quake/periodic/agqm_tip
From: quinet@gamers.org (Raphael Quinet)
Newsgroups: alt.games.quake,rec.games.computer.quake.misc
Subject: [TIP] How to move to rec.games.computer.quake.*
Organization: Gamers.org, http://www.gamers.org/
Approved: quinet@gamers.org
Followup-To: poster
Keywords: Quake newsgroups cross-posting
How to move to rec.games.computer.quake.*
=========================================
1. Why Quake players should move to rec.games.computer.quake.*
--------------------------------------------------------------
As you probably know, the following groups are now the "official"
groups for discussing Quake (official in the sense that they have been
created according to the Usenet guidelines and they have passed the
Usenet vote for the Big 8 hierarchies):
rec.games.computer.quake.announce Info/FAQ/announcements about Quake. (Mod.)
rec.games.computer.quake.editing Editing and hacking Quake-related files.
rec.games.computer.quake.misc General discussion about Quake.
rec.games.computer.quake.playing Playing Quake and user-created levels.
rec.games.computer.quake.quake-c Modifying Quake with Quake-C.
rec.games.computer.quake.servers Setup and maintainance of servers.
The group r.g.c.q.misc replaces the old Quake group, alt.games.quake.
These groups have a better propagation than the old group, which means
that more Quake players can read the articles posted in them and
nobody is left out of the discussions. They also have a better
structure, with separate groups for distinct topics and a low-traffic
moderated group (r.g.c.q.announce) from which everybody can get
reliable information. Furthermore, id Software recommends in Quake's
documentation that you read the r.g.c.q.* groups for getting
additional information about Quake (try also their "finger" info:
finger help@idsoftware.com).
If you didn't know all that, I suggest that you read the article
titled "FAQ: replacement of a.g.q by rec.games.computer.quake.*",
which is posted weekly in these groups and is also available for
download from the main Quake ftp site:
http://www.cdrom.com/pub/idgames2/docs/faqs/agqr_faq.html
ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/pub/idgames2/docs/rgcq-pips/agqr_faq
This FAQ will tell you much more than this article about how and why
the old group was replaced, and I urge you to read it if you haven't
done so yet. In fact, you should read the FAQ before you continue
reading this, otherwise you could be confused by some parts of this
article.
Now that the r.g.c.q.* groups are available almost everywhere and most
Quake players have moved to these groups, we should do our best to
ensure that the newcomers are not lost in the old group.
Unfortunately, the large number of cross-postings between the new and
old Quake groups make this difficult, because the articles
cross-posted from other groups increase the traffic in alt.games.quake
and make it appear as a very active group, although lots of Quake
players cannot read it.
We should try to reduce the proportion of cross-postings (currently
more than 80%) so that the traffic in the old group drops down; this
will also increase the visibility of the FAQs and pointers which are
currently lost among the other articles. This will help the newcomers
who will see more easily that they should move to the r.g.c.q.*
groups. Some Usenet sites do not replace or remove an old group
unless its traffic drops down or some local users request the change
explicitly, so reducing the cross-postings will also help the users
of these sites.
2. What you can do
------------------
Here are a few simple things that you can do if you want to help.
Usenet is cooperative by nature and the old group will be successfully
replaced by the new ones if and only if all readers of these groups
contribute. This has worked very well for other newsgroups which have
moved from alt.* to another hierarchy and now it's up to you to make
sure that it works for the Quake groups too.
* Do not post in the old group. If you post in alt.games.quake, you
are contributing to the problem because you increase the traffic in
the old group, so those who can get that group will see it as a very
active group and will be encouraged to post in it, usually not knowing
that many people will never be able to read what is posted there. Pay
attention to cross-postings when you are posting a followup, because
you might be cross-posting to the old group without knowing it.
* Whenever you post a followup to an article which is cross-posted to
alt.games.quake, you should try to direct the followups out of that
group so that the discussion continues only in the groups that are
available to everyone. There are two ways to do this: either remove
alt.games.quake from the list of groups when you post your followup,
so that your articles and those that follow it will not be posted to
the old group, or set the "Followup-To:" line in the header of your
article, directing future followups out of the old group.
If your newsreader allows you to edit the "Followup-To:" line in the
header of your article, this is a very convenient solution. Note that
using the "Followup-To:" line only gives an indication to other
people, but they can always change the list of groups if they want to.
Moving groups is a cooperative effort and it will only work if the
members of the Quake community help and inform each other.
* Inform people about the replacement of a.g.q by the new Quake groups.
Tell the other readers that they should stop posting in the old group
in order to reduce the duplication of resources and make it easier for
newcomers to move to the r.g.c.q.* groups.
You can explain this in the body of your article or combine this with
a short note informing readers about where followups to your article
should go. Here are two examples:
[please post followups in r.g.c.q.misc only, because a.g.q is obsolete; see
http://www.cdrom.com/pub/idgames2/docs/faqs/agqr_faq.html for more info. ]
[a.g.q removed from followups because it has been replaced by r.g.c.q.misc]
* If your site is still carrying alt.games.quake, you should get in
touch with your local news administrator and ask him/her to alias it
to rec.games.computer.quake.misc, preparatory to removing it when the
traffic dies down. The address of your news administrator should be
something like "news", "newsmaster" or "usenet". You could also tell
your news admin to disable local posting to alt.games.quake by setting
its entry in the active file to "n". This will be useful for the
other users at your site who do not know that a.g.q has been replaced,
so that they will not post in an obsolete group that many other people
cannot access.
* If necessary, explain to your news administrator (or other people)
that there is nothing wrong about simply removing alt.games.quake even
if it is not aliased to rec.games.computer.quake.misc (e.g. if your
site doesn't use aliases). As long as the six r.g.c.q.* groups exist
at your site, nobody will be deprived from the information and
discussions about Quake, so the old group can be safely removed.
* If you hear about some site which does not get the r.g.c.q.* groups
yet (usually, these sites don't have a.g.q either), tell the users of
this site to e-mail their news administrator and request the new Quake
groups. It is very likely that any site which does not have the
r.g.c.q.* groups by now is a site whose news administrator does not
create groups unless some local users request them, so it is important
to tell the users of this site to get in touch with their news
administrator.
If you or your news administrator need more information, the official
results of the Usenet vote and the charters of all r.g.c.q.* groups
are available in:
ftp://ftp.uu.net/usenet/news.announce.newgroups/rec/rec.games.computer.quake
ftp://ftp.uu.net/usenet/news.announce.newgroups/rec/rec.games.computer.quake.playing
ftp://ftp.uu.net/usenet/news.announce.newgroups/rec/rec.games.computer.quake.quake-c
Note: this article is cross-posted to r.g.c.q.misc and a.g.q. It is
necessary to cross-post it because it would not be propagated
correctly if it was posted only to a.g.q. It will be posted
periodically. If you do not want to see it again, put its subject
line in your killfile. The subject will remain unchanged so that you
can skip the article automatically.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright (C) 1996-97 by Raphael Quinet
(and encouraged) to distribute verbatim copies of this article, on FTP or WWW
sites. If you want to distribute a modified copy, please get in touch with
me first. Revision 1.2. Last update: 02 February 1997.