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REC.ARTS.STARTREK.* Introduction--Monthly

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Michael Scott Shappe

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Jan 3, 1992, 10:13:38 PM1/3/92

Archive-name: intro-ras-monthly

This posting is a work in progress. Constructive comments welcome.
Flames to /dev/null--see "What rec.arts.startrek is" below.

CHANGES THIS ISSUE:
* Updated to reflect reorganization.
======================================================================

Welcome to the rec.arts.startrek.* experience!

What Star Trek is
-----------------

Star Trek is a body of SPECULATIVE FICTION. It consists of two
television series (Star Trek and Star Trek:The Next
Generation), an animated television program (Star Trek:The
Animated Series), five motion pictures and one in progress, and
a vast body of licensed and unlicensed spin-off material.
Legally speaking, Star Trek and everything associated with it
are property in one way or another of Paramount Pictures
Corporation.

What Star Trek fandom is
------------------------

Star Trek fandom is an unprecedented phenomenon of appreciation for the
Star Trek body of speculative fiction. To some, it resembles a
religion. Some fans are blindly accepting. Others are more critical.
All are in it because they find some enjoyment in some aspect in Star
Trek. Many Trek fans feel that, morally speaking, Star Trek and
everything associated with it are property of fandom in general.

What rec.arts.startrek.* is
---------------------------

The rec.arts.startrek.* hierarchy of newsgroups are, with one
exception, unmoderated, open fora for the discussion of ALL THINGS
pertaining to Star Trek and Star Trek fandom (see definitions above).
Although the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States
does not, strictly speaking, apply to this newsgroup (or USENET in
general)[*], any message pertaining to Star Trek or Trek fandom is a
valid one, REGARDLESS OF OPINIONS EXPRESSED, as long as it fits within
the established guidelines of the specific forum. This includes reviews,
synopses of stories, criticisms of personalities associated with Star
Trek, etc.

This is NOT alt.flame; therefore, it is not considered valid (or good
manners) to wage personality conflicts on this forum. Personal attacks
should be avoided. Let's face it--it's just a show. No matter how
strongly you feel about it, it's still just fiction. Don't waste
bandwidth with personal attacks; and those of you who are attacked,
don't waste bandwidth replying in public. Nobody really cares, folks.
We're here for Star Trek. Let's talk about Star Trek.

[*] A word about the First Amendment. The famous document states that
"Congress shall make no law..." that restricts the freedom of speech.
This doesn't apply to USENET in the sense that system operators are
perfectly within their rights to censor posts or restrict access, for
cause or for no reason at all. It's their system, their resources.
Period. It's private property. The First Amendment simply doesn't
apply--neither in letter nor in spirit.

One good example of this is the recent decision by Princeton
University's news administrator not to accept the results of the
rec.arts.sf.* split. System administrators (or his superiors) have the
ability and the right to control what passes through their systems.

Nevertheless, it is not within the province of individual users to
say, "Well, yes, this newsgroup is about Star Trek, but you can't say
such-and-thus about it." Partially because, within the limits
described above, this is an open forum, and partially because the
individual user has no power whatsoever, anyway, to enforce this.

Where rec.arts.startrek.* is going
----------------------------------

rec.arts.startrek was recently reorganized as per a USENET Vote called
by James Huggins. As a result, from this single group sprang three new
ones: rec.arts.startrek.current, .fandom, and .tech. In addition, the
original newsgroup was renamed rec.arts.startrek.misc, and
rec.arts.startrek.info (moderated by Jim Griffith) remains in
unchanged.

What rec.arts.startrek.current is
---------------------------------
rec.arts.startrek.current (r.a.s.c., not to be confused with the
ill-fated science-fiction creative group rec.arts.sf-creative,
abbreviated r.a.sf.c) is a newsgroup dedicated to new instances of the
Star Trek body of speculative fiction. By this, we mean Star Trek
television programs, movies and books aired or released for the first
time within the past four months, information about future programs,
movies and books, and speculation of same if based on information
still current (such as speculation of cliffhanger resolutions). If it
has anything to do with RECENT Star Trek, it belong ins r.a.s.c.

What rec.arts.startrek.fandom is
--------------------------------
rec.arts.startrek.fandom (r.a.s.f., not to be confused with the
Science Fiction hierarchy, rec.arts.sf.*, abbreviated r.a.sf.*) is a
newsgroup dedicated to the discussion of the Star Trek fan phenomenon.
It is also for discussiong conventions, television stations airing
Trek, news and policies from Paramount and other fan-related issues.

