From: Don_Schmitz@transarc.com Date: Mon Aug 3, 1998 Obligatory Disclaimer: The information contained in this message was contributed by individuals, who, unless otherwise indicated, speak only for themselves and not the institutions or buisnesses they are associated with. The author(s) and editor(s) of this material make no warranties as to the correctness of the information provided. This material should be considered copyright by the author. This material may be redistributed for non-commercial use without explicit permission of the author(s) as long as the text is used exactly as is (except for reformatting) and the author is given full written credit for the material. Commercial use requires explicit permission of the author.
Part 2
** Culture and Etiquette ** ** This section is intended to give some background as to what ** rec.models.scale is about and explain some of the mechanics ** of newsgroups - it is aimed at the novice internet user. [Q] What is an FAQ? Why does rec.models.scale need one? [A] schmitz@transarc.com (Don Schmitz 8/95) FAQ stands for "Frequently Asked Questions". Over time, many internet newsgroups put together a collection of frequently asked questions and answers, and either post it periodically or make it available on a web page. People often find a newsgroup while looking for an answer to a specific question, and the hope is that when someone first finds rec.models.scale they will find the FAQ and hopefully find answers to questions that have already been beaten to death multiple times in the newsgroup. The hope is to minimize the time it takes the asker to get an answer, and to minimize newsgroup traffic and frustration of regular subscribers by eliminating the duplication of common questions and answers. The FAQ also serves as an archive for generally useful information that regular readers may not need just now, but may be useful later. Over the years, rec.models.scale ("r.m.s" from here on out) has had a growing number of participants, and given the boom in internet usage this growth is likely to continue. Having an FAQ is one way to keep the newsgroup usable in the face of growing user pressure. The r.m.s newsgroup has had an FAQ in the past, however the maintainers had a habit of losing their net connectivity, so it wasn't posted and updated as often as it should have been. Hopefully I'll have more luck this time around. [Q] Is the FAQ copy-righted? [A] schmitz@transarc.com (Don Schmitz 8/95) I gave this a lot of thought. Basically I like the internet philosophy that information on the net should be freely exchanged. If someone wants to pass all or part of the FAQ along to friends, or publish it in a club newsletter, I don't want them to have to track down the author for permission. However, I also don't want to discourage submissions by giving away all of the author's intellectual property rights. In particular, I would hate to see that someone had taken an FAQ submission without the author's permission, and used it to create a magazine article for pay. The policy I've proposed, and since no one has complained have put into place, is that: - All submissions will be tagged with the author's email address and submission date (month/year). - Use of submissions for non-commerical purposes - ie. the user receives no financial gain through the use of the material - is automatically granted by the author, *provided* the material is marked as copyrighted by the author. - *Any* commerical use of this material requires written consent by the *author* (not me). - All submissions are assumed to be the rightful intellectual property of the author. Authors are assumed to agree to the above policy when they submit material to the FAQ. [Q] What is this "NEW SUBSCRIBERS" thing I see posted every &!^%# day!?! [A] schmitz@transarc.com (Don Schmitz 11/96, 1/98) At one time, I posted the entire text of the FAQ to rec.models.scale about once-a-month. Eventually it got to be big enough, and the amount of traffic on rms heavy enough, that the regular posting was somewhat worthless. No one had time to read 300Kbytes of text while skimming the newsgroups, and the messages quickly expired from news-servers. This FAQ is now only distributed via this web page. Since new subscribers - the folks most likely to re-ask an FAQ - show up every day I started posting a daily pointer to the FAQ web page. One message out of the usual 300 a day seemed like a reasonable overhead. The daily posting makes it very likely that a first time reader will see the message, hopefully take a look at this page and bookmark it to read at their leisure. The text in the daily message (almost) never changes, so there is no reason to read it more than once. Many newsreader programs give you the ability to filter out messages with a particular subject line - a fine thing to do if you're tired of seeing this every day. BTW, the daily message gets sent by a computer program that I have to manually restart every Monday morning. If I forget to do this, I'm unlikely to remember to restart it till the following Monday unless someone tells me. [Q] How do I submit material