Usenet is one of the oldest ways of communicating on the net, and has its own "culture." People have been holding conversations on this system for years. Some of the individual conversation-threads are themselves many years old. Users of newsgroups have their own set of rules and guidelines for how to post articles and where to post them.
It is important for new users to acquaint themselves with this culture before trying to add to conversations. Because of this, each user may want to begin by reviewing articles posted by three groups:
- news.announce.newusers contains a series of regularly posted articles on what Usenet is and how users should behave.
- news.newusers.questions is a group where new users can ask questions and receive answers from the "old-timers."
- news.answers contains lists of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) for specific newsgroups and hierarchies.
Other sources of information:
- check to see if the newsgroup you are interested in has FAQs posted to the newsgroup itself.
- search the web to see if the newsgroup has a page for FAQs and other information.
Consider carefully what you want to say when you are about to post an article. You should be as certain as possible that it hasn't been said before, and that it really needs to be said at all. Your message, along with millions of others, is being sent and resent many times over long distances--which adds up to a lot of money being spent each day for transferring articles. The more posts, and the longer each post, the more expensive it becomes. So post only when necessary, and keep your posts as brief as possible while still getting your message across.
You should also be certain that the newsgroup you are posting to is really the correct forum. The Usenet system has been divided and subdivided deliberately so that people with common interests can discuss specific topics. When someone comes along, particularly someone who is clearly new to the system, and posts something to the discussion that has no bearing on what the newsgroup is about, the regulars tend to get somewhat upset.
The best approach is to read the newsgroup for a month before posting. Make sure that the topic you wish to bring up is relevant to the newsgroup's discussion. If it isn't, then go back to the list of newsgroups in "news.announce.newusers" and try to find one that is related to your topic. Chances are fairly good that somewhere in the vast hierarchy of newsgroups, there is one that is right for what you want to talk about.
The following "Summary of Things to Remember" is excerpted from "A Primer on How to Work with the Usenet Community," by Chuq Von Rospach. The whole article is worth reading. You can find it in "news.announce.newusers."
Summary of Things to Remember
- Never forget that the person on the other side is human.
- Don't blame system administrators for their users' behavior.
- Be careful what you say about others.
- Be brief.
- Your postings reflect upon you; be proud of them.
- Think about your audience.
- Be careful with humor and sarcasm.
- Use e-mail if you want only the person you are responding to view your message.
- Read all follow-ups and don't repeat what has already been said.
- Double-check follow-up newsgroups and distributions.
- Be careful about copyrights and licenses.
- Cite appropriate references.
- When summarizing, summarize.
- Use descriptive subjects in headers so that readers can avoid information they don't want (e.g. how a movie ends.)
- Don't overdo signatures.