afmp FAQ Pt 3: Netiquette. This Newsgroup
John and Analda Anglin
---5. Usenet Posting
Guidelines------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
A set of "guidelines" as it were for new usenet posters.
Alright, read on.
RULE NUMBER ONE: Please keep the long cascades to a minimum, and
delete the stuff you're not using for your own witty reply. Please
note that this includes things like fifteen "so and so wrote" lines at
the top and the .signature files of the people you're following.
Certainly try to keep the attributions in line (i.e., so we know who
wrote what), but kindly delete as MUCH as possible when doing a
follow-up. Some people have slower modems than others, and scanning
through gobs of irrelevant stuff isn't that fun at 2400 baud.... Also,
many people pay for their online time.
RULE NUMBER TWO: Lots of people post here asking for actual Monty
Python skits, songs, scripts, whatever. They may not post in as
humorous or silly a way as the VERY silly people would like, but that
is NO reason to be rude. Be polite, be friendly, and be helpful, if
you can. But don't blow them up because they aren't funny enough, or
RUDELY tell them that they ought to go to such-and-such FTP site. We
ARE a friendly, generally amusing, mostly intelligent bunch of folks.
We really ought to act that way, especially to persons who so
desperately need our wisdom
and guidance.
RULE NUMBER THREE: There is no rule number three!
RULE NUMBER FOUR: When in doubt as to whether or not to actually POST
it, perhaps it might be better to mail it. That way, you can talk
about others behind their backs (best place TO talk about them, I
say!) or make all sorts of rude sexual comments, and not offend anyone
(except, perhaps, the person you are mailing....hmmmm....).
Certainly, a fair amount of clever repartee is expected here (we are
all such brilliant wits, after all), but REALLY personal stuff might
be best kept private....
Also, if what you intend to say applies to a only few gits on the
group, email them instead of posting it, so the rest of us don't have
to read through irrelevant garbage.
RULE NUMBER FIVE: Flames are hurtful and unkind, and have _NO_ place
in this newsgroup. There is a difference, too, between the silly,
joshing-about sort of flames we all do and the really nasty stuff.
Personal, direct insults are RIGHT OUT! The last Flame War was truly
appalling. Let's not EVER repeat that. If someone is rude, IGNORE
him/her. Do not send ANY mail to that person (unless it is polite),
do not flame in return, do not lampoon or parody that person. In
short: DO NOT FEED THE
FLAMES. If we ALL go by this, those people who would be nasty will
eventually either stop being nasty or they will go away. Either way,
it's a LOT better than any more wars, yes?
FOLLOWUPS: A quick note here about following up to flames and Spam
(articles that are crossposted to newsgroups they have nothing to do
with). Do not make this worse by following up to an article and
posting
something like "This doesn't belong here". You're just adding to the
problem and making yourself look clueless. The best thing to do when
someone posts a bad flame or a Spam article ("Make.Money.Fast" and
"The Longest Thread" for example) is to either ignore it, or in the
case of the Spam stuff, send email to the original poster and their
postmaster.
RULE NUMBER SIX: Enjoy yourselves! Monty Python's Flying Circus
is/was a wonderful phenomenon, and every one of us knows that. We
SHOULD have fun, but still be in control, and exercise a bit of
moderation in certain areas. However, silliness and clever wit was
the very substance of Python. Therefore, it DOES belong in this
group. Even outsiders, who
post here only once to request a particular song, should be able to
read our many posts and get a chuckle out of it (or, if we are REALLY
good, a *GUFFAW!*).
NOW, TO THOSE PEOPLE WHO POST HERE ONLY ON OCCASION (you have been
mentioned several times here, after all): Please feel free to ask
whatever you like about this group or Monty Python. Don't be ashamed
or afraid. There are MANY of us here who are virtual fountains of
knowledge.... And we don't bite... most of us don't, actually...
well, perhaps a FEW of us do bite... but not that hard. Really,
though, this group is comprised of lots of highly intelligent, very
well-informed people, and just about ANY question you have (relating
to MP, anyway)
should find an answer from at least ONE person here... though there
MAY be a bit of joshing about before you GET the answer you want.
