This is the official FAQ file for
© 1994-2001 William Kronert, Product of San Diego Singles and Personals Home Page
This is, very simply, a file containing what people refer to as
the "Frequently Asked Questions". It is nothing more than a list of
questions and answers for readers to use as a guideline for the
newsgroup.
Sdnet.personals is a newsgroup for singles, married folks and 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.
Sdnet.personals is for everyone. You will find all types of
people. It is open to heterosexuals and homosexuals, bisexuals,
singles (available), married and in open relationships. So, in general,
it is open to the entire public.
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
you can be withdrawn by your local operators.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.personals is a regional newsgroup for San Diego,
Calif. meant for people seeking other people you will do just fine in
general.
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 want to 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. I suggest this
especially for private disputes which do not go along with the character
of the newsgroup, you take the dispute to either private e-mail and/or
a newsgroup for flaming, i.e. alt.flame. Keep in mind that your actions
affect the entire group, the atmosphere and whether people choose to
continue to read and post.
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 to sdnet.personals
should NOT be included with other groups. There are exceptions, with
cautions. If you have a strict personal ad in nature, I tend to feel
(if you wish) that including the alt.personals newsgroup would not harm
anyone. I strongly suggest keeping as much conversation or discussion
to the sdnet.singles newsgroup as possible, ONLY discussions or
conversations though. In other words NO personals ads in the
sdnet.singles newsgroup. (To be discussed later.) The general point
is, discussion in sdnet.singles, personals in sdnet.personals.
Another point here is that cross-posting to many groups outside
of this one is very dangerous and can cause much headache among fellow
readers. This also can be extended to cross-posting to other sdnet
groups. Most of us read both groups, and it is only more time consuming
if this is done. 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.personals:
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)Discussions which are best done in sdnet.singles
7)Quoting someone else's article in the entirety, to
only add one line. Responding to an ad on
the group, as it is best to use the reply
key/private e-mail.
8)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
postmaster@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 is cross posted outside sdnet.*.
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.personals 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
usenet standard to post binary files only in binary groups. Do not post
binary files in sdnet.personals.
So what do you do if you what to have people see a binary? In your ad 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.
Sdnet.personals and sdnet.singles are very similar in nature.
They both serve the same purpose, to meet and make new relationships.
Sdnet.personals, in a very basic way, is for everything that
sdnet.singles has and does, BUT has personals ads not found in
sdnet.singles. Plain and simple, all conversation topics, discussions,
planning boinks can be found in sdnet.singles as well, BUT no personals
are to be cross-posted to sdnet.singles group. 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 benefit to allow everyone in on the same things.
In general, sdnet.singles can be used for discussions which allow you
find out a bit more about a person. Then the sdnet.personals can be
used to get a brief and specific summary of a person to respond to. If
by chance you do not have, or your site does not carry, both of these
groups, write to your system administrator requesting the missing one.
I tend to believe if you subscribed to one, your site carries the other.
This can go on and on, but this is pretty basic and general ones used.
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 the fears and
shyness will not hold women back from interacting. Please do not feel
shy when posting, women. Men, please show the utmost courtesy when
responding to women as you are having a major affect on people here.
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 these groups. It is in sdnet.singles where the
discussions will take place for planning them. 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 to the
name boink can be something like "Net-gathering". Further details of
announcing and planning these net-gatherings can be found in the
sdnet.singles FAQ.
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.
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: William Kronert
First written on Aug. 20, 1994