Internet Surfer 2.0/Internet Surfer 2.0 (Wayzata Technology) (1996).iso/pc/textfile/faqs/pict_faq/part1

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From: [e-mail] (Jim Howard)
Newsgroups: alt.binaries.pictures.d,alt.binaries.pictures,alt.binaries.pictures.utilities,alt.binaries.pictures.fractals,alt.binaries.pictures.fine-art.d,news.answers
Subject: alt.binaries.pictures FAQ - General Etiquette
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Archive-name: pictures-faq/part1
Last-modified: 13 November 1992

    This is part 1 of the FAQ for the alt.binaries.pictures* hierarchy.
    This part of the alt.binaries.pictures FAQ contains "general etiquette
    suggestions", those handy little rules that'll help you avoid getting
    flamed by dozens of other a.b.p* readers.  It is *HIGHLY* recommended
    that you read and understand this section fully before posting to any of
    the a.b.p* groups.

      For information on "general", or operating-system independent
    information, questions you may have about the pictures newsgroups,
    decoding and encoding techniques, or picture formats, consult part 2
    of this posting.

      For information on your particular system and on specific utilities,
    consult part 3 of this posting.

    Before posting to these groups for the first time, please check the FAQ
    list (this posting - including parts 2 and 3), and also read the newsgroup
    news.announce.newusers, which contains many answers to questions about
    UseNet in general.

    If you've read previous versions of this FAQ, you'll probably only want
    to read anything that has changed since the last distribution.  These
    changes appear both in this document and in the accompanying "Changes to
    the alt.binaries.pictures FAQ".  Note that this is a "live" document, and
    is always getting important information added or updated.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

TABLE OF CONTENTS
   I.     NEWSGROUP USAGE
  II.     POSTING VOLUME
 III.     WHAT/WHEN TO POST
  IV.     POSTING CONTENT
   V.     Subject: LINE STANDARDS
  VI.     ANONYMOUS FTP
 VII.     "REPOST" REQUESTS
VIII.    TEST POSTS
  IX.    DEALING WITH THOSE WHO DON'T/WON'T FOLLOW ETIQUETTE


I. NEWSGROUP USAGE

Alt.binaries.pictures.erotica is for erotic pictures ONLY.
    Erotic (adj): Of or arousing sexual feelings or desires;  having to do
    with sexual love;  amatory.
    ONLY the erotica newsgroups should be used for pictures of human nudity
    or any form of pornography.

Alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.d is for the Discussion of pix in ABPE, etc.

Alt.binaries.pictures.tasteless is for "tasteless", "bizarre", or
  "grotesque" pictures ONLY.

Alt.binaries.pictures.fractals is for fractal pictures ONLY.

Alt.binaries.pictures.misc is for the remaining types of pictures ONLY.

Alt.binaries.pictures.d is for the Discussion of pix in ABPT, ABPF, ABPM, etc.

Alt.binaries.pictures.fine-art.graphics is for the posting of ORIGINAL
  artwork created using computer programs ONLY.  Moderated.

Alt.binaries.pictures.fine-art.digitized is for the posting of scanned
  ORIGINAL artwork ONLY.  Moderated.

Alt.binaries.pictures.fine-art.d is for the Discussion of pix in ABPF-AG or
  ABPF-AD ONLY.  Moderated.

Alt.binaries.pictures.utilities is for the posting of source or binary
  executables of pictures-related software.

Comp.sources.misc is a good place for image-viewing source code.

Comp.graphics is a good place for discussion of image formats.

Alt.graphics.pixutils is for discussion of image format translation.

Throughout the remainder of this document, any newsgroup in the
alt.binaries.pictures.* hierarchy WITHOUT the '.d' extension (including, but
not limited to alt.binaries.pictures.erotica, alt.binaries.pictures.tasteless,
and alt.binaries.pictures.misc) will be referred to as "the pictures
newsgroups", and those WITH the '.d' extension (including, but not limited to
alt.binaries.pictures.d and alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.d) will be referred
to as "the discussion newsgroups".  These two types of newsgroups work
basically the same way as the comp.binaries.ibm.pc and c.b.i.p.d groups;  one
is for posting new material, and one is for discussing posts and other issues.

