From: AFPA Moderators <afpa-mod@lspace.org> Subject: [FAQ] alt.fan.pratchett.announce FAQ Newsgroups: alt.fan.pratchett.announce,alt.fan.pratchett,alt.books.pratchett Summary: This FAQ documents the guidelines for posting to the moderated announcement newsgroup alt.fan.pratchett.announce. Followup-To: poster Organization: AFPA Moderators Keywords: Pratchett Discworld FAQ alt.fan.pratchett.announce Approved: afpa-mod@lspace.org X-Autoposter: This FAQ was autoposted by <leo@lspace.org> X-Archive-name: pratchett/afpa-faq X-Posting-Frequency: monthly (on the 7th) X-Last-modified: 17 August 1999 X-Version: 1.46 X-URL: <http://www.lspace.org/faqs/> Archive-name: pratchett/afpa-faq Posting-Frequency: monthly (on the 7th) Last-modified: 17 August 1999 Version: 1.46 URL: <http://www.lspace.org/faqs/> Frequently Asked Questions for Alt.fan.pratchett.announce, with answers ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Version 1.46, last modified August 17th 1999 Plagiarised from mpk's original 1) What's AFPA for? What you'd expect it to be for. Vaguely importantish announcements concerning Terry Pratchett and his works, happenings, book releases, tours, important happenings, pissups, anything as long as it's Pratchettish and not answered in the FAQ. 2) When was this group created? November 1994, after the usual alt.config discussions (no objections, it was a normal pregnancy and birth). The readership of AFP felt that there was a need for a moderated, low-traffic (well, lower than AFP) group for important stuff. Mike was forced to obey... 3) Who moderates it? Andy Fawcett <tap@lspace.org>, and Robert Collier <rob@lspace.org> do, bless'em. In case of dispute, Darrell Ottery <darrell@lspace.org> acts as comoderator. If they are all indisposed, they drag Mike K <mpk@lspace.org> out of retirement! Disputes don't happen very often, though, as few spammers are dumb enough to complain. Correspondence to the moderators should be addressed to <afpa-mod-request@lspace.org>, although submissions should go to <afpa-mod@lspace.org> 4) Dear Friend, My name is Dave Rhodes. In 1991 my car was... No thanks. Unsolicited advertising will only be posted if it's Pratchett-related. Clarecraft, CMOT and their kin are Allowed. MAKE.MONEY.FAST, Green Card spams, Skinny Dip and so on are not. A particularly dim view will be taken of those mass-posters who bypass the moderation system. Spammers WILL be reported to postmaster@site, or as necessary. 5) Does anyone have the words to A Wizards Staff Has A Knob On The End'? Or The Hedgehog Can Never Be Buggered At All? Yes. Lots of people do. The answer can be found in the alt.fan.pratchett FAQ, which pops up with mysterious regularity in both AFP and AFPA. 6) Anyone got the rules to Cripple Mr Onion? See (5). If we're in a benevolent mood then you'll get a pointer to the FAQ. If we're not then your article will probably get dropped unceremoneously in the bit bucket. In summary, if you're new to the group then please, please read the AFP FAQ before asking questions, especially in the .announce group. There's a large possibility that it's been answered in the past. 7) Has anyone noticed that in Mort, Mort is Death in French? Quite probably. If you have a great new annotation which everyone just has to know about immediately, first take a look at the Annotated Pratchett File (AFP), maintained by the excessively spare time-endowed Leo Breebaart, and available from the L-Space Web, at http://www.lspace.org/. If you find that your annotation isn't in there, we'd love to hear about it. 8) My site doesn't carry AFPA, sigh. I feel deprived. Quite a lot of sites have become, quite sensibly, choosy about creating new alt groups. AFPA was discussed and newgrouped following all the rules, so most sites should have it. If yours doesn't, send a *polite* message to your sysadmins asking if there's any chance they could carry it. It's a low traffic group, and most people will happily create it on their systems if requested. In the case of more drastic problems (leaf sites not being able to carry it as their upstream feed doesn't have it) this will need a little more negotiation. Talk very nicely indeed to your sysadmins. Ply them with drink. 9) Hey! I submitted my article a whole TWELVE HOURS ago and it hasn't been posted, you useless git! Chill. We do this as a particularly warped hobby. We're not in front of our computers all the time, (it just seems like it!) and approving articles takes time. If we're in a hurry, it might just have to wait. Still, this doesn't mean we can't get a decent turnround - most articles should be turned round in <24 hours. Your articles are generally approved quicker if you're nice to us, format your submissions properly (see 10) and don't send us messages like the one above (it has happened). If you're *really* nice to us and ply us with drink, then your articles may move faster. Free drink, expensive scotch (Islay malt particularly appreciated), money, whatever.