[INFO] alt.folklore.urban style-guide v1.9.0
Simon Slavin
Eclecticism
-----------
Quinn: You could, like, see her brain. At least that's what
Tiffany heard from Doug who heard it from Brenda,
whose cousin works in the emergency room.
Daria: At another hospital. In Belgium.
-- _Daria_ TV animation
Are you about to post an urban legend to alt.folklore.urban ?
alt.folklore.urban doesn't exist to swap urban legends, it exists
to discuss them. Please don't just post a copy of a legend you've
heard: tell us your source. Giving us this background allows us
to track the spread of a legend and note where the different
variations were formed. In return we can probably tell you if the
story's true or not and how it got started.
You don't have to give names and exact dates: you could say that
you heard the story in Indiana from your hairdresser last week,
and that your hairdresser heard it from her brother who also lives
in Indiana. Another poster might report that the legend was heard
frequently when she was at school in Austria during the mid-1980s.
Details are important. Your version might differ in detail from
the version we know. It might have a name, address or phone
number which had been stripped-off of the versions we've seen. It
may have spread out of the area we're used to seeing it in or made
the leap from one means of distribution to another.
Impressionism
-------------
Things relevant to all discussion newsgroups:
The word 'netiquette' refers to a collection of generally-agreed
standards for behaviour on on the Internet. There are two sources
for these standards:
The RFCs (Requests for Comment) give details of Internet
standards. RFC1855 includes information on netiquette. Section
3.1.1 of RFC1855 contains information specifically about usenet.
I'll repeat here just one piece of information:
# If you are sending a reply to a message or a posting be sure you
# summarize the original at the top of the message, or include just
# enough text of the original to give a context. This will make
# sure readers understand when they start to read your response.
# Since NetNews, especially, is proliferated by distributing the
# postings from one host to another, it is possible to see a
# response to a message before seeing the original. Giving context
# helps everyone. But do not include the entire original!
The group news.announce.newusers is dedicated to regular posts
which apply to every discussion newsgroup. If you want to learn
how to post correctly without reading technical standards, read
news.announce.newusers. I'll repeat here just one piece of
information: Don't post in HTML or MIME.
"That is like *so* ten minutes ago."
-- Steve Daniels
Read the group. The same thing that made you want to post a
question probably made someone else want to post the same question.
Chances are that there's another thread going on right now that
tells you what you want to know.
Things relevant specifically to AFU:
"I read the FAQ and it is great!"
-- Eric Dickner
The FAQ for alt.folklore.urban is archived at the AFU archive site
www.urbanlegends.com, and an out-of-date version is posted monthly
in five parts to the group.
"There are two ways of trying to find references at
www.snopes.com and www.urbanlegends.com. One is to go to the
page, stare blankly at it for a while, giggle nervously and
then run off."
-- Ben Walsh
You can also search the archive site using the search-engine at
that site. The search-engine searches the FAQ and the extensive
archives stored on that site. There are many other good UL sites
so try a web search.
The AFU archive site carries no advertising; creates no cookies.
It requires no registration, no Java, no JavaScript, no browser
plugins, no minimum display-size or colours, no wife, no horse,
no moustache.
If you want to know if AFU has discussed a certain subject before,
try searching a usenet archive. Probably the easiest way is to
point your web browser at Google's newsgroup search-engine known
as 'GoogleDeja' or 'googdada' on the group:
<http://groups.google.com/advanced_group_search>
and put 'alt.folklore.urban' in the 'newsgroup' field to restrict
the search to this group. This may allow you to answer questions
like "Is <this> an urban legend ?" without having to post and wait
for responses.
Google itself is probably the best web-search engine for the kind
of things we do on AFU:
If you ask a question on AFU many readers will tell you that it
could have been answered by Googling. However, not all web pages
are gospel: try to find two or more sources which back up your
facts. Be especially skeptical about pages aimed at children and
pages without references and citations.
Fauvism
-------
"We're here for the dialogue, the byplay, the sights and
the scenery (and an occasional duel out in the courtyard)."
-- TMOliver
"Usenet, and hence the bang-path in the sense in which we
know it, only dates from 1979. The first killfile
undoubtedly followed within minutes."
-- Nathan Tenny
"Your reply hit my server roughly 20 minutes after my
post. Perhaps you didn't allow enough time to appreciate
its overwhelming magnificence.
-- Brian Jones
"Consider the possibility that people who disagree with
you may be doing so not because they know less than you
but because they know considerably more."
-- Deborah Stevenson
"You told me to "shut the hell up," and I naturally took
offense to that."