BY FAR THE MOST IMPORTANT ASPECT OF ABP* ETIQUETTE IS:
The pictures newsgroups are for pictures ONLY (if it's not a picture,
don't post it in any of these newsgroups)!!!!  It has been pointed out
that some sites carry the pictures newsgroups without also carrying the
discussion newsgroups.  This is very unfortunate, as there is often
valuable information contained in the discussion newsgroups that anyone
who frequents the pictures newsgroups would find of interest.  If your
site doesn't carry the discussion newsgroups, complain to your news
administrator!

The basic idea is this:  if it is a picture, post it to the appropriate
pictures newsgroup.  If it is *ANYTHING ELSE* ANYTHING ANYTHING ANYTHING
ELSE (INCLUDING UTILITIES!!), post it to the associated discussion newsgroup
or to an appropriate utilities newsgroup (like a.b.p.utilities, for example)!
The truth is that I feel bad about posting *THIS FILE* to the pictures
newsgroups, because it is not a picture.  However, the benefits of restricting
the requests for info far outweigh the detriment of breaking this rule.

PLEASE DO NOT POST ANYTHING TO THE PICTURES NEWSGROUPS THAT IS NOT A
PICTURE OF SOME SORT!!!!


II. POSTING VOLUME

The first thing is this: please restrict yourself to a maximum of 400
KB of images per day.  If you've got a bunch of extremely small (50K
to 100 KB) pictures, then you can post several of them at once.  If
you've got a few medium-sized pictures (150 to 200 KB), then you should
only post one or two of them per day.  If you've got a few rather large
to huge (400K or more) pictures, you should only post one of them per
day.  It's best to post the full image the same day, as some sites
expire things daily (sometimes in an even shorter period), so your
complete image would never be available there.

As you're no doubt thinking, this is inconvenient.  Wouldn't it be nice
just to be able to post everything at once?  Well, the problem is, if
you do this, you're essentially cutting your own throat (and others'
as well.)

The problem is that it takes a lot of time and effort (albeit automated,
but still), money, and disk space to transmit your pictures all over the
world.  Unlike a lot of students at universities (for example), many
people at many sites have to pay directly out of their own pockets to
transmit news articles, in the form of phone bills for their modems.
Also, a lot of sites don't have infinitely large disks, and a
particularly heavy day of posting can actually fill up entire partitions.

You still might be thinking, "Well, that's their problem." - and you're
right.  However, it becomes YOUR problem because a lot of sites still
propagate news articles in serial chains:

    A <---> B <---> C <---> D <---> E

Now, say you're site A.  You decide to post a few MB of pictures in one
day.  Site B connects to your site, A, and grabs the articles.  Site C
connects to site B and attempts to grab the articles.  But site C is
rather limited.  Its disks fill up a few times, perhaps the system
crashes.  The sysadmin knows he will get an outrageous phone bill caused
by just ATTEMPTING to transmit all of your pictures.

So the sysadmin of site C "drops" the group (or groups) in which you posted
all of your pictures.  So the people at sites D and E will now NEVER SEE
ANY OF THE PICTURES YOU POST.  Conversely, because the chain is
bidirectional, if the people at sites D or E post some pictures, YOU
WILL NEVER SEE THEM.  Congratulations, you've just slit not only your
own throat, but the throats of EVERYONE at sites A, B, C, D, and E as
well.

This is why everyone must post only limited amounts per day.  As it is,
pictures newsgroups account for something like 50% of the entire net
traffic, and 75% of the alt.* traffic.  We need to be self-policing, or
the pictures newsgroups will die out because of the phenomenon mentioned
above.


