Path: alphanet.ch!chsun!news.eunet.ch!EU.net!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!worldnet.att.net!howland.erols.net!newspump.sol.net!newsfeeds.sol.net!nntp.msen.com!ftl.msen.com!conch.msen.com!not-for-mail From: Michael Bauser Newsgroups: news.groups.reviews,news.groups,news.groups.questions,alt.culture.usenet Subject: news.groups.reviews guidelines Supersedes: Followup-To: poster Date: 21 Mar 1997 23:33:22 -0500 Organization: Msen Lines: 168 Sender: islander@msen.com Approved: news-groups-reviews@uunet.uu.net Message-ID: Reply-To: news-groups-reviews@uunet.uu.net NNTP-Posting-Host: conch.msen.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Summary: Please describe your favorite newsgroup or mailing list to news-groups-reviews@uunet.uu.net Keywords: submissions, guidelines, charter, FAQ, newsgroups Article-Names: news.groups.reviews:charter Xref: alphanet.ch news.groups.reviews:23 Archive-Name: newsgroups-reviews Last-Modified: 18 February 1997 Posting-Frequency: monthly (21st of every month) URL: http://www.superb.net/~islander/ngr/Reviews/ngrFAQ.html News-groups-reviews-archive-name: submission-guidelines -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Introduction The moderated newsgroup news.groups.reviews features reviews of other newsgroups and mailing lists. You don't have to wait until someone asks -- just go ahead, write a review of one you like, and submit it. news.groups.reviews is not a high volume group -- even if you don't write a review, consider subscribing. You might find out about a group you would want to read. - ------------------------------ Tips and Administrivia The most important thing to remember is that the people reading the review probably haven't heard of your group or mailing list. Tell them why they would be interested. Because many of the readers will still be new to netnews (news.groups.reviews is placed near the top of newsgroup lists at America Online, among other things), it is important that the reviews contain enough information to describe the group even to a newbie. In general, I would appreciate it if reviews followed these guidelines: Reviews should be written by people who read and enjoy the group in question. If the reviewed group isn't worth reading, then ignorance is indeed bliss. Yes, it might feel good to write a negative review, but who will it help? Mostly, it will just result in you (and me) getting a lot of hate mail. Please remember that there are enough newsgroups that people won't be trying them all. If they wander in on their own, your review isn't going to discourage them, and if they don't, why waste their time? Reviews should be one-time things. In a year, it might be worth reviewing again, but the group shouldn't change very much in a week. For the same reason, I prefer reviews of groups that have been up a few months -- it can take that long to know what the group will really be like. I will accept alternate reviews from different reviewers, if they are substantially different, but I would prefer to review another as-yet-unreviewed group. news.groups.reviews will not be a discussion forum, so it may be worth running your review by other readers first -- particularly if it is a second review. (Not that volume has ever been a serious problem....) Questions about "Where can I find a group about X?" should be sent to news.groups.questions. Discussion of the review should normally take place in the reviewed group itself. (Reviews are cross-posted to the reviewed newsgroups as a courtesy to newsgroup readers. They deserve to know what's being said about their newsgroup, after all.) Hate mail should be sent straight to me, as I'm very good at ignoring it, and that gives you an easy way to vent. Reviews of (publicly accessible) mailing lists are encouraged, but interested readers are also directed to the short summaries available elsewhere. If you would like one of these lists of mailing lists, Stephanie da Silva posts one to news.lists.misc. If it has expired on your site, you can read her list on the World Wide Web at . In your review, please try to express the flavor of the group as a whole. Ideally, this will involve summarizing some recent threads, so that potential readers will have an example as well as a description. Reviews need not be restricted to the big 8 -- if the group is widely available (e.g., alt or uk) that is sufficient. Reviewed mailing lists should be open to all readers without restriction. (Note that they need not be open to all posters; only to all readers.) Although the lingua franca of news.groups.reviews (and most Big 8 newsgroups) is English, I can read Spanish, and I'm willing to accept Spanish-language reviews of Spanish-language newsgroups. The use of other languages will depend on the availability of volunteers to help me. (I have a volunteer for French -- We'll see how it works out when and if I ever receive a review in French.) Reviews are generally posted with the submitter's .signature intact, but the moderator reserves the right to edit .signatures that are unusually long, wider than 80 characters, or too tab-damaged to reconstruct. PGP-signed reviews will also be accepted. Postings of these guidelines will always be PGP-signed. news.groups.reviews will publish anonymous reviews (reviewer's name and/or address witheld by request), but the reviewer must supply a valid return address on the *submission* in case I need to contact them about the review. Here is a sample review, written by Vance Kochenderfer. Note that the Description: line is copied straight from /usr/lib/news/newsgroups (i.e., it's the description your newsreader shows you when you browse the newsgroup), and the FAQ-Location: line is in URL format. If don't include the auxiliary headers in your review, I'll add Description, Related-Newsgroups, Moderator, Reviewer, and Review-Date myself. (The latter 2 are usually self-evident and the others I can pull from various periodic posts in news.lists.*) FAQ-Location and Keywords are not mandatory, but helpful. - ------------------------------ Newsgroup: alt.folklore.urban Moderator: none Description: Urban legends, ala Jan Harold Brunvand Keywords: urban legends, rumors, craig shergold Related-Groups: alt.folklore.info, alt.folklore.computers, alt.folklore.college, alt.folklore.ghost-stories, alt.folklore.military, alt.folklore.science FAQ-Location:˙ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/folklore-faq Reviewer: Vance Kochenderfer Review-Date: 1 Jan 1994 Have you ever wondered about that dying boy in England who wants get-well cards? Or about lick-and-stick tattoos laced with LSD? Or about all of those soda can tabs you've been donating for kidney patients? Read a.f.u and wonder no more. This group is dedicated to discussing and often debunking pervasive rumors and half-truths known collectively as urban legends. Humorous and informative, the group also talks about the works of urban legend researchers such as Cecil Adams and Jan Harold Brunvand. Posters often ask innocuous-looking questions in order to bait newbies, so followup with care and read the FAQ list before posting; it is very wide-ranging and will answer most of your questions. - ------------------------------ To submit your review, either post it to news.groups.reviews or mail it to news-groups-reviews@uunet.uu.net. You will receive an acknowledgement after I read your review. The Archives If you would like to read other reviews, see the news.groups.reviews archives at . The archives are currently undergoing some reconstruction (updating old reviews and converting them to HTML for better indexing by web robots), but everything's still there, in one format or another. If you find problems, please tell me as soon as possible so that I can try to fix them. Credits & Thanks The original version of these guidelines was written by Jim Jewett, original moderator of news.groups.reviews. This revised version should be blamed on the current moderator, Michael Bauser . Thanks (so far) to Pam Greene, Jim Jewett, Cameron Laird, Jim Riley, and Kate Weizel, for feedback and corrections to these guidelines. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMw5yzcRHZFQbZSuZAQG1MQP+Nqs6y5zvy1AM2QXmi+bpYV4Npx2ECf0R epEldeJ6R2JGyR2AgT36AyNVBJTkp5//XSGBLsKLEsuJNWf3fyAFP2vHWxsc4DVk pDN2c/MoNGUh18V1hjd4kDOVlXc6UgFnjV4uv/QS6yknFPRcpD6XmNvIJfz22eXW /FGobic0Jh8= =M6BV -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----