Path: senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!newsfeed.utk.edu!news-hog.berkeley.edu!ucberkeley!cnn.nas.nasa.gov!marcy.nas.nasa.gov!eugene From: eugene@marcy.nas.nasa.gov (Eugene N. Miya) Newsgroups: ca.general,ba.general Subject: [l/m 2/4/97] [b|c]a.general News Quiz Date: 28 Sep 2000 12:01:01 GMT Organization: NAS, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA Lines: 149 Distribution: ca Message-ID: <8qvbtt$aa4$1@sun500.nas.nasa.gov> NNTP-Posting-Host: marcy.nas.nasa.gov Xref: senator-bedfellow.mit.edu ba.general:92554 Panel 28 Table of Contents of this Chain 28 News quiz 1 Reminders on use of the *.general news.groups 8 General Help Reading News 12 Posting headers and cross-posting 16 Distribution Fields 20 Killfiles (with extreme prejudice) 24 Canceling posted news articles The following self-test will cover your news knowledge. The CA DMV News posting quiz Test your news skills (answer T or F). Beginner (reader) Can deliberately (not accidentally) invoke mail, news, bbs, or notes. Can get out of said system cleanly (without issuing an interrupt). Might be able to read news. Can't post or send mail (probably because it invokes a foreign editor). Blown away when .newsrc (or .notesrc) starts up with 2245 lines (e.g.). Can't understand strange symbols. Strictly a lurker. Intermediate (user) Beyond the beginner stage. Can read news groups sequentially. Can post follow-ups. Capable of invoking the system help command. Incapable of skipping articles. Not necessarily capable of article or group searching. Selectively reads news groups. Ignores the rest. Expects others to post and generate articles like a magazine. Does not understand flame wars. Recognizes smilies 8^) [I have glasses.], maybe makes ASCII graphics. Lurker, sometime poster. Advanced (poster) Beyond the intermediate stage. Can read news groups or posts in any order (random access). Can skip news articles. Can search a news article or news group. Can unsubscribe/subscribe from news.groups at will. Understands the differences in terminology (e.g., doesn't freak out when seeing the words notesfile, BBS, or discussion group). Knows how to use Followup lines. Can use Kill files. Can understand and edits .newsrc, .notesrc, .signature, etc. files. May understand the news.hierarchy. Can set up FAQs. Understands flame wars. Recognizes smilees, but avoids using them. Eschews gratuitous ASCII graphics. (Uses them only to clarify postings.) System Admin () Beyond the advanced poster stage. Can set up a news system. Can decipher UUCP Paths. Can clean a news system when the file system gets full. Understands (read and edit) headers. Knows where articles actually sit. Understands or can set up news gateways. Understands accounts like root, system, postmaster, etc. Can control flame wars. ( rm -r /usr/spool/news/fav.news.path 8^) Not without a sense of humor. Able to piece together and understand deliberately obscure FAQ postings. May know how to forge postings. May moderate a news.group. Explain the initials DMV in this context? Forwarded-by: jmorton@euler.Berkeley.EDU (John Morton) Forwarded-by: mbkomor@remarque.berkeley.edu (m.b.komor) Forwarded-by: satai@deepthot.cary.nc.us Forwarded-by: Cameron Dixon Forwarded-by: Bonni Hall Forwarded-by: dave.rogers@bt-sys.bt.co.uk (Dave Rogers) [This was from a thread in which it was explained for the bazillionth time why it is NOT appropriate to post binary files to a discussion group.] The Newbie's Song (Based on the Major General's song from "The Pirates of Penzance", Gilbert & Sullivan). I am the very model of a Usenet individual, I've information meaningless and ultimately trivial, I know the basic elements of alien biology, And all the hidden secrets of the Church of Scientology, I've seen "The Wrath of Khan" and every Star Trek film that followed it, I moan about my Servicecard and how the cash till swallowed it, About the laws on handguns I am sending off a counterblast, With many cheerful facts about the way you can MAKE MONEY FAST! ALL: With many cheerful etc. I'll tell you why the Japanese are taking over Panama, And why the USA is still a better place than Canada, In short, in matters meaningless and ultimately trivial, I am the very model of a Usenet individual. ALL: In short, in matters meaningless and ultimately trivial, He is the very model of a Usenet individual. I post in alt.revisionism lies about the Holocaust, I cut my .sig to twenty lines, I didn't want to, I was forced, I really can't believe the "Good Times" virus to be mythical, And Clinton's raising taxes which is, frankly, bloody typical, I've upset several people on alt.flame, I really don't know how, And sent a thousand business cards to Mr. and Mrs. Shergold now, I have a very poor grip of political geography, And absolutely no involvement (yet!) in child pornography, ALL: And absolutely no, etc. I've paid two-fifty dollars for the Nieman-Marcus recipe, And told the Spanish tourist's tale about the toothbrush pessary, In short, in matters meaningless and ultimately trivial, I am the very model of a Usenet individual. ALL: In short, in matters meaningless and ultimately trivial, He is the very model of a Usenet individual. In fact, when I know what is meant by "binary" and "FTP", When I know how to decode porno JPEGs from a .uue, When I can handle HTML, Telnet, mail and IRC, And when I know the words initialised to form "http", When I have learnt what topics are acceptable in talk.bizarre, When I know more of Usenet than the tailpipe of a motor-car, - In short, when I've a smattering of elementary netiquette, You'll say a better individual has never surfed the Net. ALL: You'll say a better individual, etc. For my technical experience, although I claim to know it all Could barely serve to run the installation disk from AOL; But still, in matters meaningless and ultimately trivial, I am the very model of a Usenet individual. ALL: But still, in matters meaningless and ultimately trivial, He is the very model of a Usenet individual.