*chuckle* And from us regular contributors: WELCOME!
And did you bring us... [dramatic chord] A SHRUBBERY?!
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---6.
Silliness----------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
First off, lets face it, Monty Python was a bunch of VERY
silly/wacky/loony people. To have a newsgroup for their fans and
expect it to be even remotely serious on anything like a regular basis
is quite unthinkable.
So why all this silly stuff which seems to have absolutely nothing to
do with Monty Python? Well, think a bit about what a newsgroup
environment is like. The newsgroups are really more discussion
oriented than news oriented, they should really be referred to as
discussion groups. They are set up so that many users can add
opinions, talk together, and generally share information about a
particular subject. Also understand
that there are people on this one newsgroup who have been following it
for literally YEARS. How many times do you think it takes of quoting
the <insert.name.here> sketch, word for word, before it starts to get
rather dull and boring? I realize that MP, by their very nature, are
not dull and boring - so don't get defensive on me - but if all we did
here was to quote lines from them back and forth to each other, we'd
be
endlessly saying the same stuff over, and over, and over, and over,
and over, and over.... (again, an activity best left to the Department
of Redundancy Department, wot?)
Also note that this comedy group is no longer doing any new material
together, which is what a lot of the alt.fan.* groups spend all their
time discussing. We have sorta "bent" the rule in newsgroups on
always following the stated subject of the group, in order to make
a.f.m-p better suited to more interesting discussions.
-----------------
The Tale of the Dreaded FLAME WAR!
Once upon a time here, there was a pretty heated flame war between
the two sides of alt.fan.* philosophies. I don't want to get into
the history of this newsgroup much, because it's... well... it's
history, but it does help to illustrate my point...
There were two sides, as I said: the strictly serious discussion
people versus the wacky humor people. The serious people said that
the group's name was a.f.monty-python and that by definition of the
group, the only thing which sho uld be discussed here was Python.
They felt that the general silliness which had no direct link to the
material of Monty Python had absolutely no place in the newsgroup.
The wacky humor people said that they were tired of ONLY talking
about a group whose material had been discussed here time and time
again. They wanted to talk about new stuff, to keep the group
interesting.
The problem is that the original wackiness got out of hand and turned
into a free-for-all joke fest, where not many of the posts even had a
Pythonesque tribute to them. The people who subscribed to the group
could not find anything even remotely related to Python. What was
decided upon was that there should be a compromise made. That the
original, Python based humor would be allowed, but that it should be
exactly that... PYTHON-BASED. If you come up with some witty, wacky,
truly funny story or joke, but it has absolutely nothing to with Monty
Python and isn't even derived from their ideas, then this is not the
place for it, go to rec.humor.
-----------------
Basically what we try to do here is to create our own humor in tribute
to Monty Python. The contributors attempt to build off of MP's ideas
and invent original material in a Pythonesque vein. That is not to
say that we never discuss Monty Python directly. We often do, it's
just that we would get rather tired of ONLY discussing a group that no
longer puts anything new out.
So, what does all this mean? Alright, there has been some confusion
as to what exactly constitutes "pythonesque" and what doesn't. Here
are a few simple guidelines on pythonetiquette(tm)...
1) Direct Python discussions are obviously fine. I realize that I
just
got through explaining that all us old timers get tired of repeating
the same old Python quotes time after time, but this does not mean
that doing so is in any way not acceptable here. All I meant was that
the old timers will usually not start such a thread, I did not mean
that Python quotes were frowned upon.
2) Original humour which has strong bases in Python is also
acceptable. On most newsgroups this type of non-direct-topic
discussions would be frowned upon, but here they are considered not
only acceptable, but encouraged for reasons explained earlier in this
section. By Python based we mean things such as parodies on Python
bits, or original works combining multiple Python ideas together in
some new way. I obviously can't forsee every new post in this area,
but generally if you think that others besides yourself could listen
to your ideas and say to themselves "hey, that resembles Monty Python"
then it should be fine.