-- Ted Frank
"You can't go blatantly and provocatively agreeing with me!
That's against RFC 666."
-- Scott Wheeler
Don't play the man. Don't even play the ball. Play the game.
Thematic symbolism
------------------
ULs are the core subject of AFU, but many posts to the group are
not about urban legends. Sometimes a conversation that starts off
being about urban legends ends up being about something else
entirely. Usually this is considered okay, but if you're going to
start a new thread ask yourself if your post is on-charter for the
group.
Certain types of post are banned from AFU. The test is this: do
arguments about the subject often cause people to change their
minds ? If not, then don't post argument on that topic to AFU.
This covers a lot of ground including, but not limited to,
religion, politics, ab*rti*n and g*n-c*ntr*l. Feel free to post
ULs about these subjects to AFU (complete with source and
analysis, of course) but please don't argue the validity of the
points of view involved.
Since argument about religion and politics rarely convinces people
to convert from one religion to another or from one political view
to another, this constitutes a ban on attacking or supporting the
tenets of any religion or political theory on AFU.
BOP: It's a ban on boring, fucking stupid, inane arguments.
-- dooglefish
Naturalism
----------
"[On AFU] at least the abuse is spelled correctly."
-- Alan Follett
As RFC1855 notes, spelling flames are lame. If someone has made a
mistake in their spelling or grammar but the meaning of their post
is still obvious, don't post to correct them. If you feel that
they'd profit from correction, emailing them privately is far more
polite than pointing out their mistake in public. Similarly if
someone's post makes you laugh out loud or roll on the floor
laughing, don't post especially to say so, tell them by email.
Nobody else cares.
Some of the regular posters occasionally include deliberate errors
in spelling or grammar. If you post just to point out such errors
then you're paying attension to the wrong thing.
This is not an invitation to be lazy about the spelling or grammar
in your own posts: if you want people to read or understand what
you've written it's up to you to make them want to. It's not
their job to puzzle out the meaning of what you wrote; it's your
job to write in a way that they can understand. If you don't care
whether people read your posts or not, don't waste our time by
posting.
"Since [AFU] is a virtual forum, you have no presence here
but the posts that you make. You are judged by the quality
of these posts. Therefore, consider carefully what you are
about to send, for these people do not know you. They do
not know if you have had a crap day at the office, if your
dog has died of syphilis or if you have only had three
hours' worth of sleep last night. The extenuating circum-
stances and social padding that cushions you in everyday
conversation with your friends do not exist on AFU.
Welcome to the jungle."
-- Daniel Ucko
Pointillism
-----------
Your post should be understandable by people outside your area of
specialization: few AFU readers have been in your branch of the
military, write computer programs, are active in your area of
politics and manufacture or deal in psychoactive drugs. If you
use an abbreviation or term that the average AFU reader won't
know, please define it.
It's okay to use any word or acronym defined inside your post,
defined earlier in the thread or mentioned in a 'big dic'
(generally agreed to refer to any large single-volume dictionary of
the English language). While it's acceptable to expect a reader to
consult a big dic if they are to understand your post, the OED is
considered to be a huge dic and not every reader of the group has
access to one.
AFU is not a chat room and doesn't involve real-time conversation.
Nobody is waiting on tenterhooks for your post, ept and witty
though it may be. Type out initialisms like 'BTW' and 'OTOH' in
full or leave them out. Carpal tunnel syndrome and similar
disabilities are acceptable excuses for minimizing the amount of
typing one does. Laziness and lack of typing-time are not.
Having warned you to avoid initialisms I have to admit that AFU
does indulge itself in a few. Here are some acronyms that the
average AFU reader is expected to know. Should someone use one
you don't know, feel free to email them to ask what it means.
AFU - alt.folklore.urban
BOA - Ban On Acronyms
BOE - Ban On Emoticons
BOR - Ban On Religion
BOMP - Ban On Monty Python
BOP - Ban On Politics
F - false
Fb - believed false, but ...
FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions -- often including answers
FOAF - friend of a friend (occasionally seen as FOAFOAF, etc.)
ISP - organization which provides connection to the Internet
JHB - author of some books on ULs -- see the FAQ
L - roughly that date (e.g. 1970s L == sometime in 1965-1985)
OED - Oxford English Dictionary (with supplements if you wish)
OED2 - the second edition of the OED
PPQ - Polite Persistent Questioning
T - true
Tb - believed true, but ...
TAFKAC - www.urbanlegends.com
TWIAVBP - "This may happen differently in other parts of the world."
