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UKNETNEWS - Welcome to uk.* Usenet announcement
Always look at UK Net News web site and uk.net.news.announce for the most up to date version.
From: chl@clw.cs.man.ac.uk (Charles Lindsey)
Newsgroups: uk.net.news.announce,uk.net.news.config,.......
Subject: FAQ: Welcome to Usenet UK
Followup-To: poster
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1999 15:59:11 GMT
Sender: chl@clw.cs.man.ac.uk (Charles Lindsey)
Approved: chl@clw.cs.man.ac.uk (with permission from the various moderators)
Summary: A periodic posting drawing attention to the management of
the uk.* groups.
Lines: 97
Welcome to Usenet-UK
--------------------
Welcome to the great Jungle known as Usenet, and especially to the little bit of it
known as Usenet-UK. You are now in Cyberspace, which is not quite like the Real World.
As with other spaces where people live, there are rules of polite behaviour one is
expected to observe. Collectively, these rules are known as "netiquette", and
the first such rule is simply this
IGNORANCE OF THE PRINCIPLES OF NETIQUETTE IS NO EXCUSE.
I warned you that this was a jungle. But there is no need to get lost. There
are several newsgroups that contain regular information about how to survive, and even
what is going on in the remoter parts.
THESE ARE NEWSGROUPS THAT EVERYBODY SHOULD SUBSCRIBE TO.
news.announce.newusers
----------------------
This contains those articles you should not be ignorant of. No need to have
read them all, but you should be aware of what is there.
news.announce.important
-----------------------
Anything posted here is important enough that _everybody_ in Cyberspace
should see it. But it rarely gets beyond a couple of announcements per year.
news.announce.newgroups
-----------------------
Follow this group to find about new Usenet newsgroups that are being proposed, or to
exercise your vote as to whether they are worth creating. It averages maybe half a
dozen posts per day, so it does not take long for a quick scan to see whether there is
anything in your sphere. If so, then you can switch over to 'news.groups' to follow its
progress.
Note that 'news.announce.newgroups' only covers groups in the 'Big-8'
hierarchies, which are:
comp.* humanities.* misc.* news.* rec.* sci.* soc.* talk.*
Those groups form the "core" of Usenet, and are widely available. In addition
there are other hierarchies (National, Regional, Organization-Local) having their own
places to announce such things. YOUR national hierarchy is 'uk.*', which brings us to:
uk.net.news.announce
--------------------
This carries announcements of proposed new groups in 'uk.*'. The UK groups are _your_
hierarchy. Make sure you know what is going on by taking this group.
Less than 10 posts per week on average, and in addition to announcements concerning
New Groups it carries regular information about how 'uk.*' is managed. Again, there is
a Companion Group, 'uk.net.news.config', where you
can follow the progress of any new group proposal of interest.
SO HOW IS UK.* MANAGED?
Well, ultimately by the Administrators of the machines that carry it. But, to keep some
sort of order in the Jungle (particularly as to what newsgroups actually comprise 'uk.*'),
there are some Guidelines and a Committee to oversee their operation.
And the Committee is elected by YOU.
So, if you follow 'uk.net.news.announce', you will see the Guidelines and
other documents published on a regular basis and, once a year in September, you will see
a Call For Nominations for the Committee followed, in October, by an invitation to Vote
in the election.
So, ignore uk.net.news.announce' if you wish, but don't expect much sympathy
when you find you don't like how it has all been done.
WHERE CAN I FIND THESE DOCUMENTS?
1. Wait for the them to come around on 'uk.net.news.announce', or
read them again from that newsgroup (they should still be around on your
provider).
2. If you have Web Access, look at UK Net News
where you will find them all, plus much other useful information about
Usenet, both in the UK and Worldwide.
3. If none of the above methods works for you, send email to
infolist@pcserv.demon.co.uk
with the following in the body of the message
index
help
end
and you will be rewarded with a long list of documents that you can
summon.
Note that this message is posted on behalf of the UK Usenet Committee. It
will be posted every 30 days to a different batch of newsgroups within uk.*,
such that every group should see it twice a year. A few groups (notably
uk.net.news.announce) will receive it every time.
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