Internet Info 1994 March/Internet Info CD-ROM (Walnut Creek) (March 1994).iso/answers/rec/radio/rec-radio-info/welcome

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From: [e-mail] (rec.radio.info Moderator)
Newsgroups: rec.radio.info,news.answers,rec.answers
Subject: Welcome to rec.radio.info!
Summary: This is the introduction article to the moderated group
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Date: Fri, 15 Apr 1994 21:00:09 MDT
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Archive-name: radio/rec-radio-info/welcome
Last-modified: $Date: 1994/01/02 22:00 $
Version: $Revision: 1.06 $

*** Welcome to rec.radio.info! ***

Welcome to rec.radio.info, a group that aims to provide a noise-free source
of information and news for the entire rec.radio hierarchy.

Two introductory articles about rec.radio.info are posted to the group and
to news.answers every two weeks. You are now reading the first article, which
explains what rec.radio.info is, and answers some Frequently Asked Questions.
The second article is titled "Submission Guidelines", and you only need to
read it if you want to submit an article to rec.radio.info.

You can skip to the next section of this article by searching for the next
" -- " string. The sections available are:
 - What is the purpose of rec.radio.info?
 - Why are messages almost always cross posted to rec.radio.info?
 - What is a 'follow-up', and what does 'moderated' mean?
 - OK, so now I know what 'moderated' means. Tell me more.
 - What type of material is considered inappropriate?
 - I do not have access to news, how can I get the information posted to
   rec.radio.info?
 - Will the material appearing in rec.radio.info be archived somewhere?
 - I have a regular posting with timely information, is there a way to
   speed up it's delivery, or automate for more convenience?

 -- What is the purpose of rec.radio.info?

The purpose or charter of rec.radio.info is to provide the Usenet community with
a resource for information, news, and facts about any and all things radio.

All the other rec.radio groups are intended for discussions and general chit
chat about radio.  Rec.radio.info will contain informational, factual articles
only. Follow-ups are redirected to an appropriate other group, and further
discussion (if any) will not take place in rec.radio.info.

In order to ensure that rec.radio.info contains only appropriate articles, it
was decided to create the group as a moderated newsgroup.

 -- Why are messages almost always cross posted to rec.radio.info?

It provides a "tag" for each article to be assembled into a filtered
presentation in rec.radio.info (even with cross-posting, only one message, with
a unique Message-ID, is propogated across the net).  This tag also facilitates
a pre-existing method of dropping or cancelling the articles locally within the
discussion groups if you don't want to see them.  This accommodates individuals
who want to separate the bulletins from the discussions, discussions from the
bulletins, as well as those who are adamant about not reading another
newsgroup and wanted to see everything all in one basket.

With the total size of Usenet (in number of newsgroups and total traffic)
doubling every year or so, this is no insignificant contribution to reducing
information noise and chaos.  Making the discussion groups a catch-all, and
making extra newsgroups filters on that catch-all, is also the most realistic
way to implement such a scheme (It's not intuitively obvious what the charter,
contents, and general appropriate topics for each and every newsgroup are.
Seeing FAQ's and charter/intro postings in the home newsgroup is beneficial
for new readers).

By cross-posting one only is adding a few tens of bytes to each bulletin (to
specify the extra group on the Newsgroups line), but are adding the capability
for very powerful filtering features available on most news servers,
listservers and readers.  Your local news guru could probably explain these
features in more detail.

In rn, for example, according to Leanne Phillips in her rn kill-file FAQ, add
a line of the form:
    /Newsgroups:.*[ ,]rec\.radio\.info/h:j
either in ~/News/KILL (if you don't want to see rec.radio.info articles
anywhere) or ~/News/rec/radio/amateur/misc/KILL (if you don't want to see them
just in rec.radio.amateur.misc).  The latter method means your kill file will
only be consulted during rec.radio.amateur.misc (and hence runs more
efficiently), and will probably work for most people.

In nn, according to Bill Wohler in his nn FAQ, add a line of the form:
    rec.radio.info:!s/:^
in ~/.nn/kill (if you don't want to see rec.radio.info articles anywhere), or
put the following lines:
    sequence
    rec.radio.info
    rec.radio.
at the end of ~/.nn/init in order to see all the rec.radio.info bulletins first,
then read the remaining rec.radio.* without the bulletins.

 -- What is a 'follow-up', and what does 'moderated' mean?

If you are new to Usenet and are not familiar with the terminology, you might
want to read the general introductory articles found in the newsgroup
news.announce.newusers. Doing so will make your life on the net much easier,
and will probably save you from making silly beginner's mistakes.

If you think that at this moment you are reading an echo, a conference, or
a bulletin board, I'd also strongly suggest a trip over to
news.announce.newusers.

