[837] in comp.os.os2.announce archive
** Welcome to comp.os.os2.announce !!! **
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Mick Brown)
Tue Mar 19 23:17:34 1996
To: os2ann.DISCUSS@bloom-picayune.MIT.EDU
Date: 19 Mar 1996 18:42:14 GMT
From: lfirrantello@BIX.com (Mick Brown)
Welcome to comp.os.os2.announce, the newsgroup where 87,000* readers find out
about:
o new OS/2 applications
o updates to FTP archives of OS/2 programs
o OS/2 user group meetings
o new OS/2 publications
o updates to the OS/2 Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) lists
o news about OS/2-related workshops, seminars, and demonstrations
o beta testing programs for coming OS/2 applications
o new releases of OS/2 and ServicePaks for existing versions
o miscellaneous OS/2 informational news
This occasional posting is mainly for the benefit of new subscribers to the
comp.os.os2.announce newsgroup.
Some topics are not appropriate for this group:
o questions about OS/2 or OS/2 software
o statements of opinion about OS/2 or OS/2 software
o excessive advertising "hype"
o non-OS/2 related announcements
o in general: if it doesn't help others use or learn about OS/2 it belongs
in another newsgroup.
There are other newsgroups in the comp.os.os2.* hierarchy and elsewhere where
these topics are welcomed. [To help readers find an appropriate place to post,
I will be posting a beta level FAQ on the charters of the other comp.os.os2.*
groups shortly.]
First things first
------------------
This group is moderated. This means all posts are checked by the moderator
before appearing in the group. The moderator is like an editor in a newspaper:
he accepts, rejects, and may make minor changes to submitted articles before
they are published in the group. The editor's (moderator's) charge is to
ensure that articles conform to the charter listed above.
Posting to comp.os.os2.announce
-------------------------------
For many people, posting to this (or another moderated group) appears the same
as posting to an unmoderated group. The main difference is that the posting
takes longer to appear on their news server. However some news software will
bounce the message back to the poster who will have to manually mail the
submission to os2_ann_req@bix.com instead of having the news software handle
the mail forwarding behind the scenes.
Replies to postings in this group will be directed to an appropriate
unmoderated group. The submitter may specify his preference for the discussion
group by supplying a "Followup-To:" header specifying the intended group. I
will try to supply the most appropriate group if this header is missing. To
state this another way, discussion of articles posted in comp.os.os2.announce
will show up in another newsgroup.
To have an announcement appear on comp.os.os2.announce, you may post it using
your news software or send me the text of the posting via email. Please adhere
to the rules given below. My Internet address for submissions is:
os2_ann_req@bix.com
Those without access to Internet can send mail to:
Mick Brown
COOA Moderator
21 Young Street
New Haven, CT 06511-2914 USA
Submission guidelines
---------------------
1. I prefer electronic submissions in plain text format. Please email to the
submissions address above or post to the group.
I can process paper submissions received through the postal service. But
this will slow processing, and possibly introduce typographical errors.
Please indicate "for COOA" on the envelope and somewhere on the material
otherwise I will assume that it is advertising directed to me personally
and not for publication to the comp.os.os2.announce group.
2. Please submit with your suggested subject in the "Subject:" header.
3. No anonymous postings will be accepted. Please supply your name, as you
like it to appear in the header, along with your email address, so that the
moderator can correspond with the submitter in case there is some question
about the material. You may request that your email address be withheld
from the posting, if you are concerned about your personal mailbox being
inundated with inquiries.
4. If you are not the originator of the information, you must supply the
source for the information. The idea here is to cut down on the occurrence
of incorrect information. If the source is a person, please provide the
name of the person and that person's email address, if available. Also,
please make certain that you have the source's permission to submit the
material to comp.os.os2.announce for wide distribution over the Internet,
and let that person know that he/she will be identified as the source. If
that person refuses to be identified as the source, then the posting will
not be accepted. That is, no anonymous sources will be accepted.
If the source is not a person, such as a BBS or something received via
direct mail, please identify the source and consider whether the material
was intended for public dissemination. In particular, some special offers
are restricted to geographical areas, whereas the default for USENET
distribution is global. Unfortunately, there does not appear to be a way
for the moderator to restrict distribution to a geographical area that does
not include the moderator's area. Thus readers in Europe will generally not
see postings about OS/2 user group meetings in North America, but North
American readers will see postings about meetings elsewhere in the world.
5. The content of the message should be of an announcement nature. Suitable
categories include:
o new OS/2 applications, or new versions of applications
o updates to FTP archives of OS/2 programs
o OS/2 user group meetings
o new OS/2 publications
o updates to the OS/2 Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) lists
o news about OS/2-related workshops, seminars, and demonstrations
o beta testing programs for coming OS/2 applications
o new releases of OS/2 and ServicePaks for existing versions
o miscellaneous OS/2 informational news
Note that items about awards and other kudos have traditionally been
diverted to comp.os.os2.advocacy, where they seem more appropriate.
6. If you want to speed the processing of your submission,
it would help if you constructed the header in the following way:
Reply-To: Whoever should receive email regarding your article
Submitted by: Internet-Email-Address (your name in parentheses)
Source: Source's Name
Contact: Who or how to contact, if contacts are desired.
