inc@fluke.UUCP (Gary Benson) (11/13/83)
About a month ago, there was an article (which I neglected to save) that
discussed how to keep the network a polite place to communicate. If
someone has a copy, could you mail it please? It might not even be a bad
idea to re-post it. It seems that this thing is growing so rapidly that
many new users would like to see some information about what is considered
"bad form", and what kinds of behaviours are desirable. There were a few
points that I've seen coming up in other newsgroups recently that I think
might make good additions to that paper.
First, there seems to be a lot of discussion about people posting to the
wrong group. Yesterday I read a message from Amsterdam indicating that the
writer felt collecting programs in various languages to print something
trivial was not of general interest, and should probably not take place in
net.general. I agree. A lot of conflict can be avoided if people will more
carefully select the newsgroup they post an article to. For a while there,
net.jokes and net.flame almost seemed to have traded names.
Second, if there does not seem to be a newsgroup available that quite
covers the topic you want to discuss, then start one up. It's easy enough
for any user to do, and your system supervisor can assist you. Then a
short message posted to general can announce the group, and interested
parties will subscribe. This scheme presupposes that net.general is the
"bulletin board" for all newsgroups. By not cluttering the general
group with stuff that by all rights should be elswhere, we will insure
that everyone stays subscribed to general, and will see postings
announcing new newsgroups.
Third, some minor points that have been made frequently, but seem to get
forgotten easily:
- Use language that you might if you were speaking in person. Most of
us don't really want to see personal attacks, abusive language,
cussing, and so forth. Mail directly if you must talk that way.
- Anonomous postings are discouraged. Who really cares what you say if
you don't have the courage of your convictions to sign the work?
- Please, please, make your subject heading meaningful.
Last, inform new users of these conventions. Maybe this really is a
system administrator's function, but all of us can help by getting new
people started out on the right foot.
Gary Benson
John Fluke Mfg. Co.
!fluke!inc