back. Appropriate posts should be both interactive and
 entertaining--that is, their content should both invite the
 participation of others in the electronic conversation and be
 entertaining to its readers. You might pose an open question to
 the readership about some aspect of the human condition as it
 applies to singleness or you might reply to another
 contributor's post and add an observation that sheds light on a
 different aspect of the issue under discussion or just makes
 some people out there laugh and shoot Lapsang Souchong out
 through their noses onto their computer keyboards.
 
 Q: Is there anything that should be avoided?

 A: If there are to be any rules, perhaps trying to be
 non-judgemental on other peoples' views should be one.
 Discussion is fine, illogical rhetoric tends to get peoples'
 backs up, especially slanging matches on religion,
 vegetarianism, curtains, etc., and it's very boring indeed for
 the rest of us.

 B:Also posting of PERSONAL phone numbers & addresses is NOT
 recommended. Although most of use are comfortable in this group
 with each other, you have to remember there are a lot of lurkers
 and nuts on the internet.             
		
 C: It's also good form to avoid messages that are pretty much
 content-free: don't, for example, quote an entire message that
 you agree with and then append "Yeah, what she said" to the
 end. Test messages should also be avoided--if you're unsure
 whether your messages are getting out or not, post something to
 alt.test and you'll get confirmation messages from various sites
 around the US and elsewhere to let you know your posting
 software is working.

 D: On dfw.singles, like any other group, it's best to avoid the
 urge to post spelling flames. Unless you can turn the spelling
 error into an outrageously witty (or just slightly witty)
 observation, there's no reason to post spelling flames
 publicly.

 E: Also, bear in mind that this is a public forum, posting an
 article here is rather like writing an article in a newspaper -
 but be careful about mentioning newspaper articles because they
 do create some heated debate in these here parts. Anyway, this
 being a public forum it is best not to mention names or other
 personal information such as Phone numbers or personal addresses.
 I'm rather unclear on how the laws of liable relate to electronic 
 publication, but it's usually best to err on the side of caution.
 On that note Post containing personal information that seems to be
 posted as a revenge post or to cause destress to any member of the
 group may be could result in an article being canceled instantly 
 and without warning by an authorized moderation device (human or 
 otherwise) for the group in question.Except that these are no longer
 unwritten laws, because they're written down.

 Remember that every poster on dfw.singles had to post his or her
 first message sometime and, even now, it's no more difficult
 for you to press the followup-key than it is for anyone else.
 Sometimes it helps just to read the newsgroup for a while--get
 a feel for what's going on and what the other posters are like,
 what sorts of topics have already been beaten to death many
 times over and what sorts of insights, knowledge, and experience
 you might have to add that others might not think of. When you
 do decide to leap into the fray and post something, don't be
 discouraged if it doesn't get a response right away, everybody
 posts stuff that is ignored or not followed up. There is
 nothing malicious in this - many more people read here than
 post.

 ***************************************************************

Item 11:Article Format 

1.. Articles posted to any D/FW regional newgroup MUST be flat-ASCII. This
    means: 
    1.No Binary postings, uuencoded or base64. 
    2.No MIME encoded messages. Posts SHOULD be readable by the simplest 
      text-only newsreader. 
    3.No HTML, although HTML-like emoticons are acceptable. 
    4.No characters with a value greater than 127 in any part of the post. 

2.. Posts SHOULD be shorter than 30K in size. Longer items SHOULD be made 
    available for FTP or HTTP� download and a pointer to that file posted. 

3.. Posts MUST contain a valid From address, unless the ".invalid" domain is 
    used (see RFC 1036). Spam blocks are acceptable. By definition USENET 
    newsgroups are a broadcast medium. If you have a post that needs to be
    anonymous, it is not a valid topic for a D/FW regional newsgroup. Post 
    this material elsewhere. 

4.. ROT13 encoding should NOT be used on any field in the headers. Nor should 
    any attempts, excerpts minimal spam blocks, be made to obscure the origins

    of the posting. 

5.. Posts MUST contain a "Abuse-Reports-To:" or "X-Complaints-To:" header
    with a valid email address. When RFC1036 is updated, this line SHOULD be
    adjusted to comply with the latest specifications. Adding or replacing 
    this header is the responsibility of the news server where the article 
    was injected. 

    Failing to follow the above formatting requirements could result in an
    article being canceled instantly and without warning by an authorized 
    moderation device (human or otherwise) for the group in question. 


Item 12: Ending Statement.

 Questions can be posted to the group if you are just unsure and
 want to know before doing something.
 
 Questions in general and in reference to this FAQ can be
 directed to david@davidv.net
 
 First written on DEC. 28, 1998
 Posted  July 08,1999


David Vondrasek
david@cirr.com
dfw.* newsgroup Charters