to the FAQ? [A] schmitz@transarc.com (Don Schmitz 8/95) Until I come up with something fancier, email to me at schmitz@transarc.com It will help if you can put "FAQ" in the subject line. I welcome both new answers to existing questions, new questions and answers, and new questions for the "anyone have a good answer for this" list. As long as I'm maintaining the FAQ, I'll be the final arbiter in deciding if a submission is appropriate for the FAQ (I'll be fairly liberal, but I'll reject things that are illegible, offensive, off subject, obvious advertisements, political commentary, personal attacks, etc). I'm unlikely to do any fine editing, I'll either take a submission as is or punt it back with a brief explanation of why I didn't take it. If you don't like my editorial license, you're free to start your own FAQ. [Q] Why is almost everything in the FAQ authored by this
"Don Schmitz" joker? [A] schmitz@transarc.com (Don Schmitz 11/96) First, there has been a somewhat surprising dearth of FAQ submissions from r.m.s participants. I don't have a lot of time to model, but working on the FAQ is a way for me to stay involved in the hobby during spare moments at work or during the evening when I'm too tired to model (if I could figure out how to build at my desk, I'd put a lot less effort into this thing!) Second, a lot of the best information on r.m.s is contained in lengthy discussions between several parties, which would make for a poor FAQ entry. So, I try to condense these exchanges down to paragraph size for the FAQ, and since I often do this from somewhat leaky memory I take credit rather than misattribute the information to someone else. [Q] How is the ship builders FAQ associated with this one? [A] schmitz@transarc.com (Don Schmitz 10/95) Basically, its not. The Ship Builders FAQ is maintained by another person - John Kopf (kopfj@aimnet.com). It is dedicated to model ships, while this FAQ tries to be general purpose. Both are posted to the same news group because ship modelers share it with the rest of us. I'm certainly open to including ship material here, but I'll try to avoid duplication. Since both of these FAQs are fairly huge, I don't see any good reason to merge them - as my daddy used to say (probably still does) "if it aint broke, don't fix it". I'll try to stagger the posting of this FAQ so that both don't show up in the same week. [Q] Are there any "forbidden" words on RMS? [A] schmitz@transarc.com (Don Schmitz ) There is something about email and newsgroups that encourage people to be less civil than when talking face-to-face. You can avoid making lots of people mad at you by using common sense when writing messages - try not to say anything you wouldn't want your mother/wife/ children/friends to hear you say (and with the speed the internet is growing, these folks may very well be reading what you've written). My other bit of wisdom is to be very careful about using words that might be taken as derogatory by any group of people. While the majority of RMS participants are English speaking, the Internet is very much a world-wide forum with every imaginable group represented here. Being born and raised in a small blue-collar town where everyone was white and Christian, I speak from experience in saying that many of us have picked up words and phrases that have long lost any stigma to us and our peers, but are extremely offensive to others (I learned a lot more than calculus and physics the year in college that I had roomates that were black, Jewish and Chinese). If you're offended by another poster's use of such a word, please give them the benefit of the doubt that they used the word without even realizing it could be offensive, and let them know via polite email. Overall, r.m.s participants tend to be some of the most polite and reasonable folks you'll find on the Internet. Those that persist in using offensive language tend to be ignored by the r.m.s regulars, and eventually they go away in search of a more receptive audience. While were on the subject, one word that causes an amazing amount of trouble on r.m.s is "Jap" - which is often used innocently as an abbreviation for Japanese, but which is viewed by many as a slur on the Japanese people. Rather than argue whether this word is truly derogatory or not, or that it is acceptable if followed by a period to indicate an abbreviation - you're much better off just typing "Japanese" in full to avoid stirring up a huge debate. [Q] What subjects are reasonable for rec.models.scale? [A] schmitz@transarc.com (Don Schmitz 8/95) Almost all newsgroups have a "charter", which is typically posted as the first message to the newsgroup. Some of the newsreader programs will save that message forever, and allow users to see it (assuming they know to look for it). In case yours doesn't, the r.m.s charter, established back in October 1992, reads: The designated purpose of this group is to discuss the hobby of scale modeling. Within this realm is included static (display) models, radio- controlled models built to specific designs, railroad modeling, model rocketry, and many other aspects. However, the scope of this group is restricted to construction techniques and issues, discussion of materials and kits, discussion of local, national, and international events, and other topics that pertain to the general hobby of craftsmanship. This group is not a forum for discussion of controls (radio or remote), for discussion of performance of RC engines, rocket motors, or any other subject that, while part of a modeling-related hobby, does not pertain to craft skills. This group is meant to, among it's primary purposes, augment the existing rec.models.