Charter for dfw.internet.providers
news...@cirr.com
[dfw.internet.providers.]
[All discussion should take place in dfw.usenet.config]
[The charters for dfw groups are found at http://www.cirr.com/dfw/charters]
For your newsgroups file:
dfw.internet.providers
Commercial Internet access in North Central Texas
_________________________________________________________________
CHARTER
Area of Coverage of dfw.internet.providers
dfw.internet.providers is a newsgroup for discussions directly
related products and services of Internet Service Providers
(ISPs) that operate in the North Central Texas area, roughly
encompassing an area from the Louisiana and Oklahoma borders to
Eastland TX to the west and Hillsboro TX to the south.
This includes (with slight variances to accommodate local
dialing areas): Wichita Falls, Archer City, Graham,
Breckenridge, Eastland, Stephenville, Glen Rose, Cleburne,
Hillsboro, Corsicana, Athens, Jacksonville, Henderson, Joaquin,
and all cities in Texas north or east of the listed cities.
This includes the Fort Worth and Dallas metropolitan area.
Intended Use of dfw.internet.providers
This group is meant to discuss, exchange information and have
questions and/or problems resolved that directly relate to
Internet Provision and the mechanics thereof. This includes:
1. Announcements of new ISPs operating in the area defined
above. (Should come from the new ISP, and be posted no more
than four times during their first six months of operation.)
2. Changes in service or pricing in existing ISPs operating in
the area defined above. This would include announcing a new
service or product (Should come from the ISP in question, and
posted only once.)
3. Announcement of the demise of former ISPs. (Anyone can handle
this, but don't dwell on the departed.)
4. Emergency announcements pertaining to catastrophic outages at
an Internet Provider operating in the area defined above,
where the normal ISP-provided facilities are not available
due to flood, fire, storms, theft, or other major mishaps.
(These messages should be forwarded via an unaffected ISP
with the blessing of the impacted ISP or ISPs, and should
cease promptly when normal operations have resumed at the
affected ISP. This type of announcement posting should be
limited to one per day until the emergency has ended or 30
days, whichever comes first.) All postings on this subject
should cease within one week of the end of the emergency.
5. Issues pertaining to telephone companies and other
customer-to-ISP connectivity providers, such as: low analog
connect speeds, telco metering, telco pricing or price
increases ISDN, tariff or LATA issues, PUC activity, CLECs,
cable, DSL and wireless connectivity, data or Internet taxes
and surcharges, and closely-related issues to any of these
items.
6. Questions from individuals about computer, modem and Internet
software setup (PPP stacks, browsers, newsreaders, etc),
configuration and other system issues, ONLY when help from
the ISP has not resolved the question. If at all possible,
utilize the support group of your ISP before cluttering this
newsgroup. Chances are, the answer from the ISP that you buy
service from will be more relevant to your situation. For
example, ask your ISP what DNS address and other PPP stack
settings should be used with their service, instead of asking
dfw.internet.providers.
7. Discussion of wide-reaching events in the Internet or
computer hardware or computer software issues that directly
impact or will impact Internet access or usage in the area
defined above. Examples, new major backbone carrier setting
up a peering facility in the area, new release of a browser
from a software vendor, major announcement in computing
technology in software or hardware areas.
8. Technical papers, reports and other materials of interest to
a significant number of the readers of dfw.internet.providers
AND related to the provision of Internet service in the area
defined above, OR as a reply or response to a discussion
already in progress in dfw.internet.providers, which should
have met other criteria. Move drifting discussions to another
group with the use of the Followup-To: header.
9. Surveys or other one-time solicitation of opinion by ISPs or
individuals on topics DIRECTLY related to Internet Provision
in the area defined above. Repeated/recurring solicitation by
the same person or same entity on the same subject is not
acceptable.
Organizations or individuals posting queries that are to be
used by the press in any form must clearly declare this use
of the responses gathered CLEARLY. No undercover news
reporters looking for a story on the Internet, OK? No
publishing of quotes without prior permission.
10. Announcements of meetings, demonstrations, projects, forums
and other activity directly related to the technical aspects
of Internet Provision or Internet Service in the area defined
above. This also includes summaries or reviews of
meetings/events from the same types of groups.
Acceptable examples in this category include:
1. ACM, DECUS, or similar open organizations.
2. Computer clubs that utilize the Internet and/or BBSes.
3. Free or low-cost Internet TECHNICAL Training classes
provided by schools, ISPs, Internet-related businesses,
etc. This would include learning to use a browsers,
writing HTML, using search engines. Free classes in C,
C++ or Java are acceptable only if directly related to
their use on the Internet. "Low cost" is defined as a
total cost less than eight times the current national
minimum wage for the entire course and seminar,
including materials and other fees.
4. Accredited and state-funded or locally-funded
institutions of higher learning may announce
Internet-related courses despite there being a charge to
attend.
Unacceptable announcements include (and not limited to):
1. Tax preparation seminar that uses electronic filing.
2. Elementary school bake sale even if the school owns a
computer.
3. Make-money-through-the-Internet seminars of any type,
free or otherwise, even if directly related to Internet
provision. (Other newsgroups exist for this.)
4. Pay-for Technical training classes, except as noted
above.
5. An announcement for any activity, class or service not
occurring within the geographical region defined above.
(Las Vegas Comdex, an ISP having classes in England,
etc.)
6. Software vendor product preview/screening, unless the
software is specifically and exclusively for use on the
Internet. (Operating systems, word processors and
spreadsheets do not require the Internet.)
