comp.sources.games Posting Guidelines

                     Copyright (c) 2003, Brian Edmonds
               $Revision: 1.4 $ $Date: 2003/03/25 01:49:27 $

   The latest version of this document can be found at
     * http://www.gweep.ca/~robomod/comp.sources.games/
     * post to the newsgroup or mailing list with the following text in
       the subject (without the quotes): "send file: guidelines.txt"

   Any inquiries, comments or suggestions should be sent to the group
   moderator at comp-sources-games-modera...@gweep.ca.
     _________________________________________________________________

Contents

     * Introduction
     * Charter
          + Miscellaneous Policies
          + Robomoderation
     * How To Submit a Post
     * The Mailing List
     _________________________________________________________________

Introduction

   The comp.sources.games newsgroup was created in April 1987 as
   net.sources.games, which Rich Salz, the moderator of net.sources
   wanted to split out the games posts. Bill Randle volunteered for the
   moderator's job, and ran the group through its renaming to
   mod.sources.games and finally to comp.sources.games in the Great
   Renaming. In the mid-1990s with the rise of the web, Bill began
   looking for a new direction and moderator for the group.

   In March 2003 moderation of the group was passed to Brian Edmonds, who
   is running the group and a companion, gated mailing list. Bill is
   continuing to serve as a co-moderator.

   Since its creation a number of control messages have been sent which
   at some sites appear to have erroneously changed the status of the
   group to unmoderated. If this is the case at your site, you should
   bring it to the attention of your news admin, as any postings you make
   to a moderated group which is not properly recognized as such at your
   site will be silently discarded at any site where the group is
   correctly carried as moderated.
     _________________________________________________________________

Charter

   The original charter has been lost in the mists of history. The
   original operation of the group was to post game sources in volumes
   and issues, somewhat like a magazine. These posts were highly
   structured and were automatically processed by a number of archives to
   provide additional access to the sources by FTP, BITNET, and UUCP.

   These days the web provides a much better distribution medium for
   large chunks of data than Usenet, so the group's posting policies are
   adapting to hopefully remain relevant. Source postings are still
   welcome, preferably in shar (shell archive) format to avoid problems
   with binary posting filters. Posts larger than 50k in size are
   discouraged, and posts larger than 200k will be rejected, since as
   posts become larger more and more sites will be filtering them out.
   Large postings should instead be put on a website and the
   description/URL posted instead.

   To streamline the post approval process and spam filtering process,
   all posts must use a subject line tag of the format [TAG] (square
   brackets surrounding a three letter, upper case code). Valid tags are:
     * [ADM] Administrative postings. This will be used primarily by the
       moderators and others are discouraged from using it.
     * [FAQ] Frequently Asked Questions postings. These should be
       routine, scheduled postings that address one or more common
       questions on the newsgroup.
     * [SRC] A source posting. A uuencoded tar or zip file is acceptable,
       but a shar (shell archive) file is strongly recommended to avoid
       misplaced binary filters. Binary MIME attachments are not
       accepted, since the moderation software is not currently smart
       enough to distinguish between desireable and undesireable payloads
       (eg. viruses or HTML vs. a source tar file). Multipart postings
       are possible to get around the limits on the size of a single
       post, but longer files should be placed on the web instead, and
       just the description and URL posted to the group. Please do not
       post just the URL -- always include a description of the sources.
     * [PAT] A source patch. When bug fixes or features are released for
       previously posted sources, it may be more space efficient to
       simply post a patch. Including a description of the changes made
       by the patch is strongly recommended.
     * [DIS] A discussion post. Questions or observations on games that
       have been posted to this group are welcome, as well as
       meta-discussion about game sources in general. Specific questions
       about programming languages or game development environments
       should probably be raised in other groups where they are
       specifically addressed.
     * [REQ] A request post. If you're looking for sources to a specific
       game, or type of game, you can post it with this tag. Also if you
       want to request a feature be added to a game previously posted
       here. Please do not use this group for programming questions, as
       there are other groups dedicated to such topics.

  Miscellaneous Policies

   The moderation software may (now or possibly in the future) enforce
   the following policies:
     * Postings must be in plain text. In particular no HTML or mixed
       text and HTML posts will be allowed. Excessive quoting and large
       sigs are also not allowed. Any post with more than 70% quoted
       material or a sig in excess of 512 bytes will be rejected.
     * Postings must be formatted within 76 characters in width (limiting
       your lines to 72 characters is recommended), and also must not
       exhibit the long/short/long/short/etc misformatting that some
       posting agents can produce when misconfigured. When posting
       sources that exceed this width, you can include the phrase "long
       lines" somewhere in the body (such as in the descriptive paragraph
       at the top of your post), and the software will allow lines up to
       160 characters long.
     * Crossposting is not currently allowed. Please bring any groups
       that you think it would be beneficial to allow crossposting with
       to the attention of the moderators, and relaxing this will be
       given a fair consideration.
     * Mail address blacklisting and whitelisting may be implemented as
       deemed necessary. In addition a number of anti-spam filters are in
       place, and will be expanded as needed.

   All posts (with a working return address) will either be returned with
   a rejection notice, or posted to the newsgroup and mailing list. One
   exception is that rejection notices for the same error are suppressed
   for a few minutes after the first one is sent to reduce the danger of
   the robomoderator being used as a mailbombing agent.

   Posting with a non-replyable address is strongly discouraged. If you
   feel you must post with such an address, please make sure you are not
   using one in a valid mail domain; appending .invalid to the address is
   the recommended way to ensure this.

  Robomoderation

   The robomoderation software (robomod) enforces various anti-spam and
   text formatting requirements, as well as optionally allowing posters
   to register their addresses. Note that in order to receive rejection
   notices or other information from robomod it must have a valid email
   address for you. More information on the registration process,
   including how to use munged addreses, can be found at
     * http://www.gweep.ca/~robomod/register.html
     * post to the newsgroup or mailing list with the following text in
       the subject (without the quotes): "send file: register.txt"

   Remember, you do not need to register to post, but if you post with an
   address that does not deliver to you, then you will not receive any
   bounce messages from robomod unless you register a real address for it
   to use.
     _________________________________________________________________

How To Submit a Post

   At a correctly configured site you should simply be able to post to
   comp.sources.games and everything will be managed for you behind the
   scenes. If you find this does not work for you, you can submit
   directly to the submission agent by mailing your posting to
   comp-sources-ga...@gweep.ca.

   Please try the newsgroup first, and be sure to bring any problems to
   the attention of your local news administrator so that they can be
   dealt with.
     _________________________________________________________________

The Mailing List

   All postings to comp.sources.games are also distributed to the mailing
   list comp-sources-ga...@gweep.ca, which is available in both regular
   and digest format. For subscription information, send email to
   comp-sources-games-requ...@gweep.ca or visit the list webpage at
   http://www.gweep.ca/mailman/listinfo.cgi/comp-sources-games.

   Likewise, all postings to the mailing list are also distributed to the
   newsgroup, so subscribers can use whichever of the newsgroup, list, or
   digest formats is most comfortable.
     _________________________________________________________________