(*) 10) How should my postings be formatted? There's been a bit of an increase recently in badly formatted postings. We don't have the time to tidy up people's spolling mistooks, line lengths, etc, for them, so please read the following hints on "how to not get your article returned for being messy". We *will* start bouncing people's articles soon if they don't conform at least vaguely these guidelines. a) Postings should be less than 80 characters wide, and preferably around 72-74. The following device, known as a clueler, gives some idea of the acceptable page width for usenet articles. Thanks to Wolfgang Schelongowski <ws@xivic.ruhr.de>. | | |--------+---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+---------+--| 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123 b) Use a fixed-width font (i.e. Courier) for composing articles, rather than a proportional one like Times. In particular, do NOT try and do ASCII art like maps in a proportional font - it will come out as a complete mess on most people's screens. In short, don't assume anybody's using the same font as you are. c) Provide a meaningful Subject: header - for instance, "Oxford Meet 17 August - Details" is *much* more meaningful than "Announcement", which still appears on a depressing proportion of submissions. d) Don't put important information like dates of meets *only* in the subject line of an article -- put it prominently in the body as well. If it's hard to find, some people (like this moderator) might get confused and start sending you mail. e) Articles with no valid return email address will NOT be posted. This is because i) it's a violation of the RFC, and ii) I don't like it. f) It sounds petty, but please check your spelling, grammar and punctuation to be at least legible. It makes your article look that much nicer.. g) Try to avoid the use of high-bit characters (also known as 8-bit) where possible. Believe it or not, there are still people out there who cannot see them! The most common one we see is the symbol for 'Pounds Sterling', and a suggested alternative for this is 'UKP' 11) I don't want junk email! I'm going to mangle my email address so spammers can't get at me! Articles submitted with a mangled email address in an attempt to foil spammers will be fixed before posting, or rejected if we can't work out how to fix them. Posting mangled headers is not the solution to the spam problem, it's giving in to the spammers. See 10(e) as well. Anyone wishing to discuss this should take it up with us via email. 12) What is the charter of this crappy group, anyway? See below. (*) For the humourless, this is a joke. You _don't_ have to bribe the moderator. (I wouldn't say no, though..) ---------------------- cut out 'n'keep... ------------------------ CHARTER FOR ALT.FAN.PRATCHETT.ANNOUNCE ====================================== v0.35, 17th August 1999 Mike Knell, mpk@lspace.org. AFPA moderator. a) The name of the Newsgroup shall be alt.fan.pratchett.announce. b) The Newsgroup shall be moderated to keep bandwidth down, and to redirect followups into alt.fan.pratchett. Moderation is not intended to be a restriction on subject matter. c) Suitable subjects for posting on alt.fan.pratchett.announce include: i) Book announcements. ii) Plays and stuff. iii) Anything Terry cares to post. [1] iv) Signing tours. v) Important results of a.f.p. research projects (merkins, bread products, but only the important stuff, no really) vi) Anything else announcementish. [2] d) Postings that the Moderator deems unsuitable will be returned to the sender with an explanation as to why and suggestions as to how it could be made suitable. Submitters who feel their articles have been unjustly rejected may ask for the article to be reviewed by a co-moderator, who will make a final decision as to whether the article should be posted or not. The Moderator shall be bound by this decision. e) The Moderator shall apply a light moderation policy, just to stop the signal-noise ratio and keep things fairly announce-ish. Followups shall be set to alt.fan.pratchett. f) Martin Bridges is a silly sausage. [3] g) The moderation address shall be <afpa-mod@lspace.org>. h) Please Keep Off The Grass. i) Books MUST be returned before the date stamped on the card. A fine shall be payable for books which are returned late. j) You have won first prize in a beauty contest. Collect fifty pounds. k) In the event of the Moderator being uncertain about whether something's announceish or not, {s}he will pass the article to a co-moderator for their decision. l) Anyone concerned about forged postings in their name is encouraged to PGP-authenticate their articles using the AFPA public key, available below. All posted articles will also be signed, with the same public key. m) The Moderator shall be responsible to the readership of a.f.p and a.b.p. This Charter may be modified by general concensus of the readership of a.f.p, who may also replace the Moderator if they think {s}he is doing a bad job. n) Go to gaol. Go directly to gaol. Do not pass go. Do not collect 200 pounds. o) That's all, folks. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] The general idea is that Terry should know what's relevant.. [2] This is a bit of a catch-all, really. As long as it seems relatively interesting and announcementish, we'll post it. Null problemo. [3] I have no idea where this came from.. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The AFPA PGP Public Key -----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- Version: 2.6.3i mQBNAzU/jNMAAAECALtGSLET8bYQRzERF4ijmbwiwTctvA/tcQBzhNVJ9lk96hlB 2iHaU7fnlZS0ftZqHvT0I1z3mRRvUSdh7O13LrkABRG0O2FsdC5mYW4ucHJhdGNo ZXR0LmFubm91bmNlIG1vZGVyYXRvcnMgPGFmcGEtbW9kQGxzcGFjZS5vcmc+iQBV AwUQNT+CLMwDYDS4V4OpAQGYKQH9E4JjPEr+hyluAYxBVhJ9kXenwTExSsf4pFpz ni7qel3h4vgAMnvbNEjuheQfdwnv6TKtaDObrGBsF/414vEsa4kAlQMFEDU/k4qe pk1NVvOAvQEBiEQEAKYEPaYGFLKI7SuAt3eEOrDP03J96RVa7XE3NcBpkmPPU6X8 5CAoxZFs9yLlIfArXz2M9wXBhWdL2EY3jKqnzjHuebDYhBXRvZ19PmmpV2QdLnnQ fSJqhjXJt1R7ogzjdDq5JGXYXDQI4viZEQFJj/IPaBbaD6w+Q3yjtabQbSZQiQCV AwUQNT+TcnJ+3VJv/tjBAQGhWgP/b2ktvA/KHcPqO3LLWKfVBhTgeX0X1PUJNJ8X dOWhHArz3e4A6kAd2h56n+DDJynM5l/UNnAbrPGJPD8It6quEj24kT6w+0HDYjk7 4eF7vlSKXU5AQbUTYlQRPdRiXvhtvnwxv3L7MTW42qSPIUOt03yG1MY8dxdpjb/F KDT7yMSJAFUDBRA1P4zWUSdh7O13LrkBAd8/Af9XY4KjzS6DcUI1WKOZhQKkbvp2 eJuS1smPaXBhsC0zhK/DvSlIGzxrH0s89aqOEDM9aHYvYajpiYlxcRgFm0Pi =noi7 -----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK----- ------- -------