UKoGBaNI - United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
UL - urban legend
URL - net-pointer
Suprematism
-----------
Many of the frequent posters to AFU have been reading the group for
years and have a great deal of shared experience. Consequently AFU
has a large number of in-jokes. If you lurk for a couple of weeks
before posting you'll notice and figure-out many of them. If you
notice people consistently misusing a word or phrase, consider that
they might be doing so on purpose.
"kiku wa ittoki no haji
kikanu wa matsudai no haji"
Asking a question is embarrassing just for that moment.
Not asking is embarrassing and will haunt you for the
rest of your life. -- Japanese Proverb
BO<something>:
The fact that the BOA, BOE and BOMP are mentioned above does
not mean they constitute total bans. However, posts which
violate these bans will meet with an unfriendly reception.
Note that the BOE is encoded in the FAQ for the group. An
early Ban On Acronyms post can be found at
<http://www.urbanlegends.com/afu/guides/afu_boa.html> .
BOMP:
We've all seen the Python stuff too often. Not only don't we
need to see it retold, but
"Most people here can see a joke at 10 postings. No need
to remind them what humor is."
-- George Cayro
If, in a thread about weights or coconuts you see a reference
to a Swallow, that's enough to let us get the joke: we don't
need it expanded. Similarly, 'uphill both ways' is all we
need of that sketch. Don't labour the point.
L: Lasnerian
A reference to a certain Mr. Lasner who exhibited an inaccurate
grasp of the calendar. While the inspiration for the term
involved precision but inaccuracy, current use means that the
user considers the date or dates quoted imprecise.
TAFKAC: The Archive Formerly Known As Cathouse
The archives for materials found useful on AFU used to be kept
on an FTP server called 'cathouse.org'. Many posters wish to
commemorate and perpetuate this name in gratitude to those who
maintained this site and in memory of its excellence. Although
the archives are now accessible as www.urbanlegends.com, some
people use the name TAFKAC to refer to the archive site.
TWIAVBP: The World Is A Very Big Place
"CAESAR: Pardon him, Theodotus: he is a barbarian, and
thinks that the customs of his tribe and
island are the laws of nature."
-- George Bernard Shaw,
_Caesar & Cleopatra_
Derek Tearne claims to have devised this term (but not the
acronym for it) in 1992 Lasnerian.
Don't assume that things are done all over the world the way
they're done in your town/country/school/police-force/legal
system. If you're relating something that isn't universal,
please tell us the background. For example:
> I should mention that in Arizona these crimes are
> prosecuted as mail-fraud, since that covers anything
> that uses the US mail, even though they're actually
> perfectly normal confidence tricks and could be
> handled by State police.
Symbolism
---------
"Cut out all the exclamation marks. An exclamation mark
is like laughing at your own joke."
-- F. Scott Fitzgerald
Okay, maybe not using them at all is a bit strict, but if you're
not funny without an exclamation mark, you won't make your post
funny just by adding one (or more) and
"Multiple exclamation marks," he went on, shaking his head,
"are a sure sign of a diseased mind."
-- Terry Pratchett, _Eric_
If you think we won't notice you're funny without a smiley then
you're probably not funny even with a smiley. If you want to
use a smiley to reverse the meaning of a sentence, why not write
what you meant in the first place ?
Don't assume that the inclusion of a smiley will make the
recipient happy with what you say or wipe out an otherwise
insulting comment.
-- RFC1855
Adding 'Just kidding.' doesn't make it okay to insult the
Principal.
-- blackboard cut-scene from _The Simpsons_
"A smiley adds nothing except an assumed lack of faith in
your own discourse or condescension for your readership."
-- Don Whittington
"Emoticons are a crutch, allowing readers and writers to
be lazy in extracting meaning from the written word. If
the trend continues, mankind is doomed to a permanent
disability to communicate on any but the most blatant
levels."
-- Steve Devaux
Expressionism
-------------
"Speak softly and carry a big dic.."
-- TMOliver
If your first AFU post doesn't follow the style-guide but does
conform to netiquette, people may ignore you, insult you or
email you with advice as they see fit but are unlikely to complain
to your ISP. You might get away with violating some rules in
the same way that editors published work by James Joyce even
though his use of English was idiosyncratic, but if you don't have
his talent then it's safer to stick to conventional behaviour.
New posters /per se/ are not discouraged, just clueless posters.
Some of the most clueless posters to AFU have been posting for
years. Often the first post someone makes to AFU is perfectly
on-charter, on-topic, useful and entertaining. Aim for any
three out of four and see what happens.
"Many of AFU's group standards seem arbitrary and
inexplicable, but they do cleverly serve a very important
purpose: they filter out the bozos efficiently."
-- Joseph Nebus