For the rest of this article, I will assume you have a basic knowledge of
Usenet terminology and mechanics.

A moderated group means that any article that needs to be posted to the group
has to be accepted by the moderator of the group. Since we need to ensure that
followups to an article (discussion) do not show up in the rec.radio.info
newsgroup, the `Followup-To:' header line contains a newsgroup that is
appropriate for disussions about the specific article.

 -- OK, so now I know what 'moderated' means. Tell me more.

Rec.radio.info is a moderated newsgroup, which means that all articles
submitted to the group will have to be approved by the moderator first.

The current moderator of the group is Mark Salyzyn.  Submissions to
rec.radio.info can be posted, or e-mailed to:

        [e-mail]

Comments, criticisms, suggestions or questions about the group can be e-mailed
to:
        [e-mail]

But before you do so, please be sure to check out the "Submission Guidelines"
article.

The influence of the moderator should be minimal and of an administrative
nature, consisting chiefly of weeding out obviously inappropriate articles,
while making sure correct headers etc. are used for the appropriate ones.

 -- What type of material is considered inappropriate?

There are three broad categories of articles which will be rejected by the
moderator:

1) Requests for information: rec.radio.info is strictly a one-way street.  I
   receive information in my mailbox; I then post it to rec.radio.info.
   Requests for specific information belong in the normal discussion newsgroups.
   If your request gets answered, you might consider passing the answer on to
   rec.radio.info, though. Especially if you can edit it into a informational,
   rather than a discussion, format.

2) Obvious discussion articles, or articles that appear unsubstantiated.

3) Commercial stuff: a relatively unbiased test of a radio product would be
   accepted, but any hint of for-profit might be reason for rejection. For three
   reasons: This is not the purpose of the list, for-profit is a controversial
   topic, and this list may be passed onto Amateur Packet Radio (where
   for-profit is prohibited except under certain provisos).

   rec.radio.swap (or possibly comp.newprod) may be more deserving of the
   posting in any matter.

   Similarly, copyrighted material generally cannot be used.  If it's TRULY
   worthwhile to the net, I would recommend obtaining permission from the
   copyright holder.  Please note the source, and if permission was given.  I
   reserve the right to make the final decision concerning appropriateness in
   all situations.  In most cases, a brief summary of, or pointer to, the
   copyrighted information may be all I can allow.

 -- I do not have access to news, how can I get the information posted to
    rec.radio.info?

[e-mail] (Brian Kantor) has kindly supplied a mail list server for
rec.radio.info. Non of the articles will be digested, due to their size, so
you will receive individual mailings for every article posted to the group.

Mail sent to [e-mail] will be forwarded to the moderator and
thus is an alias to [e-mail]

To subscribe and unsubscribe via the listserver; the format for that is

    sub address radio-info
    unsub address radio-info

where 'address' is your full mailing address. Send this request to

    [e-mail]

Note that the server will automatically delete any address that bounces mail.
If you leave the address portion blank, it will try to deduce your address
from the mail headers. This may not work if you are on bitnet, milnet or
some other non-Unix host, so it is recommended to put your return address
in any case. For example:

    sub [e-mail] radio-info
or
    sub [e-mail] radio-info

or something like that.

 -- Will the material appearing in rec.radio.info be archived somewhere?

Yes. Still firming up details at the moment but here is a preliminary list:
    - unbc.edu as maintained by Lyndon Nerenberg <[e-mail]>
    - nic.funet.fi maintained by Risto Kotalampi <[e-mail]>
        saved to /pub/dx/text/rec.radio.info currently stored as
        numbered files.

Effectively this means that anything you post to rec.radio.info will be
permanently stored, so your work will not be lost.

 -- I have a regular posting with timely information, is there a way to
    speed up it's delivery, or automate for more convenience?

Yes, there is! It may take a bit of chatter with the moderator, but we are
willing to take responsible people and provide them the means of posting the
articles directly from their site. We will try everything we can as we fully
realize that DX (distant signal) and astronomical data can be somewhat
transitory. We are also willing to allow regular posters of information the
same courtesy, even if the information is not as time critical.

We refer to this as self-moderation, which is partly based on the model for
news.answer. This requires co-operation and good will to be beneficial to
the community in the rec.radio hierarchy.

I suggest reading the posting guidelines for more information. I am open to
suggestions.

I thank the following individuals for their input into this article:
    rec.music.info moderator Leo Breebaart [e-mail]
    rec.radio.broadcasting moderator Bill Pfeiffer [e-mail]
    Paul W. Schleck, KD3FU [e-mail]
    Ian Kluft, KD6EUI [e-mail]

--
Mark Salyzyn -- Moderator rec.radio.info
Submissions to: [e-mail]
Administrivia to: [e-mail]
* Requests for information do *not* belong in rec.radio.info *