What rec.arts.startrek.tech is
------------------------------
rec.arts.startrek.tech (r.a.s.t., not to be confused with the original
rec.arts.startrek newsgroup, abbreviated r.a.s. or r.a.st.) is a
newsgroup dedicated to discussing the depiction of future technology
in the Star Trek body of speculative fiction, including warp drives,
phasers, photon torpedoes, transporters, communicators, turbolifts,
android technology, medical advances, Geordi's visor, violations of
the 20th century physical laws, and so on.

What rec.arts.startrek.info is
------------------------------
rec.arts.startrek.info (r.a.s.i.), moderated by Jim Griffith, is a
no-noise collection of informational postings about the Star Trek body
of speculative fiction. It is not for the posting of requests for
information.

What rec.arts.startrek.misc is
------------------------------
rec.arts.startrek.misc (r.a.s.m., not to be confused with any future
newsgroup pertaining to sadism and masochism, abbreviated r.a.s&m :-)
is a newsgroup dedicated to topics relating to the Star Trek body of
speculative fiction that do not fit into the other four newsgroups
(current, fandom, info and tech).

What USENET is
--------------

To call USENET a network is a misnomer. USENET is a distributed messaging
system spanning several networks and meta-networks (ie. Internet).
It is NOT an E-mail network, and it is NOT synonymous with "UUCP network"
(which doesn't really exist as an organization), "Internet" (which
is a meta-network of interconnected TCP-IP networks) or BITNET (which
is a physical network of large machines running the RSCS transport
protocol). It IS synonymous with "NetNews" or "News".

USENET has a culture, a folklore, and a law all its own. It is important
for a new user to understand this culture before participating; otherwise,
the "newbie" risks being "flamed" (told off) for their ignorance.
Several sources of information should be helpful:

rec.arts.startrek lists: Several other periodical postings appear
here on r.a.s. and on its sister group, rec.arts.startrek.info (moderated).
These include Matt Gertz' r.a.s. Netiquette Guide; Otto Heuer's
Frequently Asked Questions lists, Mark Holtz' Lists of Lists, and
Mike Brown's frequent but irregular postings of more-or-less official
news from Paramount. The reader is encouraged to peruse the first
three BEFORE posting; there is a good chance that your question
may be answered in one of them.

rec.arts.startrek.info: A zero-noise newsgroup, moderated by
Jim Griffith. Various informational postings, including several
of those listed above, appear here. Some are culled from the
stream of rec.arts.startrek consciousness, others are original
to r.a.s.i.

news.announce.newusers: is a newsgroup specifically designed for the
newbie. It contains a series of monthly postings on the guidelines
that make up USENET culture. If this newsgroup is currently empty
at your site, wait until about the middle of the month. If no such
newsgroup exists, beat up on your system administrator to get with
the program; every site should carry this.

Your system administrator: Speaking of the devil, you should know
how to get in touch with the folks that run your system. On most UNIX
machines, sending mail to the 'root' or 'postmaster' account should
get results of some kind. VMS machines have a user named 'SYSTEM'
that is similarly a likely target. If these fail to produce results,
or you are not certain what kind of machine you are running on, try
to look up the appropriate department in your organization's telephone
directory and do some checking. One way or another YOU SHOULD KNOW
WHO IS IN CHARGE AND HOW TO GET IN TOUCH WITH THEM.

There are several newsgroups which every USENET citizen should at
least skim. These include:

news.announce.newgroups: A moderated set of postings announcing the
instigation of Discussions on new groups and the calling of Votes
for new groups.

news.groups: The site of ALL formal discussions on creating, destroying
and altering newsgroups. This is the ONLY place where these discussions
may be held, so anyone interested in joining such a discussion about
a group they read or would read or don't want to see created should
read this group. Like news.announce.newusers, there is no excuse [**]
for a site not carrying this newsgroup. If yours does not, beat upon your
sysadmin until it does.

[**] Actually, there are several excuses, but none of them are good.
Saying "we don't have the room" is a poor one--if you don't have the
room, you shouldn't be carrying USENET. "We don't feel like it" is
a REALLY poor one, but it's also the hardest one to argue against.

alt.config: If your site receives the alt.* hierarchy, this group
should be skimmed for the same reason as news.groups.

Who is this Uncle Mikey guy?
----------------------------

I'm no one in particular. I'm just a dedicated Star Trek fan who sees
a lot of people stumbling around in the dark because no one ever told
them that they were walking into a completely new culture. rec.arts.startrek
can be almost as addicting as Star Trek itself (ask me about how many
times I've tried to leave and found myself dragged back :-) But
it can also be discouragingly opaque to a newcomer. This post and
its weekly avatars are designed to help ease the newcomer in and remind
the Faithful what the ground rules are.

I hope that this posting has been helpful.

Uncle Mikey
Michael...@mail.cornell.edu

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