Charter and FAQ for sdnet.singles, San Diego
wkro...@sunstroke.sdsu.edu
Posting-Frequency: [This is an automatic posting of the charter for
sdnet.singles. Posting Frequency will be on the 1st and 15th of each
month. All discussion should take place in sdnet.config plus the
newsgroup in question.]
This is the official FAQ file for sdnet.singles.
This file contains the following topics:
1) What is this file?
2) What is sdnet.singles?
3) Who is sdnet.singles for?
4) Guidelines for posting to sdnet.singles.
5) How sdnet.singles is a companion to sdnet.personals.
6) Do women read and post to the group?
7) Boinks, Social Outings, Net-gatherings.
8) Kill Files
9) How sdnet.singles is a party in many ways.
10) Excerpts taken from another regional singles group
11) Ending Statements.
Note: A complete overview, planned events, posting to the groups can now
be found on the world wide web at:
http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/~wk/singles
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Item 1: What is this file?
This is, very simply, a file containing what people refer
to as "Frequently Asked Questions". It is nothing more than
a list of questions and answers for readers to use as a guide
line for the newsgroup.
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Item 2: What is sdnet.singles?
Sdnet.singles is a newsgroup for singles as well as married
folks. It is meant for all people of San Diego, Ca. It is also open to
other communities. This is a newsgroup where people can meet and
communicate through the internet.
a)It is open to discussions related to romance, love, interaction among
people.
b)It is open to discussions related to forming new relationships of any
kind. Thus, conversations related to the above, as well as discussions
to allow social meetings by and for the readers on this group and
sdnet.personals group, "boinks" is the net term for group get-togethers.
c)It is a newsgroup in which many and all forms of communication can be
found for the sole purpose of forming new friendships of any type.
d)The sdnet.singles and the sdnet.personals work as companions in the
same purpose, this will be further discussed later.
e)The above two groups are NOT moderated, thus all free speech values
are intact within these groups. This also means that no one person is in
control of who posts here, other than your local systems administrator
(sysadmin/sysop). The sysops are responsible for deciding which
newsgroups to carry locally and over seeing the newsgroups and files they
choose to carry. There are general guide lines for posting that are
highly recommended and are listed below.
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Item 3: Who is sdnet.singles for?
Sdnet.singles is for everyone. You will find all types of
people. It is open to heterosexuals, homosexuals, bisexuals, singles
(available), married and people in open relationships so, in general, it
is open to the entire public.
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Item 4: Guidelines for posting to sdnet.singles.
Keep in mind, as stated above, this is not a moderated group.
First, realize that posting is NOT a right but a privilege. This implies
access can be withdrawn by your local operators. This is usually a very
drastic step and usually after many violations/warnings. If you remember
that sdnet.singles is a regional newsgroup to San Diego, Calif. meant for
a) discussion, b) joking with others, c) event notices and planning you
will do just fine.
Cross-posting policies:
The sdnet.singles newsgroup does not permit cross-posting to other
newsgroups outside of the sdnet.* hierarchy. Cross-posting to other
newsgroups which are not related to the sdnet.* hierarchy will be
cancelled.
The basic rule of the road is, courtesy. Courtesy should always
be extended both on and off the group. So you may disagree with
someone's point of view, you may wantto flame someone or you may want to
go through private e-mail, BUT always use courtesy no matter how upset
you may feel. It is one thing to flame someone on the group in humor and
wit but it is another to humiliate them, this is not advised.
I stress that all personal disputes be kept off the group. Take
your personal disputes into e-mail and or a newsgroup that serves that
purpose, i.e. alt.flame.
When addressing someone by private e-mail always show courtesy.
I read another FAQ where I saw the following statements and feel it is
best summed up by this: Never send a letter to a woman you don't know
which you would be ashamed or embarrassed to show your mother. In other
words DO NOT send wannaf**ks to posters.
Posting can take many shapes and forms: You can post discussion
topics that are either serious or light hearted in nature, you can even
use flames with wit and humor in your postings. It has been my experience
that by using all of those methods you will meet people (that is one of
the goals here). The point is, by posting in all its forms and allowing
readers to see you and your personality it will increase your chances of
someone responding to you. Posting to sdnet.singles should NOT be
included with other groups. There are exceptions, with cautions. I
strongly urge you to keep all discussions to sdnet.singles and use
caution in any cross postings. In other words NO personals ads in the
sdnet.singles and NO chit-chat, discussions in sdnet.personals.
