Comp.Newprod Introduction [last modified: 1997-08-15 17:41:53]

[Scott Hazen Mueller]

Welcome to comp.newprod. This message summarizes what comp.newprod
is about, the guidelines for posting are explained in another message.

Contents:

- Introduction
- Letters! We Get Letters
- newprod Keywording
- Archives and Back Issues
- Mailing List Distribution
- How to Submit a New Product Announcement

IF YOU WISH TO SUBMIT AN ANNOUNCEMENT TO comp.newprod: Please review
these guidelines carefully. Submissions that do NOT conform to these
guidelines will NOT be published.

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Subject: Introduction

comp.newprod publishes announcements for new computer-related products
and services. We solicit product announcements that would interest
large portions of the Usenet community.

comp.newprod is one of the oldest Usenet newsgroups. It was created in
1985 as `mod.newprod' by Ron Heiby. Ron ran the group until 1993, when
the task was passed to Chip Rosenthal. Chip passed the front-end part
of the job on to the current moderator, Scott Hazen Mueller, at the end
of 1994, but has stayed on in the role of backup moderator, archivist
and mailing list maintainer.

This newsgroup is unusual. Most people on Usenet disdain commercial
postings. Here, we encourage them. In fact, that's the sole purpose
of this newsgroup. How do we get away with it?!!? :-) That's discussed
a bit later in this message.

Although this newsgroup is chartered for commercial product information,
it is not a dumping ground for hype and advertisements. That's why
the newsgroup is moderated, and that's why there are strict guidelines
on what we will publish. Those guidelines are listed at the end of
this message.

Since this newsgroup is moderated, people cannot post announcements
to it directly. Instead, submissions must be sent to the moderator
who will review them with respect to the newsgroup guidelines. Messages
that meet the guidelines are posted by the moderator. We will review
how to submit an announcement shortly.

This message is maintained by Scott Hazen Mueller. Your comments and
suggestions are welcomed at newprod...@zorch.sf-bay.org.

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Subject: Letters! We Get Letters

Our email addresses are:

administrivia, comments, etc. newprod...@zorch.sf-bay.org
announcement submissions new...@zorch.sf-bay.org

We would like to hear your comments and suggestions about this
newsgroup, the moderation policies, and these guidelines. The
moderator tries to act on *your* behalf when reviewing submissions.
Your feedback would be a great help in doing so. Drop us a line at the
`newprod-request' address.

If you want to submit an announcement for posting, please send it to
the `newprod' address. But before you do, be sure you carefully review
the rest of this message!

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Subject: newprod Keywording

One of our services is to categorize all of the comp.newprod postings.
We do so by inserting a `Keywords' header into every message. The
format is:

Keywords: company name; product name; keyword, keyword, keyword ...

We try to use a consistent set of keywords to help comp.newprod readers
find messages of interest. If your newsreader supports `Kill' files,
you can teach it to automatically pick out the things you want to see.
People who use `rn' (or one of its variants) might be interested in
the periodic posting by Leanne Phillips (phil...@syrinx.umd.edu)
entitled `rn KILL file FAQ'. You'll find it in news.software.readers
and on anon FTP site rtfm.mit.edu.

There is another reason why we think keywords are important. They
help us sort and file away announcements in our voluminous archives.
How, you might wonder, can you access those archives? I'm awful glad
you asked...

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Subject: Archives and Back Issues

The official comp.newprod archives are made possible by the kind folks
at the Texas Metronet. You may reach the Metronet in any of the
following ways:

http://www.metronet.com (access through the World Wide Web)
gopher://gopher.metronet.com (Gopher access)
ftp://ftp.metronet.com (anonymous FTP access)

Any of these will put you at the base of the Metronet archives. From
there, take the selection to enter `The comp.newprod Archives'.

The archives are organized to make it easy to find the information
you want. You can view the messages sorted by posting month or product
vendor. You can even do full text searches to find the articles that
mention certain topics.

Our thanks to the people at the Texas Metronet (in...@metronet.com)
for providing the disk space and bandwidth for these archives. Please
note that the maintenance of these archives is the responsibility of
the comp.newprod moderator. Please contact newprod...@zorch.sf-bay.org
if you have any questions, problems, or suggestions,

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Subject: Mailing List Distribution

The comp.newprod announcements are distributed in an email digest as a
courtesy to people who cannot receive Usenet. The contents of the
mailing list are the same as the comp.newprod newsgroup. We prefer
that you read the announcements through Usenet, if possible. To
subscribe to the digest, contact newprod-dig...@chinacat.unicom.com.

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Subject: How to Submit a New Product Announcement

Step one -- read the guidelines! They are given in the next companion
posting, "Comp.Newprod submission guidelines". Messages that violate
them WILL be returned, unposted.

To avoid excess delays (and frustration), it is important that you
follow the guidelines. Many first-time submitters fail to play close
heed to the guidelines. As a result, many first-time submitters end
up having their submission returned, unpublished. What a bummer!
Most of the problems could have been avoided if the person just read
the submission guidelines.

We urge you to spend some time reading comp.newprod to get a feel for
the kind of things that are published here, and the format we expect.

Spend some time reading Usenet! You won't get flamed to a crisp if
your message violates netiquette (as you would in some other groups).
It will, however, be rejected.

Check out the introductory documents in news.announce.newusers. You
might find the following messages useful:

Hints on writing style for Usenet
Rules for posting to Usenet
A Primer on How to Work With the Usenet Community

Finally, if you know somebody who is an old-hand around these parts,
have him or her review your announcement before you submit it. They
can not only help ensure the submission meets the newsgroup guidelines,
but also help you make the announcement more effective. If you don't
have access to any net.experts for your questions, feel free to contact
newprod...@zorch.sf-bay.org.

OK, so you've waded through the copious guidelines, carefully crafted
your announcement, had a net.expert proofread it, and you are ready
to tell the world. Now, send your announcement to the comp.newprod
moderator for review. If you have relatively modern news software,
you can simply post your announcement to the group. Your system will
notice that the newsgroup is moderated, and forward the message to
the moderator for review. If your news system is ancient, or you have
problems posting as just described, you can email your announcement
to new...@zorch.sf-bay.org.

Regardless of the submission method you select, your submission will be
confirmed by an automatically acknowledgement or an automatic rejection
notice. If you make a submission and do not get an automatic message
back within a day or two, it might have gotten lost in transit. It
also might mean that your news software is broken and mangling headers
-- so the automatic reply won't work.

If you do get the acknowledgement, it indicates that the message has
been entered into the comp.newprod queue. It generally takes a week or
two to push an item through the queue. If your message meets the
guidelines, the moderator will post it to the world. The moderator
will try to notify you once the message has been posted. You will be
told that the message has been accepted and posted -- or the message
was not accepted and why.

If you get an automatic rejection message, follow the instructions in the
message and resubmit the article. You should then get the automatic
acknowledgement.

Although we try to let you know when your submission arrives here and
when it has been posted or rejected, we can NOT accept responsiblity
for mail or news software that mangles headers. Our replies sometimes
bounce due to broken headers, and there isn't much we can do about that.

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