7. I'm going to be at the sidewalk sale next month
selling...
8. Stock offerings, a prospectus, multi-level offerings,
and any other form of investment opportunity, even if
the offering is in an ISP or other Internet-related
company or institution. (Exception: an ISP whose stock
or shares are being offered may post a pointer to a
prospectus and related stock offering, but no agency or
other third-party may post any of this material.)
Crossposting guidelines for dfw.internet.providers
1. Crossposting should be used in dfw.internet.providers only
when absolutely necessary, and before a reply is made to an
ongoing discussion, the poster should check and eliminate any
unnecessary groups that the thread is being cross-posted to
and think twice before adding additional groups. The poster
should also consider whether another group is more
appropriate for the discussion as it stands now, and forward
the discussion there through the use of Followup-To: headers.
Even if an ISP that is being discussed serves other areas,
regional internet groups should not be added to the
discussion on a "FYI" or "maximum coverage" basis. Good
cross-post reason:
1. ISP-X is going to charge extra for access in these two
areas, and each has its own "internet" newsgroup.
(Cross-posting to these two groups is acceptable.)
Bad cross-post reason:
1. ISP-Y gave me a [busy signal or lost my mail or won't
carry a newsgroup or disconnected me for being on 74
straight hours or canceled my account for violation of
their policies] and I want everybody in the areas my ISP
serves, may eventually serve, or just everybody on the
planet to know that I am [angry or postal or suicidal or
being threatened or being followed] about this.
(Cross-posting this type of topic *anywhere* is not
acceptable. This is an individual customer vs ISP
personal subject, and the base post should be made in an
ISP-specific newsgroup or in a regional flame group, NOT
in dfw.internet.providers.)
2. Other regional internet groups should be added ONLY if that
area is directly and immediately affected by the issue under
discussion. See the examples below.
3. Cross-post to groups belonging to a particular ISP only if
those groups are public AND that ISP is specifically related
to the discussion.
Good reasons to crosspost to an ISP-specific group and
dfw.internet.providers:
1. ISP-X is raising prices and that sucks. (Yes, that is a
good reason.)
2. Am unable to get a Crappola BR549 router to work with
ISP-F and their tech support doesn't know anything about
the BR549. Is there anybody that does and has made one
work?
Bad reasons to crosspost to ISP group and
dfw.internet.providers:
1. ISP-Y gets connectivity from NET-Z and NET-Z sucks.
(Probably other ISPs also get connectivity from NET-Z,
and therefore the issue is not specific enough to
justify bothering the ISP groups unless the discussion
should have been in and stayed in the ISPs newsgroups.)
2. I don't like someone who gets Internet access from ISP-T
or works at ISP-U. (This type of post is not welcome in
dfw.internet.providers, and cross-posting it *anywhere*
else is not welcome either. There are numerous other
groups available for flaming individuals or companies.)
4. No more than three groups should receive an article placed in
dfw.internet.providers, including dfw.internet.providers.
5. Cross-post to other USENET (not ISP-specific) newsgroups only
if: The group is relevant to *this* post, not what the thread
was about in earlier posts. The people in the other group
will just be coming in on the discussion, so there should be
a really good reason for adding them in. Acceptable examples
of crossposting to dfw.internet.providers:
1. comp.dcom.modems, when discussing a modem
problem/recall/etc. If a modem group specific to the
brand in question exists, use it instead of
comp.dcom.modems.
2. houston.internet.providers, when discussing PUC,
Southwestern Bell, Legislative activity, Houston to
Dallas Internet signal routes, or other events that
apply statewide.
Unacceptable examples of crossposting to
dfw.internet.providers,
1. Any "flame" group.
2. Any "general" group.
3. Any group unrelated to the topics under discussion,
which must all relate to Internet Provision in the area
defined above.
_________________________________________________________________
Article Format
1. Articles posted to dfw.internet.providers MUST be flat-ASCII.
This means:
1. No Binary postings, uuencoded or base64.
2. No MIME encoded messages. Posts SHOULD be readable by
the simplest text-only newsreader.
3. No HTML, although HTML-like emoticons are acceptable.
4. No characters with a value greater than 127 in any part
of the post.
2. Posts SHOULD be shorter than 30K in size. Longer items SHOULD
be made available for FTP or HTTP download and a pointer to
that file posted.
3. Posts MUST contain a valid From address, unless the
".invalid" domain is used (see RFC 1036). Spam blocks are
acceptable. By definition USENET newsgroups are a broadcast
medium. If you have a post that needs to be anonymous, it is
not a valid topic for dfw.internet.providers. Post this
material elsewhere.
4. ROT13 encoding SHOULD NOT be used on any field in the
headers. Nor should any attempts, except minimal spam blocks,
be made to obscure the origins of the posting.
5. Posts MUST contain a "Abuse-Reports-To:" or
"X-Complaints-To:" header with a valid email address. When
RFC1036 is updated, this line SHOULD be adjusted to comply
with the latest specifications. Adding or replacing this
header is the responsibility of the news server where the
article was injected.
Failing to follow the above formatting requirements could
result in an article being canceled instantly and without
warning by an authorized moderation device (human or otherwise)
for the group in question. Articles cross-posted to other
groups and dfw.internet.providers must still follow the
criteria of dfw.internet.providers and be subject to these
rules.
_________________________________________________________________
$Id: dfw.internet.providers.html,v 1.5 1999/10/17 20:02:24 eric Stable
$
Copyright 1998, DFW USENET cabal