Usenet Posting Rules

The rules vary depending on the newsgroup on Usenet. Some newsgroups are intended for discussions and some for announcements or queries. It is not usually a good idea to carry on discussions in newsgroups that are designated otherwise. It is never a good idea to carry on "meta-discussions" about whether a given discussion is appropriate -- such traffic mushrooms until nobody can find articles that belong. If you are unhappy with what some user said, send him/her mail, don't post it.

Before posting, think about where your article is going. If it's posted to a "comp", "humanities", "news", "misc", "soc", "sci", "rec" or "talk" newsgroup, it will probably go to the sites on every continent with an estimated audience of more than 3 million potential readers. Certain articles are only of local interest (e.g. used car ads) and it is inappropriate to post them to the whole world.

Be considerate with your use of network resources. Your individual usage may not seem like much compared to the net as a whole, but in aggregate, small savings in disk or CPU add up to a great deal. For instance, messages offering thanks, jibes, or congratulations will only need to be seen by the interested parties -- send these by mail rather than posting them. The same goes for simple questions, and especially for any form of "me too" posting.

To help minimize some transfer load and disk usage throughout the Usenet, consider not only how many groups should carry your posting over what distribution area, but also how long it will be useful. Many kinds of postings -- such as those making announcements or offers -- have an obvious useful lifetime. Posted questions that aren't answered within a decent interval probably won't be answered at all, and announcements will have a limited lifetime. All such postings will be using bandwidth to no purpose after a certain time. When making such postings one should determine what that time interval is, based upon the nature of the posting, the volume of articles on the newsgroup(s) involved, and the habits of the audience, if known. Then include an expiration date in the posting. This will mark the date after which the article should not be retained at each site.

Some newsgroups are moderated. In these groups, you cannot post directly, either by convention or because the software prevents it. To post to these newsgroups, send mail to the moderator.

If you're thinking of posting anything that was written by someone else (eg. article, song, picture), make sure that you are familiar with the copyright issues. If you're not sure about the copyright issues, then find out before posting. For instance, you must not post anything that you were allowed to see only because of a confidentiality agreement, such as a UNIX source license.

It is generally considered rude to post private e-mail correspondence without the permission of the author of that mail, and furthermore, it's likely a copyright violation as well.

All opinions or statements made in messages posted to Usenet should be taken as the opinions of the person who wrote the message. They do not necessarily represent the opinions of the employer of that person, the owner of the computer from which the message was posted, or anyone involved with Usenet or the underlying networks of which Usenet is made up. All responsibility for statements made in Usenet messages rests with the individual posting the message.

Posting of information on Usenet is to be viewed as similar to publication. Because of this, do not post instructions for how to do some illegal act (such as jamming radar or obtaining cable TV service illegally); also do not ask how to do illegal acts by posting to the net.

Usually, it is sufficient to post any article to a single newsgroup; the one that's most relevant to the subject of your article. If the article is really relevant to multiple newsgroups, then "cross-post" to the relevant newsgroups by posting the article only once.

If you don't see your posting immediately, don't assume it failed and try to repost it at once. Some sites have set up the local software to process news periodically. Thus, your article will not appear immediately. If you post again, you will have multiple copies of the article in circulation.

NO SPAMMING! VIOLATION OF USENET RULES WILL BE TRACED FOR RECORDING IN THE BLACKLIST.