Sdnet.personals is to be used for placing personal ads, responding to
these ads, discussion on how to write personal ads, and final
announcements for our net-gatherings. A note that in general cross
posting to many groups outside of this group is very dangerous and can
cause much headache among fellow readers. As well as cross posting into
other sdnet groups.
So you now want to post and are looking for possible guidelines
for this. First, take a step back and think about what you want to say,
and the point you wish to make. Do not just rush in without thinking
about it.
a)Try to minimize what you want to say, and if by chance it turns out be
a very long post you may want to put on the subject line (LONG). This
will alert the readers that it is a long post, as some people pay big
money for time and space.
b)Avoid using capitals as this is looked upon as shouting at the readers.
Tailor your line length to 80 characters or less, as this is the most
common for a screen display. I would recommend maybe 74 characters per
line or less.
c)This is a written medium, so I suggest that you try good spelling and
grammar. However, as one of those people who does not type except by
hunt and peck method and tends not to pay attention to spelling much, I
do not recommend we have spelling flame wars here as I will roast anyone
that does, but in fine humor and wit. The overall point is you should
try to present yourself the best way you can and that this is not
sdnet.spelling.class.
e)Things NOT appreciated in sdnet.singles:
1)Evangelizing
2)Commercial solicitations
3)Posting image or sound files
4)Cross posting articles of discussion into
non-regional groups that could result in
flame wars.
5)Personal disputes.
6)Quoting someone else's article in the entirety, to
only add one line.
7)Posting personal ads in sdnet.singles. There is
sdnet.personals for this. However, sdnet.singles
people should not cause a major flame war if someone
does this from time to time. Send the person a
short note reminding them of no personals, and where
they can post them, maybe a flame or two but unlike
some *.singles groups this should not become the major
focus of sdnet.singles (flaming personals ads). That
also goes for posting discussions into sdnet.personals
that are out of character.
6)Posting someone's private e-mail. Private e-mail is
just that, private do not post other peoples private
e-mail on the group. I tend to believe there are
exceptions to this, with a stress in caution. If
you are receiving hate mail, nasty letters,
wannaf**ks I personally do not think this is wrong.
It will serve many purposes, reduce amount of people
sending these, it will allow peer pressure on these
types of people and will put a fast stop to it. I
do recommend caution and also to suggest that if
someone is getting this type of mail, you can send a
note to that persons admin. Just send to
postm...@that.persons.domain with a note informing
them of the activities you are receiving from their
user.
f)Canceling of Articles and Cross Posting:
Article or follow up will be cancelled under the following conditions:
a)If your article or follow up contains 5 or more newsgroups in the
header or cross-posted to newsgroups outside of the sdnet.*
hierarchy.
b)If your article is cross posted to groups inappropriately, i.e. a
personal ad in the singles group, a discussion in the
personals group, these are only a few examples.
c)Your article or follow up is cross posted to cause a flame war
among the various groups you have posted to.
d)Binaries by standard Usenet policy belong in binary groups. Please
do not post binaries.
e)MIME/HTML posts, and in particular any posting using a content-
encoding other than 7bit, 8bit, or quoted-printable. Most users
reading Usenet do not use a Web browser.
f)There is no commercial advertising in this group.
In general, the above guidelines follow that of other regional Usenet
groups and spamming guidelines.
g)The proper way to advertise on the internet:
First, please keep in mind that Usenet is not the proper place to
advertise. Usenet news was, and is, a place for discussion, this has
been a very long standard on Usenet. For advertising your Web Page or
BBS the best ways in which to do this are:
a)Make sure your URL is listed on the search engines so people can
easily find it.
b)Get in touch with other Web page authors that have pages that are
similar in nature to yours and set up mutual links between the two
pages.
c)For Usenet:
1)Enter into Discussions that relate to what you may be
advertising. If you have a dating service, there are a number
of times when we have discussions on places to meet others,
what people have found at a given dating service, etc.
It is within these discussions you can easily offer input and
information on a specific service.
2)It is also considered wise to put a pointer to your URL in
your signature file such that people can see this (note, not
actually an ad but just a pointer) when they read your
discussions on Usenet. Now part of this is done to help keep
the spam down and the actual purpose of the newsgroup going.