III. WHAT/WHEN TO POST

A common question that is asked is this one:  what should I post to the
net?  The basic answer is: anything you'd like to see here yourself!

If you got the file from some FTP site that was announced over the net,
don't bother posting it.  5-to-1 odds say that everyone and his dog
already have it, and we *really* need to be careful about wasting
bandwidth!  If you're unsure of whether there's any interest in it,
just post a short message saying: "I have this file.  Mail me if you
want a copy."  If 500 people say they want one, post it... if only one
bozo from outer mongolia wants it, it's a sure bet that the picture has
already made the rounds!  You might consider *e-mailing* it to the bozo
from outer mongolia instead!

The same goes if you see a request!  If that same bozo posts a request
for T2.gif and you've got it and are thinking about posting it, *MAIL*
it to him/her instead!  This will eliminate the problem of the same
picture getting posted to the net on a weekly basis (and pissing a lot
of people off in the process)!!!


IV. POSTING CONTENT

In the actual message you're posting (commonly in either part 0 or part
1), be sure to give at least a brief description of what's in it, like:

   CRSH+BRN.GIF   800x600x256 (in 8 parts)

   This is 15th in the series of this plane crash at the Beirut Air Show
   taken at every single conceivable angle.  This one was taken from a
   photograph by a guy who happened to be standing directly under the
   plane as it came down.  Pulitzer Prize material.  At least the camera
   was saved.

Also, checksums are nice, for people with access to sum programs.  It
helps people identify erroneous transmissions.  Usually people include
things like

   Checksums: (obtained with 4.2 BSD 'sum' or SysV 'sum -r')
   between 'CUT HERE lines':
      part 1: 76663 9082
      part 2: 78973 1234
   etc...

If you have a GIF file, don't bother trying to run some compression
routine on it... it *won't* work.  LZW compression (the kind used in
GIF files) is a very efficient compression scheme, and happens to be
the one used in many common compression routines (including the standard
UNIX `compress' utility!).  If you try to compress a GIF file, it will
usually just end up getting bigger, and cause undue hardship to those
trying to download and decode the picture as well.

The most common standard for binary file transmission is the UUENCODE
standard.  Apple's BinHex is also frequently used.  Be aware, however,
that the further you stray from a standard, the fewer the people that
will be able to decode your posting, and the more it begins to become
high-volume garbage.

It is necessary to split large files because of a few reasons.  First of
all, not all news software can handle huge files.  Secondly, and more
important, if some sort of error in transmission occurs (yes, it *does*
happen from time to time) you only need to re-broadcast one small part,
rather than the whole multi-megabyte image.

If you do post a multi-part file, be sure to add lines before and
after the data that say 'CUT HERE' so that people trimming the headers
and trailers by hand know where to cut.  A recent addition to the
etiquette also has you make the lines say 'BEGIN-----Cut Here' and
'END-----Cut Here' at the obvious locations, so that simple AWK and
PERL scripts can handle multi-part files.  Another nice thing to do is
to put the part (02/06) numbers in each file.  There are several
"super" uuencode programs that will do most of this for you (see part
3 for more details).  It is important to make the "Cut Here" parts in
mixed-case or lower-case letters;  some decoders detect data based on
the presence of characters which belong in the normal uuencoding
character set, and they will choke on lines which are all upper-case,
as these are valid uuencode characters.  If you mix the cases, these
decoders will do fine...  Remember (if you add "BEGIN" and "END"
keywords) to make "BEGIN" and "END" all caps so existing scripts won't
miss them, and so uudecoders won't choke on them.