* groups by providing a forum for the reader that is more directed towards "How do I do this?" rather than "Brand X motors only deliver half the promised power." While modeling is generally associated with plastic kits and IPMS (the International Plastic Modeler's Society), this group will not be affliated with IPMS, nor will it be limited to plastic modeling. In practice r.m.s has deviated little from this charter, although no one tries to strictly enforce it: many topics that are peripheral to modeling are often discussed in the context that they apply to modeling. For example, military history is often discussed when deciding what the appropriate appearance of a particular plane/tank/etc would have been during a particular battle. Nor is the group limited to cut and dried question and answer exchanges - there are frequently discussions such as "who makes the best kit of <fill in your favorite subject>", or "what is wrong with the state of modeling competitions". It is important to note that discussion of "models" of purely hypothetical objects, such as fictional space craft, characters, vehicles, etc. are also welcome. There *are* topics that, while falling within the charter, are rarely discussed here. Typically this is because another group exists that more directly addresses that niche. If you try to talk about one of these here on r.m.s, no one is likely to complain, but you're likely to get an underwhelming response, and possibly a friendly pointer to another group. Examples of such topics and the more appropriate groups include: doll houses : ??? figure painting : ??? Radio control planes/cars/tanks/boats, : rec.models.rc.air, and occasionaly slot cars rec.models.rc.land, rec.models.rc.water Die-cast cars, HotWheels, etc : rec.toys.cars Model railroading/toy train collecting : rec.models.railroad Flying model rockets : rec.models.rockets Working model steam/IC engines, : rec.crafts.metalworking live steam trains, small scale machining practices Discussion of full scale military : rec.aviation.military aircraft Discussion of (real) military science : sci.military Discussion of Japanese anime and : rec.arts.anime science fiction related stuff. [Q] Are thre any rules to follow when making a post? [A] schmitz@transarc.com (Don Schmitz 8/96) Like many things on the Internet, there are few written rules - in general, just use common sense. Most of the un-written rules are aimed at minimizing the amount of text in messages and making it easier for subscribers to find those messages they are interested in. A few suggestions: - Try to make the subject line accurate and descriptive. It would be very hard for anyone to read all the messages posted to r.m.s, so most subscribers decide what to read based only on the subject line. Vague subject lines like "Help!" are likely to be ignored. When you reply to a message, most newsreader software uses the same subject line that is there, and adds a "Re" in front of it (most are smart enough to only add "Re" once, so follow-ups to follow-up messages don't have a string of "Re's" in front of them.) If at some point in a series of follow-ups the subject changes (so called "thread drift") remember to change the subject line. It has often been suggested to add short "tags" at the beginning of subject lines that make it easier to know what a message is about, and to allow readers to filter messages more easily. Examples of such tags are: AIR - all flying vehicles ARM - armor and other ground-based military vehicles CAR - civilian ground vehicles SCI - science fiction and space related subject SEA - boats and ships GEN - general modeling questions TEQ - technique, or "how to" type discussions While using such tags makes perfect sense, they never really catch on for some reason. You're welcome to use these tags in your postings, but you can't rely on everyone else to, so if you use these to filter out messages you want to see you are likely to miss things. - Many newsreaders allow you to include the text of a messge in follow-ups to that message. The original text is usually offset with ">'s" so readers know who said what. You can use this feature to make a follow-up more intelligible as a stand-alone piece of text (since readers may not have seen the first message). The usual practice is to write the follow up as a sort of Question-and-Answer exchange, where you respond to individual issues in the previous post in running order. While this is an incredibly useful capability, it is also easy to abuse it. In particular: o Try to minimize the duplicated original text in