I am sure one can imagine what a newsgroup would look like if
all it had was nothing more then commercials, one after
another. There are thousands of web page dating services,
matchmaking BBS's, not to mention the 900 numbers and if all
of these places started advertising on a given newsgroup it
would become nothing more than a non-stop commercial which is
NOT the purpose of this group.
h)Binaries:
Sdnet.singles is not a binary newsgroup. Binary files are much larger
than a normal post, require more drive space on a server and take much
longer to download. Because of this many binary newsgroups are not
carried by all providers and posting binary files to a non-binary group
could cause the group to be dropped by some providers. Therefore, it is a
newsnet standard to post binary files only in binary groups. Do not post
binary files in sdnet.singles.
So what do you do if you what to have people see a binary? In your
post/article put a pointer to a:
1)FTP site one can download your file from
2)Web site that they can see your binary at
3)You may post your binary to alt.binaries.misc (separate posting,
not cross posted) with a pointer in your ad letting people know
where it is at
4)State in your ad that you can e-mail the binary upon request. But
please do not post binaries to a non-binary newsgroup.
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Item 5: How sdnet.singles is a companion to sdnet.personals.
Sdnet.singles and sdnet.personals are very similar in nature.
They both serve the same purpose, to meet and make new friendships.
Sdnet.singles, in a very basic way, has everything that sdnet.personals
has BUT does not have personal ads found in the sdnet.personals.
All conversation topics, discussions, planning boinks can be found
in sdnet.singles. To the readers of sdnet.personals, please
remember.... no personals ads in sdnet.singles, that also means that
chit-chat and discussions are meant for sdnet.singles not
sdnet.personals. These two groups are a package deal and in general
serve the same people and same goals, so it will be to all party's
benefits to allow everyone in on the same things. In general terms
sdnet.singles is to allow discussion and interaction so others can
learn, enjoy and might even get to know one another better this way.
Sdnet.personals can then be used to place a personal ad and allow
a brief summary for the readers to respond to. If by chance you do
not have or your provider does not carry both of these groups, write
to your system administrator requesting the missing group. I tend
to believe if you subscribed to one, your site carries the other.
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Item 6: Do women read and post to these groups?
Yes, women do read and post to these groups. Women may
not be as high in numbers as men on the internet and on these groups,
but they are out there. Women, in general, tend towards being a
lurker (reader, not poster). There are many reasons for this of which
I will only mention a few. In part because women who post will get
flooded with mail and wannaf**ks so they tend to lurk and read
what is going on, then respond in private. I am hoping as this
group grows that this does not become an issue, that in a local,
close group such as this that fear and shyness will not hold
women back from interacting. Women, please do not feel shy when
posting. Men, please show the utmost courtesy when responding
to women as you are having a major affect on people here.
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Item 7: Boink, Social Outings, Net-gatherings.
Boink, the term is used to imply a meeting of the
members of a given newsgroup. So a gathering of net folks of
any kind. It is one of the sole purposes of this group along with
sdnet.personals group to form these boinks. I must admit, I am
not fond of the term boink but at the moment it is all I can come
up with and is the common term in net land. Boink can range from
bike boink, hiking boink, restaurant boink, bar boink etc. An
alternative name for boink may be something like "Net-gathering".
To start a boink you just post the following in sdnet.singles:
(subject header): Boink or Boink Call. In the text of this message
you announce you want to call a boink (meeting, outing, etc.).
You may want to use another subject header as well. One that
will catch the readers eye. You then give the details of this
meeting in your post. Boinks can be anywhere and anytime and
anything. It is best to give plenty of notice in advance with
details. Your event should not conflict with, be planned on the same
day as another sdnet.singles event.
So lets say you want a boink, post message to both
groups with the details something like this:
Boink: Sat 17 of July at 3:00pm
Place: Insert address of place
Details: What is it about, a bar, ice cream
place, hiking, etc
It is best to announce at least several days in advance so if there are
problems we can (as a group) try to work them out. With this type of
post, announcement, we then can, as a group, discuss and plan it out so it
all works for most people. I would like to keep this very open for
further suggestions and comments from people. It is the best idea I
could come up with at the moment, and feel the most important thing is to
get a gathering going by just announcing it.
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Item 8: Kill files
There are a large number of news reading programs/software for various
systems. It will be hard to describe kill files for each type of program
that is on the market. The main point is to know that your specific news
reading software has a means to kill/filter out various articles that
you do not wish to read. It is best to read up on your specific software
and become familar with the various ways to use kill files and filters.
