If you squick on a newsgroup, and it will not load, it may just mean that your ISP does not carry it. You can give it a thorough going over with DejaNews (see below) to see if you like it, then ask your ISP (Internet Service Provider) to carry it. Your ISP might even say yes! <grin>

Here's a quickie on spam. This is covered more in depth in another chapter, so here, let me just show you a little something --

The above is a U.S. Postal Service page that describes illegal chain letters -- you might want to read it BEFORE you spam any get-rich-quick schemes on UseNet -- the Postal Service keeps pretty busy tracking down all those addresses on all those chain letters. 'Nuff said.

DejaNews is a UseNet archive that is searchable. If you have any intention at all of joining the good folks in any given ung, be sure to learn how to use DejaNews. It is priceless when you want to find out the "feel" of a newsgroup. There is a section of DejaNews that allows you to insert one of your fave subjects into the search field, and find out which newsgroups discuss it most frequently. This can be very handy to get you started in UseNet. At the time of this writing, this is called "Interest Finder" and is located to the left on the DejaNews main page. Here's a link to their main page --

and here's a direct link to the DejaNews Interest Finder --

This newsgroup, about storytelling, tends to lean more toward the DISCUSSION of storytelling. Their posting guidelines do allow the printing of a story, just so long as it's designed to be told by word-of-mouth, and not meant to be published in written form. When you squick your mouse on a newsgroup link, you will be swept away into the newsgroups screen. Never fear, you can turn back to this page easily just by using your 'puter's ALT-TAB function, or whatever you use to task-switch.

Right after the a.a.s link is another link to their FAQ. FAQ stands for "Frequently Asked Questions." These have two main purposes. First, they aid you, a potential reader of the group, because they list questions and answers that you might want to ask, or you WOULD ask if you'd thought of them. And second, a FAQ is a tool that the posters to a newsgroup use to keep from having to answer the same questions over and over again.

With hundreds of newcomers to many newsgroups every single day throughout the world, maybe you can see the wisdom in this. Just the FAQ's, ma'am, just the FAQ's. Sometimes the FAQ also contains other useful information, like posting guidelines, the newsgroup charter, and an archive. And sometimes these are published separately from the FAQ.

Here's an interesting, and in many ways, enlightening FAQ --

AND NOW A BRIEF WORD ABOUT SHOUTING IN USENET. I REALIZE THAT SOME OF YOU NEED NEW SPECTACLES; HOWEVER, USING ALL CAPITAL LETTERS, LIKE THIS, IS CONSIDERED YELLING IN USENET. OVER THE YEARS, YOUR PRESCRIPTION HAS CHANGED, AND YOU MAY HAVE A HARD TIME READING WHAT YOU ARE TYPING. UNLESS YOU WOULD LIKE TO BE FLAMED (to be flamed is to be mistreated with words by someone in whom you have raised a certain level of ire) FROM HERE TO SUNDAY, PLEASE, PLEASE, GO GET THOSE NEW GLASSES !!!!

Using all capitals once in a while for EMPHASIS is okay, yet even this can be accomplished by using the asterisk (*) *like this*. Don't overuse the *asterisks*, though, because some jerk just might flame you for appearing to be nervous. If you do **this** a lot, be sure to include some <yawn>s now and then, so people will think you're being nonchalant <grin>. 'Nuff said.

We come now to another of my fave ung's, "miscellaneous writing." M.W is a group devoted to the DISCUSSION of writing in all it's forms. It's one of the larger groups, and there is little true agreement as to what is REALLY allowed to be posted there. Yet everybody seems to agree that the posting of "labors of love," that is, our little babes of bright or beastly bytes of blood, sweat 'n tears, or in other words, our stories and poems, are NOT to be posted there, not by direct posting or by "crossposting."

Crossposting, sometimes typed as "xposting," another controversial subject, is the posting of the same article to two or more newsgroups. This can be done two ways. Either include the groups in your NEWSGROUP header, usually separated by a comma, or send the same message individually to two or more groups. The first method saves "bandwidth." An example: Suppose you want to ask a question about an agent or publisher who has approached you about publishing your work. You find that there are several newsgroups devoted to writing, so you decide to post your question to five newsgroups. If you use the first method, type all five groups into the newsgroup header something like this --

Your single message will take up a certain amount of space on the server. If you send your query to each group one-at-a-time, your message will take up about five times the memory space on the server.

Everyone in m.w gets along with each other for the most part. They do get their occasional flame wars (see chap. eight), but usually the worst that will happen is that someone will disagree with you, and take you to task. It seems clear that how people react to each other is a direct result of the anonymity they enjoy, as well as their nature in general.

Some more writing newsgroups for you --

REC.ARTS.SF Science Fiction Hierarchy -- groups dedicated to the subject of science fiction writing

news://SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY NETWORK -- a whole 'nother world of newsgroups

news:MISC.WRITING.SCREENPLAYS -- devoted to the discussion of writing screenplays

news:REC.ARTS.POEMS -- you can post poems here, and discuss and critique if you like
The RAP FAQ

news:REC.ARTS.PROSE -- post your stories here

news:ALT.PROSE -- and post your stories here as well

news:ALT.WRITING -- another group devoted to the discussion of writing

news:ALT.PULP -- here's a slick, sensational group

PLEASE be sure to check your FAQs and Posting Guidelines, and feel free to "lurk" around awhile -- *before* posting --

and the AT&T WorldNet info newsgroups, but you of course will have your own faves. Hopefully, the words in this chapter will work side-by-side with you to get you where you want to be.