the follow-up. Its especially bad form to reproduce a 100 line message to add a 1 sentence follow-up, especially if all you add is a line reading: "I completely agree!" Try to delete the parts of the original that you're not responding to (it is common practice to indicate when you cut something out with by replacing the removed text with "snip" or "..."). At the same time, be careful not to remove so much text that you change the original writer's meaning by reproducing statements out of context. o Many newsreader programs try to attribute the text from the original message, inserting a line that says something like "so-and-so wrote:" at the beginning of the reproduced text. When you're following-up to a long chain of follow-ups, the newsreader will often get this wrong, resulting in a message suggesting a particular person said one thing when in fact they were arguing exactly the opposite. It is a good idea to double check attributions before you offend a previous poster, and often the easiest thing to do is remove the attribution completely. [Q] Why is it I see the response to a question before I see the
question itself? [Q] Why do my messages take so long to appear or disappear so quickly? [A] schmitz@transarc.com (Don Schmitz 8/95) While internet newsgroups look and act a lot like a computer bulletin board service (BBS), they aren't. The difference is that a BBS typically resides in one place - all the messages are sent to and read from a single computer system. On the other hand, newsgroup messages are stored on many different computers, with each computer having its own copy of all of the messages. When you send a message to a newsgroup, it is sent to one or more other computers, which make a copy and forward the message on to more computers that do the same thing. Eventually your message is forwarded to all the machines set up to receive the newsgroup it was sent to. This may sound like a dumb way to do things, but this strategy is what makes it possible for huge numbers of subscribers to read newgroups. The key word in the above description of message delivery is "eventually" - a message may take a very round-about path to make it to a particular machine (machines are interconnected in an extremely complex tangle, and both machines and their network connections can fail causing delays in message delivery). Its possible that a message may make it to another site where someone sends a follow up message, and because of the different routes the two messages are taking, the follow up will make it to your site before the original question. When you send a message, it may first be sent to another site that eventually forwards the message back to your site - making it take a long time before you see it. In fact, someone at another site may see it and respond to it before you (the sender) see your own message appear! It seems strange at first, but you get used to it. Related to the above, the lifetime of a post depends on how much disk space the machine you read messages from (your ISP's newsgroup "server") has available to save old messages. If your ISP's site is being maintained on a shoestring, messages may only stay around for a day or two before they are deleted to make room for new messages. This is completely up to your local system administrator (and the amount of disk space they have to work with), so complaining to the net at large will have no effect. [Q] Why doesn't anyone answer *my* questions? [A] schmitz@transarc.com (Don Schmitz 2/96) Occasionally someone will complain that no one ever answers the questions they ask, and accuse everyone of being elitist snobs. While it is easy to sympathize with the person who is feeling ignored, this is generally considered "bad net manners". Before ranting to the net, consider that: - Due to the vagaries of internet message propagation, no one may have even seen your question yet, or the answer may be taking a round about path getting back. Although it sometimes happens that the 'net delivers an answer within a few hours or less of posting a question, it is not unusual for answers to take several days to arrive. - People on the 'net do other things besides reading/posting - like work, sleep, take care of families, and actually build models. It may take a few days for someone to have the time to type in an answer, especially if it will take more than a two sentence reply. - If you have asked an obscure question no one may know the answer. - If you have asked a "frequently asked question" - especially if you are the 10th person to ask it this week - no one may feel like answering it, since you obviously haven't even bothered to read recent messages before asking. - Finally, no one on the net is being paid to answer your questions. Basically, people answer because they know someday they may have a question to ask, and so want to foster a friendly, cooperative environment. View answers as gifts: be happy when you get them, but don't be too disappointed when you don't. [Q] What do all of the strange acronyms I see in posts mean? [Q] Why do some posts have strange punctuation marks in them? [A] schmitz@transarc.com (Don Schmitz 8/95) Like any social group, net users have their own jargon. Acronyms are often used to minimize typing. Following is a brief glossary of the more common ones: AFAIK - as far as I know BTW - by the way IMHO - in my humble opinion IIRC - if I recall correctly FWIW - for what its worth CYA - cover your backside (be careful) FS - for sale WTB - want to buy LOL - laughing out loud ROTFLOL - rolling on the floor laughing out loud newbie - a novice internet user *some words* - the *'s are used for emphasis ALL CAPS - another way to emphasize words. If you write entire posts in all capitals, people will likely ask you to stop shouting! :-) - indicates previous text was intended as a joke/sarcasm. Useful since tone of voice doesn't come across in type. flame - a ranting, personal attack on a person or thing The odd punctuation marks may indicate that the user is a poor typist, although more likely is that the message was written using a word processor that tries to do fancy things with punctuation (such as umlauts, degree symbols, apostrophes) and type faces. These word processors may add non-printing characters to the text that tell their associated display/print programs how to produce some special effect. However your mail reader is unlikely to recognize what these characters mean and will try to display them as best as it knows how (often not at all, or converted into some random printable symbol like '$'). It may be the writer doesn't even know this is happening - a polite note to them will often cure the problem. [Q] Can I advertise things for sale here in r.m.s? [A] schmitz@transarc.com (Don Schmitz 8/95) The policy on advertising on unsenet groups varies widely by group. On r.m.s, it is common and accepted to advertise private sales - eg. you're thinning your model collection and have 2 or 50 kits for sale. Commerical sales are a whole 'nother can of worms.... At one time, the internet was maintained by government and educational institutions, with the users being primarily government workers, professors and students. The common wisdom then (and among many old timers even now) was that the funding for the net prohibited commerical use. However, in the last few years the Internet has been privatized, and many commercial users now pay a monthly fee to an internet service provider for net access. These users understandably feel they should be able to use their connection to aid their business. On r.m.s, you're unlikely to have anyone complain about a commercial advertisement as long as: - it is clearly identified as an advertisement - is a reasonable length (say 25 lines or less) and posted infrequently (no more than 1x week) - fits within the subject matter of the group You're also free to plug your products in actual posts, eg. mentioning your business name and phone number in your signature line, or suggesting your product as an answer to someone's how-to questions. [Q] Why don't we split r.m.s up into sub-groups to make it easier to read? [A] schmitz@transarc.com (Don Schmitz 8/95) Splitting r.m.s into smaller groups, organized by subject matter (eg. rec.models.scale.car, rec.models.scale.plane, etc) is suggested at least once per month, (generally by new users), and is always roundly shouted down (usually by the old timers). There are a number of reasons to keep r.m.s a single group: - There still isn't all that much traffic on the group. Splitting a group can sometimes result in one or all of the new groups dying due to lack of critical mass. - Many readers are interested in more than one area of modeling, or at least try to skim posts on related subjects since many problems and solutions tend to be general to all models. For example, the techniques used to obtain a realistic polished metal finish on a WW II fighter plane can also be used to model the polished aluminum body of a Lotus 7 sports car. - It is (intentionally) a lot of work to create a new group. Doing so requires a formal discussion and voting period, that must (to be officially recognized) follow strict protocol, spanning several months of effort. In the end, it is quite likely the new group will not be approved. No one has had the energy to take on this task in the face of what is obviously stiff opposition. Note: anyone is free to *try* to split a group regardless of the opposing views - its just a foolish waste of a lot of your time if you don't expect to get the required number of yes votes. My guess is that the new users typically suggest splitting the group because they try to read *every* message that comes in. While you could do this back in '92, it would be a full time job now! Most news readers allow you to see the subject line without reading the whole message. The trick to skimming 200 messages in 15 minutes or so is to remember what a particular thread is about, and then skip subsequent follow ups to topics you're not interested in. Like other skills, it just takes a little practice. [Q] What is "trolling" ? What can we do about it? [A] schmitz@transarc.com (Don Schmitz 1/96) "Trolling" refers to people that knowingly try to create trouble