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Item 9: How sdnet.singles is a party in many ways.
A singles newsgroup is nothing more than an electronic version
of a party you may attend. In most parties you will usually find (being
very general here) three types of social interaction:
1)The person who will sit in the corner watching everyone. These folks
are referred to as "Lurkers" on newsgroups. They read and are here, but
never seen. This person may enjoy this very much or may be shy and or
nervous. He/she may pull someone aside in private for conversation. On
a newsgroup this is known as e-mail.
2)The other type is somebody who came to the party, will be usually very
quiet and end up leaving the party for hours before coming back (in a
newsgroup can be days or weeks). May mingle with a few folks in the
party.
3)The third type are the ones who are very active, very lively, will
mingle all night long....go from conversation to conversation. This
person will usually meet many people over the course of the night, may
make many friends as a result.
One other important note: It may appear on the newsgroup, that many folks
know eachother, are the best of friends. This is most of time, not the
case. Sometimes it is easier to interact on a computer for some people.
This may appear as being friendly and knowing many people, but is not
always the case.
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Item 10:Excerpts taken from another regional singles group.
Q: Just what is appropriate on uk.singles?
A: Apart from what has been mentioned above, pretty much
anything goes. Think of uk.singles as the electronic version
of something that's partway between a cocktail party and a
soap opera. Except at this sort of cocktail party all the
guests have bags over their heads and communicate by leaving
messages on a sofa, where some messages become irretrievably
lost down the back. Appropriate posts should be both
interactive and entertaining, that is, their content should
both invite the participation of others in the electronic
conversation and be entertaining to its readers. You might
pose an open question to the readership about some aspect of
the human condition as it applies to singleness or you might
reply to another contributor's post and add an observation
that sheds light on a different aspect of the issue under
discussion or just makes some people out there laugh and
shoot Lapsang Souchong out through their noses onto their
computer keyboards.
Q: Is there anything that should be avoided?
A: If there are to be any rules, perhaps trying to be
non-judgmental on other peoples' views should be one.
Discussion is fine, illogical rhetoric tends to get peoples'
backs up, especially slanging matches on religion,
vegetarianism, curtains, etc., and it's very boring indeed
for the rest of us. It's also good form to avoid messages
that are pretty much content-free: don't, for example, quote
an entire message that you agree with and then append "Yeah,
what she said" to the end. Test messages should also be
avoided. If you're unsure whether your messages are getting
out or not, post something to uk.test and you'll get
confirmation messages from various sites around the UK and
elsewhere to let you know your posting software is working.
On uk.singles, like any other group, it's best to avoid the
urge to post spelling flames. Unless you can turn the
spelling error into an outrageously witty (or just slightly
witty) observation, there's no reason to post spelling
flames publicly. Also, bear in mind that this is a public
forum, posting an article here is rather like writing an
article in a newspaper - but be careful about mentioning
newspaper articles because they do create some heated debate
in these here parts. Anyway, this being a public forum it
is best not to mention names or other personal information.
I'm rather unclear on how the laws of libel relate to
electronic publication, but it's usually best to err on the
side of caution. Except that these are no longer unwritten
laws, because they're written down.
Q: Isn't uk.singles very cliquey? I'll probably be ignored if
I'm not in with the "in crowd".
A: In truth, there is no "in crowd". Certainly some people post
more than others and some areas (Keele and Coventry) have
collections of posters who sit next to each other in a
terminal room and have extended threads talking only with
themselves, no matter how much they deny it. Still, the
consensus is that more does make for merrier. Remember that
every poster on uk.singles had to post his or her first
message sometime and, even now, it's no more difficult for
you to press the follow up-key than it is for anyone else.
Sometimes it helps just to read the newsgroup for a while,
get a feel for what's going on and what the other posters
are like, what sorts of topics have already been beaten to
death many times over and what sorts of insights, knowledge,
and experience you might have to add that others might not
think of. When you do decide to leap into the fray and post
something, don't be discouraged if it doesn't get a response
right away, everybody posts stuff that is ignored or not
followed up. There is nothing malicious in this - many more
people read here than post.
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Item 11: Ending Statements.
Questions can be posted to the group if you are just unsure and
want to know before doing something. Questions in general and in
reference to this FAQ can be directed to myself at:
wkronert at sunstroke.sdsu.edu
First written on Aug. 20, 1994
Bill
--
Bill Kronert San Diego Usenet Admin. - SDNET