3) Original humour which has absolutely nothing to do with Python is
right out! Think of it this way, if you were to tell a friend what
you intend to post and they don't immediately think to themselves
"that's derived from Monty Python", then it probably belongs in
rec.humour or email. I know that this definition is fairly vague, but
it's hard to make a concrete ruling onnew variations and ideas.
There's just to much personal imagination involved in original humour
to make a black and white statement. What we really want to avoid is
the sort of post that would be as much at home in any other humour
group as in a.f.m-p. The idea is to try to keep this group strictly
about Monty Python or ideas
related to Monty Python. If we get alot of non-python original
humour, then this will no longer be a.f.m-p it'll turn into
alt.fan.silly-jokes instead. The problem is that there have been way
to many threads on here that are just personal silly ravings back and
forth. Everyone is guilty of this, and we are not saying that it will
never happen. A certain amount of wandering is expected in the course
of things, but try to avoid it or at least stop when others become
annoyed at the amount of "noise" (defined as off-topic posts) gets too
high.
What you can do in order to carry on "off-topic" discussions is to
either move them to email, move them to another (more relevant)
newsgroup, or create a small mailing list of the people involved. The
point is, there are other options than posting everything to the
newsgroup just because your friends on here need to see it. You would
be better off relaying the non-python stuff to them privately.
4) Well, if you were paying careful attention to the above five
(three, sir), three "rules" you would have noticed that things like
this FAQ would be considered "off topic" in a strict interpretation.
So, we need to introduce another concept. Articles that are "about
the newsgroup" must also be allowed. This covers things from the
posting of the FAQ to requests/answers for ftp or WWW sites, as well
as announcements of upcoming events in the python/afmp communities.
Yes, there definitely is a grey area in this definition. So, how do
you decide if an "original humour" article you want to post is
considered Pythonesque? ...experience.
As a newbie it's recommended that you just keep an eye out for what
type of original parodies/humor are being posted for a while before
you jump in and post you own ideas. Then again, you are also
perfectly free to start right off with all kinds of zany looniness.
Just be prepared for plenty of responses to it (good or bad, most of
the time both).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
---6a. Traditional
Classes------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sometimes in a.f.m-p you'll hear people refer to themselves (and
others) as being "Old Guard" or members of "The House of Royals" or by
some other silly moniker. Here's a brief explanation of some terms you
might encounter in the newsgroup:
Old Guard - All us really archaic old farts, sort of a "Hall of
Fame" of long time posters.
Identified by either no longer being around
anymore,
or endlessly saying "Why, back in my day we..." or
"I remember when we all used to...".
It's also interesting to note that most of the Old
Guard have contributed to the newsgroup in some
significant way, such as writing documentation,
being a founding member, or organizing important
information.
The Opposition - A one man class.
Identified by bitchin' about the Old Guard.
House of Royals - Sort of a "New" Old Guard.
We used to hold elections
on this newsgroup for a President and
Vice-President.
Around Oct. '93, the then female President became
our
Queen. The House of Royals phenomena started around the time
we became a monarchy.
Identified by having all sorts of silly titles
(Sir,
Lady, Duchess, Lord, Queen, etc.).
Newbies - The rest of the peasants we all love to repress.
Identified by having no clue about what the rest
of
this section is talking about.
Note that these classes are not exclusive of each other. There are a
few Old Guards around with House of Royals titles. There are also a
few House of Royals who are no longer around, as well as some Old
Guard/House of Royals who are clueless. Also, many non-newbies don't
have any sort of title at all. It's all wonderfully confusing unless
you've got your secret Python decoder ring.