Date-to-post: DATE [Moderator assumes ASAP unless indicated here.]
File-URLs: If files are announced.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
7. Netiquette frowns upon the use of USENET for commercial purposes. However,
a newsgroup such as comp.os.os2.announce is inherently commercial to a
certain extent, given that readers have a great deal of interest in new
product announcements. The suitability of such announcements will be
determined by the ratio of objective technical information to subjective
marketing hype or advertising fluff. Examples:
objective: Product X is a full 32-bit native OS/2 PM application.
subjective: Product X is the acknowledged world leader in word processing
software!
objective: Product Y carries a list price of $179.
subjective: Product Y outclasses the competition with the lowest
price to performance ratio in the industry!
The moderator reserves the right to edit submissions that contain mostly
useful information but a bit of fluff. Excessively fluffy submissions will
either be returned to the submitter for modification, if otherwise deemed
of interest to the readers, or simply ignored.
8. Heavily cross-posted submissions will be ignored. If I receive a submission
for posting to comp.os.os2.announce, and subsequently read the exact same
posting in most, if not all, the other OS/2 newsgroups, then there is
really no point in wasting additional bandwidth to post it in
comp.os.os2.announce as well. Cross-posting is beneficial only to the
extent that additional readers see the message. If a message appears in
several other OS/2 newsgroups, especially comp.os.os2.misc, which is the
most widely read of the OS/2 newsgroups, then there are very few additional
readers to be gained by an additional posting in comp.os.os2.announce. In
such cases, the annoyance factor outweighs the benefit of a handful of
additional readers.
9. Please include full instruction on obtaining any files mentioned in your
article. Full URLs are preferred for FTP such as:
ftp://hobbes.nmsu.edu/os2/comm/xyz231.zip
instead of:
xyz is available in the comm directory at HOBBES.
If a file goes into an incoming directory please indicate the directory to
which the file is expected to be moved.
For files on BBSs please indicate phone number, how to get to the correct
file area, and the full filename.
It is permissible to replace version numbers embedded in the filename
portion with ??? or * wildcard characters since it is expected that version
numbers may change rapidly.
10. I prefer that user's groups indicate: the next few meeting dates and
locations, email contact, any meeting fees, and any publicly accessible
resources such as UG FTP and WWW sites. Optional but preferred is a phone
contact.
11. Suggested keywords for subject lines:
BBS BOOK COURSE DEMO DRIVER GAME
NEWSLTR RESELLER SEMINAR WEB
BETA -alpha/beta/gamma software testing programs
FREEWARE -free software
IRC -IRC internet chat meetings
MAGAZINE -paper magazine
PR -press release
SOFTWARE -non-commercially distributed software
UG -users' group
VENDOR -commercial software or hardware supplier
ZINE -electronic magazine
Summary checklist:
a) Your suggested subject line
b) your name, as you would like it to appear in the announcement
c) your email address, where the moderator can reach you in the
event of a question
d) note whether you would prefer that your email address be withheld
from the announcement
e) the name of the source
f) the email address of the source, if a person
g) acknowledgment of permission from the source to submit to USENET
h) the text of the announcement, restricted to 79 characters per line
i) include any relevant filenames and locations for shareware products
NOTE: Please use URL format.
j) filling out the following template will speed processing:
Reply-To: Whoever should receive email regarding your article
Submitted by: Internet-Email-Address (your name in parentheses)
Source: Source's Name
Contact: Who or how to contact, if contacts are desired.
Date-to-post: DATE [Moderator assumes ASAP unless indicated here.]
File-URLs: If files are announced.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
You may also include a "Followup-To: " newsgroup line if desired.
Turnaround Time
---------------
The moderator is a volunteer. Moderating comp.os.os2.announce is necessarily a
lower priority task, therefore some delay will occasionally occur, depending
on workload. More extended absences that would prevent me from processing
submissions will usually be noted in the newsgroup. If the task of moderating
this newsgroup ever becomes too heavy, I would expect to step down, rather
than letting the newsgroup stagnate.
* comp.os.os2.announce readership estimate for 1995 May, taken from the
occasional posting in the newsgroup news.lists. Consult that newsgroup for
information on how the survey is conducted. The margin of error is
approximately +/- 5 percentage points. The monthly readership estimate:
40,000 1995 July
87,000 1995 May
71,000 1995 March
72,000 1995 January
46,000 1994 July
46,000 1994 June
67,000 1994 May (skewed result)
69,000 1994 April (skewed result)
45,000 1994 January
50,000 1993 November
49,000 1993 October
35,000 1993 September
30,000 1993 August
31,000 1993 July
26,000 1993 June
22,000 1993 May
===============================
Reposted with modification by
--Mick Brown (lfirrantello@bix.com)
Moderator comp.os.os2.announce
PS: I am working on further revisions of posting guidelines to help
maintain the high information value of this newsgroup and to enable me to
process submissions faster. I welcome suggestions regarding this document
or any other matter touching this group. Please direct suggestions to the
address above and not the group.