V. Subject: LINE STANDARDS

Above all else, be sure to give subject lines that are informative.
The subject line should contain (at an absolute minimum):
    The file name
    Which part this is, and how many total parts

As an expanded suggestion for a standard, consider the following:

- filename.type (part/total) {label} ^REPOST^ [sh] "extraTitle"
^ ^        ^     ^    ^       ^       ^        ^    ^
| |        |     |    |       |       |        |    |
1 2        3     4    5       6       7        8    9

1) The '-' character sets this off as a picture posting (not a follow-up,
   not a request, not a flame for a follow-up or a request, etc.).
   OPTIONAL (but highly suggested).
2) The name of the file.  You might consider limiting this to a maximum
   of as few as 8 characters, since this is the limit of some archaic
   operating systems.  Other nearly equally archaic OS's limit you to 14
   characters.  Do what you will, but realize others' limitations...
   REQUIRED.
3) The type of picture (GIF, JPEG, PostScript).  The suggested standard
   is to stick to all lower case, three characters maximum (gif, jpg, ps).
   REQUIRED.
4, 5) Which part of how many this is.  Enclosed in parentheses.
   REQUIRED.
6) The type of picture ("male", "female", "both", "plane", "scenic", etc.).
   Enclosed in curly brackets.
   OPTIONAL (but very considerate).
7) Notifies everyone that this is a repost of a posting that went sour.
   Enclosed in up-arrows (what's their real character name?).
   OPTIONAL (but very considerate).
8) Flag that notifies people that this posting uses script wrappers (in case
   they have to handle these special).  Enclosed in square brackets.
   OPTIONAL (but very considerate).
9) Additional descriptive text to give a better idea of what's in the picture.
   Enclosed in double quotes.
   OPTIONAL (but very considerate).

This suggested standard is intended to be strictly ordered (i.e. if there's
a ^REPOST^ notification, it appears after any label info and before any
script wrapper notification).

For example:

   - CRSH+BRN.GIF (02/08) {plane} "Plane crash at an air show, 800x600x256"
Notice that it includes everything: the file name, what part of how
many this one is, a short description, and the resolution.  If you
insist on leaving everything *else* out, at least say the name of
the file and which part of how many it is!
In the "erotica" newsgroups, it's also popular (and often demanded!)
to include the picture subject's gender (i.e. "{male}", "{female}",
"{both}", etc.).  The gender should be considered as part of the
minimal set of information in the "erotica" newsgroups, as the addition
of this information to the subject line makes it possible for people to
avoid spending time downloading stuff they don't care about.

Certain newsreaders (NN, for example) sort the articles alphabetically
by title, so subject lines with part numbers get displayed and saved
in order.  There is an obvious (and common) way to torpedo this
process: make subject lines which do not follow sequentially.

An example:
        first article's subject: "plane crash GIF: CRSH+BRN (part 1 / 4)"
  subsequent articles' subjects: "CRSH+BRN (part N / 4)"
These subject lines will not be displayed and sorted correctly by NN.

However, if you change the arrangement a little, like this:
        first article's subject: "CRSH+BRN (part 1/4) plane crash GIF"
  subsequent articles' subjects: "CRSH+BRN (part N/4)"
you will please NN-users the world over.


VI. ANONYMOUS FTP

A word about anonymous FTP and GIF files.  When you log onto a remote
machine via anonymous FTP, please try to restrict yourself to no more
then ten minutes of transmission time, or about five to ten files.  As
you can imagine, when people discover a new archive of GIF files,
they are all hot to download every one they can, and often they jam up
the site for *days*.  You'll notice this effect the first time some
bozo announces the name of a new GIF archive.  You won't be able to
get through without persistent efforts over several hours or even a
day or two.  Then the system administrators of that site notice that
they have had about $5,000 worth of anonymous FTP over the last two
days, and revoke the anonymous FTP privilege.  Now every one is
screwed.

Be considerate; grab only a few files and then let someone else have a
chance.  This probably won't solve the problem in the long term (still
everyone and his dog will be ftp'ing into that machine), but at least
it will spread the wealth a bit.