THE OLD GUARD: is just silliness, really, but it IS a fact that most
(if not ALL) of the members of the Old Guard have contributed to this
newsgroup and to general Python knowledge in a significant way by
writing documentation, organizing information, or being founding
members of this newsgroup. It's not a "clique" so much as it's a
recognition of people who have been here a LONG time and/or done
something like, oh, say, write the Monty Python FAQ, the FTP
compilation, etc... The Old
Guard is not a special club or a secret society (well...other than the
orgies we hold every second Thursday, to which ONLY we are allowed to
come *wink* *nudge*). If you THINK it's some sort of "in group,"
you're being petty. Admissions into the Old Guard are handled by
Andreas Trapp. He will periodically post an article to the newsgroup,
listing the members of the Old Guard, their status (active, MIA), and
any new additions.
As for the HOUSE OF ROYALS: that, too, is silliness. None of us think
we're REAL royalty. It's just general fun, rooted in the history of
this newsgroup. In fact, many people who hadn't even BEEN here in
a.f.m-p. very long became members of the House of Royals (and various
other silly institutions) in VERY short order, which SHOULD go to show
you all that no one here has any sort of pretense regarding rank or
privileges or anything of that nature. Royal titles and admissions
into the House of Royals are handled by the newsgroup's
President/Monarch (currently the"Regency" consisting of Regent
DarkWolf and Prime Minister Bonni).
The various silly organizations and Ministries are just that. Silly
organizations, with roots directly in Python (if you don't recognize
THAT, you need to go back and watch the original series a few more
times!). To be a member of one or not be a member is no big deal, it's
just all part of the anarchy. If you like, you're free to start your
OWN silly organization, or form your own ministry or take a silly
moniker. No one has rules for that sort of thing (other than not
taking someone else's ministry, I suppose), and it adds to the general
enjoyment of this newsgroup.
Finally, _MOST_ well-established newsgroups have lore, mythology,
traditions, acceptable behavior, etc. (go check out (just for example)
alt.devilbunnies and read THEIR FAQ sometime, or try your hand in
talk.bizarre!) The majority of contributors here are bright and good
natured, and the group is open to new people, providing your
contributions are silly, amusing, witty, Pythonesque, etc. People
requesting help GET IT. People asking for answers GET THEM. I get lots
of mail asking me for
help, for questions to be answered, etc. And I always answer them, or,
if I can't, I refer them to someone I know CAN answer the questions.
The point is, DESPITE the overall atmosphere of anarchy, role-playing,
and general foolishness, this newsgroup functions quite nicely JUST AS
IT IS. It WORKS, mate!
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---7. AKA aka "Also Known
As"--------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Definition:
The letters AKA stand for Also Known As. It means, basically, the
same thing as an alias.
We, however, often use it in a way similar to a postscript, or a final
witty comment, as it were. Yes it's silly, and it's true that it has
nothing to do with what aka really means. But, you should come to
expect the unexpected, ludicrous, loony, stupid, nonsensical, etc...
when dealing with anything related to MP. It's a tradition which has
been proudly carried on almost since the beginning of afm-p. Most
people choose to use one, but it's not required (encouraged,
certainly, but NOT a requirement).
----------------
Explanation:
The aka's began in the deep autumnal evenings of 1991 when Jos the
almighty first uttered the aka. Slowly, and mercilessly, Jester
propagated the aka to death (100 consecutive posts in 1 hour) to the
point of almost banishment, but by that time, most people on the
newsgroup were aka-ing madly, and it continues to this day, a legacy
of Jos's insane stupidity, and Jester's uncanny ability to propagate
totally useless bullsh*t across the net.
[cut to stock film of women's institute applauding]
Paul Sexton
>
>The various silly organizations and Ministries are just that. Silly
>organizations, with roots directly in Python (if you don't recognize
>THAT, you need to go back and watch the original series a few more
>times!). To be a member of one or not be a member is no big deal, it's
>just all part of the anarchy. If you like, you're free to start your
>OWN silly organization, or form your own ministry or take a silly
>moniker. No one has rules for that sort of thing (other than not
>taking someone else's ministry, I suppose), and it adds to the general
>enjoyment of this newsgroup.
