[net.general] HELP!!!

psuvm%d40@psuvax.UUCP (01/26/84)

FROM: SK1 at PSUVM (Currently using D40)

   I am a newcomer to NETNEWS and would appreciate any help that I can
get.  I need help in:

     1. MAIL: Sending and Receiving mail and replies.

     2. Removing notices that I posted.  I posted a couple in "NET.TEST"
        but don't know how to remove them.

     3. Any other info that you feel would be useful to a beginner.

  Please send any info not found in the "HELP" facility.  Also, please
do not mail them to me.  Post them in the area "NET.GENERAL".

Thanks in advance.

                                          Kumar.

mark@cbosgd.UUCP (Mark Horton) (01/28/84)

Would John Irwin please find Kumar and explain that inciting a riot
is grounds for being shot?  Asking 15000 people to post something
to net.general is as bad as telling them to storm a building.

NOBODY RESPOND TO KUMAR'S REQUEST ON net.general or net.followup, PLEASE!
If you want to send him mail, fine, if you can figure out whether
to mail to d40%psuvm@psuvax.UUCP or sk1%psuvm@psuvax.UUCP.

Good grief, am I going to have to start posting weekly notices to the
net telling people not to post anything until they have read the monthly
Netequette messages on net.announce?  This is the third such message
posted to net.general this month!

For those of you who don't understand why I'm coming down so hard
on this poor, new user, let me explain.  net.general is supposed to
be a newsgroup that everybody on Usenet subscribes to.  However,
there have been so many people posting what many people perceive
as trash to net.general that many people have unsubscribed.  Every
time 50 or 100 essentially identical message are posted, a lot more
people get fed up and turn it off.  Then these people can't be
reached when something really important does come up.  (This is why
net.announce was created - it is filtered through a human, and the
news software prevents anyone else from accidently posting to it.)

Now, to those of you out there who really are new and don't know
how to use the net, watch net.announce.  The first of every month
a set of articles are posted to that newsgroup that give some rules
and procedures for using the network.  As for details of how to
use your netnews program, you are supposed to ask your local site
person for a printed copy of the instructions.  Kumar is on BITNET,
and he no doubt has a different program on his IBM machine than
the rest of us on our UNIX machines have.

A general message to beginners: sit back and watch for a month or
two until you understand the way the network works.  Don't step out
and make a fool of yourself until you know how not to cause problems.

	Mark Horton