From hungary-online-owner Tue Apr 4 00:23:40 1995 Received: from localhost (daemon@localhost) (fnord) by nando.yak.net (8.6.5/8.6.5) id AAA16979 for hungary-online-announce-out31415; Tue, 4 Apr 1995 00:23:40 -0700 Received: from localhost (strick@localhost) (fnord) by nando.yak.net (8.6.5/8.6.5) id AAA16968; Tue, 4 Apr 1995 00:23:24 -0700 Received: from strick () via =-=-=-=-=-= for hungary-online-announce@hungary.yak.net (16966) Received: from localhost (strick@localhost) (fnord) by nando.yak.net (8.6.5/8.6.5) id AAA16963 for hungary-online-announce@hungary.yak.net; Tue, 4 Apr 1995 00:23:19 -0700 Received: from carlson@odin.net () via =-=-=-=-=-= for hungary-online-announce@hungary.yak.net (16486) Received: from odin.net (root@omega.odin.net [193.130.116.3]) (fnord) by nando (8.6.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id XAA16452 for ; Mon, 3 Apr 1995 23:26:17 -0700 Received: from [193.130.116.13] by odin.net with SMTP (8.6.10/1.2-btv) id HAA19942; Tue, 4 Apr 1995 07:37:42 GMT X-Sender: carlson@odin.net (Unverified) Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Tue, 4 Apr 1995 08:21:02 +0100 To: hungary-online-announce@hungary.yak.net From: carlson@odin.net (Steven Carlson) Subject: (HOL-A) H e l p me please I'm clueless! Sender: owner-Hungary-Online-announce@hungary.yak.net Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Hungary-Online@hungary.yak.net [[ It's just irony that the "clueless newbie" detector bounced steve's attempt to post this to the list, as if it were just asking for h e l p with the mailing list. This filter protects all of you s u b s c r i b e r s from seeing mail that begins with key phrases like "h e l p me s u b s c r i b e" but to get this past the bozo filter, i've broken up the dirty words with spaces. -- strick ]] H e l p me please I'm clueless! hungary-online By Steven Carlson A common sight on the Internet these days is the clueless newbie. That's Internet talk for a newcomer, a greenhorn. Internet people get a little snobbish about their status as oldtimers. At times, they can even get downright nasty. You might say it's open season on newbies over at Usenet, the Internet's infamous watering hole. Over the holidays Santa stuffed a few ten thousand Christmas stockings with modems and software. Shortly after a new semester started in the US and Joe College found his way online. Add to that the online services, which now have Usenet gateways, and it amounts to a tidalwave of newbies on the Net. And many of them haven't a clue. What's the problem? We've all grown so used to user-friendly technologies we hardly bother to read the manuals anymore. At least I don't. But unfortunately Usenet isn't user friendly. It's not a wise idea just to dive into Usenet and start posting messages without first knowing what kind of messages are considered appropriate. After all, you wouldn't just walk up to a group of strangers at a party and start talking without first listening to the conversation, would you? And you'd be considered an outright bore if you kept hammering away at a subject nobody cared about. Yet thousands of newbies are doing just this on Usenet, and wondering why they get flamed. Let's check out a real-life example, posted to alt.internet.services on Thu, 20 Oct 1994: > HI IM FROM MEXICO AND IM DOING MY HOMEWORK > I WANT TO KKOW YOUR OPINION OF. > HOW WAS THE ECONOMY IN E.U. WHEN J.F.KENNEDY DIED? > PLEASE ANSWERME ITS URGENT > FABIOLA > FH524675@VMTECTOL.NET Would you answer FABIOLA's message? Stop and think. Well over 80,000 messages go out to Usenet each day. That's 200 MB every 24 hours. And Usenet is only part of what we call the Internet. At the moment I have 55 email messages sitting in my "in" basket. Not all those messages are directed to me, personally, but they all demand my attention. The point is there's a lot of data flying around. That's why Internet communication is topic specific. You'll notice FABIOLA was asking us a very vague question about US history in an area devoted to talking about Internet services. Sorry FABIOLA, you're clueless. Try a library. Okay - let's not be too hard on FABIOLA. He's an obvious newbie. Everyone is entitled to learn from his own mistakes, right? WRONG! shout the jaded Net savants. Learn from other people's mistakes, and stop wasting others' time. With that in mind, let's take a lesson from FABIOLA's mistakes. THERE'S NO REASON TO SHOUT!!! But that's exactly what it means when you write in all caps. A page of text in capital letters looks ugly, and hurts the eye to read. If your caps lock key gets stuck in Usenet, people will most likely shout right back. Sending a message in all caps is probably the most obvious newbie mistake. Chek your spelling This may seem a minor point, but when you work in a text-only environment you get pretty picky about your p's and q's. To make that point I deliberately misspelled "check" in the caption above. Most of you noticed. Bad spelling erodes your credibility. Inform thyself Don't pester others with questions you can answer yourself. If you want to know more about how Usenet works you can watch news.newusers.questions and news.announce.newusers. A good rule of thumb is watch any newsgroup for a week or so before you decide to jump in and ask questions. Quite often a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) document is posted regularly to the group. You can find other good info at a library or bookstore. If you access the Net through CompuServe they provide plenty of info, and even a forum for beginners [GO INTERNET]. Give and ye shall receive Communication is a cooperative effort - you tell me your secrets, I'll tell you mine. When you cut through the jargon and gadgets on the Internet what you find is people talking to people. And what do people talk about online? The same things they do in RL (real life). The difference is you have no idea who you're communicating with on the Net. In RL you can see the other person's body language and dress; you can listen to the tone of voice and accent. On the Net you have nothing more than bare text. If you take the time to learn the ways of the Net, and approach people with a positive, friendly attitude; if you're prepared to inform others, as well as be informed, you'll find most people will reciprocate. In all, that's not such a bad way to go forth in the world, is it? --- There is an answer! Fear not, all questions will be answered by the Internet Oracle. It exists, and is all knowing. Send your profound question to and remember to include the words "tell me" somewhere in the subject line. Repeat the 23rd Psalm. Relax. Actually, the Oracle is a program that passes your question on to someone else to answer. By asking a question, you volunteer to answer a question. World Wide Web growth According to _Business_Week_, 27,000 sites now offer information on the World Wide Web and that figure is presently doubling itself every 53 days. According to research done at Carnegie Mellon, the Web consists of five million documents. At current rates of growth that number can be expected to double within six months to a year. [blurb] Steven Carlson is a technology writer and Internet trainer. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Copyright (c) 1995. Permission granted to redistribute this article in electronic form for non-profit purposes only. My byline and this message must remain intact. Contact me for reprint rights. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ############# # This message to Hungary-Online-announce@hungary.yak.net # was from carlson@odin.net (Steven Carlson) # # To unsubscribe, # send "unsubscribe" to # For a full subscription (rather than this announcement-only subscription) # mail "subscribe" to # Send mail to for more information, # or to if you need human assistance. #############