As for anonymous FTP sites for erotica pictures, THEY DO NOT EXIST.  Even
if you find an anonymous FTP site that *appears* to have erotica pictures,
it is merely an illusion.  As the sage once said, "Revel in your illusions,
don't share them."  The effects of sharing your illusion in this case
*ALWAYS* results in your illusion being rendered non-existent (in one way
or another).  For this very same reason, it is considered very poor form
to ask someone else to share their illusions with you.  If you were
considering asking for a list of anonymous FTP sites with erotica pictures
-- don't.


VII. "REPOST" REQUESTS

Your absolutely last course of action should be to ask for a repost of
an article.  There are so very many other ways that the download and
decode process could have failed, you should be very sure that none of
these steps went south BEFORE asking for a repost.  After you have
exhausted all of the possibilities from your end, post to the discussion
newsgroup and request someone to send you their (working) copy.  If
enough people post requests of this sort, eventually the original
poster will usually re-post it.  If you're the only person with a
problem, someone is bound to send you the file, and you'll save the
net 'hundreds if not thousands of dollars.'
Also, just because you've already read an article doesn't mean it has
vanished off the face of the earth.  It is a fairly simple matter to get
back to articles you've already read (unless your site administrator
has removed them or they've expired).  There are essentially four methods
to accomplish this (examples assume you're using rn):
    1.  Assuming you know the article number(s) of the postings, just
        enter the article number from within that newsgroup.  Voila!
    2.  Since you probably DON'T know the article number, once you are
        in the appropriate newsgroup, you can step backwards or forwards
        through the articles by using "P" (previous) and "N" (next).
    3.  So you don't know the article number, and you don't want to step
        backwards through 50+ articles - what now?  As long as you
        remember something from the subject line of the article, you can
        use regular expressions to search backwards, using the command
        "?pattern?r", where pattern is the part you remember.  For
        example, you read an article with the word "howdy" in the subject,
        then decide later you want to get back to that article.  Just get
        into the right newsgroup, then enter "?howdy?r" and rn will search
        back through all the articles you've read to find the last one
        with "howdy" somewhere in the title.  Not the right one?  Enter
        "?", and rn will retrieve the next-to-last article with "howdy"
        in the title.
    4.  You can modify your .newsrc file so that articles are no longer
        marked as being read (this file usually resides in your home
        directory).  This is especially valuable if you forgot the name
        of a particular posting, but you know it was in the last ?x?
        number articles.  For example, if your .newsrc file reads:
        alt.binaries.pictures.misc: 1-2380
        ...and you know that the article you're looking for was in the
        last 30 or so postings, you could edit this line to read:
        alt.binaries.pictures.misc: 1-2350
        ...so that your news reader would think that you hadn't yet seen
        these articles (of course you'll have to re-sort through many
        other articles you've already seen, but hopefully you'll at least
        be able to find the "lost" article!).  IMPORTANT NOTE!!:  If you
        edit your .newsrc file, make *absolutely sure* that you aren't
        currently running a news reader session - this may munge the
        .newsrc file, or cause other undefined or undesirable side-effects.

By using these techniques, you won't have to ask for someone to e-mail you a
copy or to re-post the article, since you already have it and know how to
get back to it!


VIII. TEST POSTS

If you're trying out a new method of posting, or if you are posting a
picture for the first time, or if it's been a while since you posted a
picture and you're not really sure you remember all the details on how to
do it right, by all means, PLEASE DO A TEST POSTING FIRST!  Test postings
should *NEVER* be made in any of the pictures newsgroups or the pictures
discussion newsgroups - there are plenty of test newsgroups made for just
this purpose (local.test is your best choice, misc.test is also nice).
Wherever you do your test posting, make sure to add the line
Distribution: local
in the heading so your post doesn't go outside your site.  Make sure that
you can download, re-construct, and view the picture you've posted.  Then,
when you're satisfied that all is well, post it into the appropriate
pictures newsgroup!