>
So what happened to Castle Anthrax(TM)? Where does one go for a good
spanking these days?
--
Paul Sexton Paul's Radio Museum
http://www.paulplu.demon.co.uk/radio/
John and Analda Anglin
>>organizations, with roots directly in Python (if you don't recognize
>>THAT, you need to go back and watch the original series a few more
>>times!).
>
>spanking these days?
You know, it's been a while since I've seen the Castle Anthrax around
here. At first I thought the antics were being carried on via email.
Or perhaps they're using the ever popular excuse for not posting of
trying not to be seen. But now....well, it's been an awfully long
time.
So in short, I remember them but wasn't a member, although I did enjoy
an occasional auxiliary spanking. For more definite information,
you'll have to rely on other posters.
Analda aka It was hardly a silly place at all!
ana...@hiwaay.net
Lorrill Buyens
<Pa...@paulplu.demon.co.uk>, while summoning a demon, chanted:
>John and Analda Anglin <jan...@hiwaay.net> wrote:
>>
>>The various silly organizations and Ministries are just that. Silly
>>organizations, with roots directly in Python (if you don't recognize
>>THAT, you need to go back and watch the original series a few more
>>times!). To be a member of one or not be a member is no big deal, it's
>>just all part of the anarchy. If you like, you're free to start your
>>OWN silly organization, or form your own ministry or take a silly
>>moniker. No one has rules for that sort of thing (other than not
>>taking someone else's ministry, I suppose), and it adds to the general
>>enjoyment of this newsgroup.
>So what happened to Castle Anthrax(TM)? Where does one go for a good
>spanking these days?
Would you like to come back to my place, bouncy-bouncy?
Lorrill aka Please fondle my buttocks
--
|Lorrill Buyens, aka Lady Ethel the Aardvark |
|Minister of Ministers |
|Inspector of Upper-Class Twits for HM's Government |
Support the Jayne Hitchcock HELP Fund
http://www.geocities.com/hollywood/6172/helpjane.htm
Paul Sexton
>On Thu, 17 Sep 1998 16:36:34 +0100, Paul Sexton
><Pa...@paulplu.demon.co.uk>, while summoning a demon, chanted:
>
>>spanking these days?
>
>Would you like to come back to my place, bouncy-bouncy?
>
My nipples explode with delight.
>Lorrill aka Please fondle my buttocks
>
5 minutes along the High Street & it's on your left.
Dean Willis
----------------------------
RULE NUMBER ONE: Please keep the long cascades to a minimum, and delete
RULE NUMBER TWO: Lots of people post here asking for ...
RULE NUMBER THREE: There is no rule number three!
RULE NUMBER FOUR: When in doubt as to whether or not to actually POST
RULE NUMBER FIVE: Flames are hurtful and unkind, and ...
--------------------------------
Rule Number Six: Please do not post here using <br> HTML <p> <font
size=47> because <font color=chartreuse> if one's system <a href="no
link here"> cannot interpret <font style=gothic> hypertext tags <blink
text=3.7 hertz> <marquee behavior=unpredictable> they make <blockquote>
<br> <p> <font color=mauve> your messages </blockquote> <font
aroma=eau-d-paris> look like <font texture=crunchy> <font
color=lavender> <font style=superswirly> parrot vomit (or so I've been
told...). </font size> </font style> </font texture> </font color> </a
href> </marquee> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br>
<p> </message> </html>
DWIII
zooy
>
> John and Analda Angli co-wrote:
> ----------------------------
Right, then. I should make the cascades as long as possible and keep
everything from the previous post, until you or anyone else posts back.
Francis Pierot
>
>Right, then. I should make the cascades as long as possible and keep
>everything from the previous post, until you or anyone else posts back.
No. No no no. Not anyone else. Look, it's quite simple. Do not let anybody
start a cascade. And make sure he doesn't reply.
FP