IX. DEALING WITH THOSE WHO DON'T/WON'T FOLLOW ETIQUETTE

How should you react if you notice someone violating any of these items
of netiquette?  It depends on what they've done, of course.  In the case
of some posting that you find offensive, the best course of action is
just to ignore it.  95% of the time, these people are just trying to pull
someone's chain - and they are usually pretty successful (I can't tell
you how many megabytes of responses I've seen to just one sentence of
crap).  Another 3% of the time, someone has left themselves logged in and
is having a "joke" played on them by a "friend".  The other 2% of the time,
they actually believe what they are saying.  In this case, do you really
think that they care that you find what they say offensive?  Especially in
the last case, silence does more to thwart their behavior than anything
else.  Refusing to even acknowledge someone usually damages them more than
you could possibly hope to do by responding to them in any way.  Don't even
waste the time, effort, and money (after all, someone *is* paying for what
you say, somewhere) to follow up.

In the case of posting a discussion to a pictures newsgroup, probably the
*worst* thing you can possibly do is follow-up to the offending posting
and yourself violate the same rule!  After all, what good are you doing
by complaining about someone violating a rule you ignore yourself?  If you
really *must* follow-up to this type of posting, make sure and edit the
Newsgroups: line so that your post is re-directed to the discussion
newsgroup.  Another technique you might try is just ignoring the post -
if enough people did this, it's entirely likely that there would soon be
no discussion at all in the pictures newsgroups, except for the occasional
newbie or someone not wise enough to read this FAQ - and they'd learn
eventually.  I suggest the following course of action, in order of
preference:
    1) Respond via e-mail.  Gently suggest that they take discussion to
       the discussion newsgroup.  Answer the question/request if you can.
       Suggest that they read this FAQ to get more information and to
       better understand pictures newsgroup etiquette.
    2) Follow-up only if you can answer the question/request, re-directing
       your posting to the appropriate discussion newsgroup (edit the
       Newsgroups: line).  Suggest that they read this FAQ to get more
       information and to better understand pictures newsgroup etiquette.
    3) Ignore the posting.  They'll most likely get the hint eventually.
    4) Follow-up only if you can answer the question/request, re-directing
       the follow-ups of your posting to the appropriate discussion
       newsgroup (edit the Followup-to: line -- your posting will go to
       the pictures newsgroup, but anyone following up to your posting
       will go to the discussion newsgroup).  Gently suggest that this
       type of posting belongs in the discussion newsgroup, and that
       that's where follow-ups have been re-directed.  Maybe even throw
       in a small uuencoded picture at the end of your posting, just to
       make it "legal".  Suggest that they read this FAQ to get more
       information and to better understand pictures newsgroup etiquette.
The more people that respond in a positive way, the fewer the flame wars,
and the more pictures vs. discussion will end up in the pictures
newsgroups!  That *is* what we're here for, after all!

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
HISTORY OF THIS FAQ:
This file originally began life as the FAQ for alt.sex.pictures, and
was first created and maintained by Dave Read ([e-mail]).
Minor changes and a few additions to clean it up a bit and make it a little
more relevant to the alt.binaries.pictures group were made by Steven M.
Quinn ([e-mail]).  A hierarchy of pictures groups (all under
alt.binaries.pictures) was put into place in the fall of 1991, and since
that time, Jim Howard ([e-mail]) has come forward to take over
the maintenance of the "new" FAQ.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Acknowledgements (part 1):
  * Thanx to both James Ralston Crawford ([e-mail]) and
    Silver ([e-mail]) for input and suggestions on posting
    volume.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

That's about it for the "general etiquette" information.  General pictures
information is continued in part 2 of this FAQ.  If you have any
suggestions for things to include in future versions, don't hesitate
to let me know...

         ~ deej ~              | (If I were expressing Cadence's opinions, )
Jim Howard -- [e-mail] | (they'd probably make me wear a tie...    )
        (^:=             Flames cheerfully ignored.             =:^)
"I tell you this:  no eternal reward will forgive us now
 for wasting the dawn" -- Jim Morrison, The Doors