in a newsgroup by posting an (usually obviously) inflammatory message that dozens of others feel compelled to refute. Those messages will tend to set off another round of posts, and another, and another - clogging the news group with invective rather than useful information. If the "troller" is really good, the original post will tend to amplify differences between regular members of the newsgroup, resulting in ever escalating name calling, flaming and hard feelings. In general, the best way to deal with a "troll" is to ignore it. However, sometimes it is hard to know if a post is actually a "troll", or an honest question from someone who doesn't realize he is treading on sensitive ground. Or the "troll" may manage to give a bad impression of individuals or the newsgroup in general. In such cases, a short, civil response to the net, with an offer to follow up the discussion via email, is the most reasonable thing you can do. Once you see such a short, civil response, try to avoid the temptation to join in the fray. If you feel compelled to call someone an "obnoxious moron", do it via email. If you feel the "troller" is being slanderous, or obviously malicious, a note to the postmaster at their site may help (see next question). [Q] What is "spamming" ? What can we do about it? [A] schmitz@transarc.com (Don Schmitz 8/95, 3/98) "Spamming" originally refered to the obnoxious practice of sending the same message, usually some sort of financial scam, questionable product advertisement or political statement, to *every* one of the 100s of internet newsgroups. Since then, the "spammers" have gotten more clever, and the term now includes mass emailing of similar junk directly to huge numbers of individuals, using email addresses harvested from newsgroup messages. Spamming is not only annoying, it uses up lots of bandwidth and threatens to take the 'net the way of CB radio (if you don't know what CB radio is/was, ask someone over 30). It is a very bad idea to "spam", it is one of the few bad practices on the 'net that folks take seriously, and can result in you or your entire site losing net connectivity. Every time a particularly odious spam goes by, someone will suggest the electronic equivalent of "mailing a brick" to the offender - that is to have everyone mail a megabyte of random bits to the person making the post. What this does - if the "spammer" hasn't managed to fake his email address - is to fill up the spammers mailbox, probably fill up the mail spool on their machine, and cause both the offender, all other users at that site and especially the system administrator there all sorts of computer grief. A much more reasonable thing to do is send the "abuse" and "postmaster" accounts at the offender's site a short note explaining how the offender is being a jerk (if the mail came from: obnoxious.loser@we.are.jerks.com, email your complaint to: abuse@we.are.jerks.com and postmaster@we.are.jerks.com Usually at least one of these message will get through to the staff of the trouble-makers ISP, who will at least give the offender a stern lecture and possibly shut down their account or remove their net privleges. The sad reality is that some ISPs just don't care - if you let *your* system administrator know about chronic offenders they may decide to block all incoming messages from such troublemakers. [Q] Wouldn't it be neat to post digitized pictures of my models to r.m.s? [A] schmitz@transarc.com (Don Schmitz 8/95) In a word, NO! Digitized pictures tend to be huge, generally 10K-100K bytes, compared to written messages that are more like 100-1000 bytes. Posting images uses a lot of disk space to store them at the various internet sites, and system administrators have been known to stop carrying a group if it uses too much disk space. Also, many users read newsgroups via slow (phone line and ancient modems) connections - a 100Kbyte picture can take many minutes to transfer at 2400 baud. If you want to post pictures, there are newsgroups dedicated to this purpose (see if your site carries alt.binaries.models.scale), that small sites with limited disk space simply do not carry. Put your picture there and post a notice of what it is and where it is at here in r.m.s. Or send it to one of the web sites devoted to modeling (see following question on web pages). [Q] What is a web site? Are there any web sites devoted to modeling? [A] schmitz@transarc.com (Don Schmitz 8/95, 1/98) It is hard to believe that 2.5 years ago we needed this answer here, or that I thought I could list the most important sites in a list of 10 or 20. I've chopped out the simple description of the web since I think everybody now know's what it is. URLs for pages having to do with modeling include (this is really the tip of the iceberg) : www.ninfinger.org/ Has a modeling section that includes the "official" copy of this FAQ, plus lots of other interesting info, concentrating on X-planes, spacecraft, model rockets, and other neat stuff. msowww.anu.edu.au/~dfk General collection of kit reviews, model photos, tips and techniques, manufacturers info, etc. The pages here are somewhat skeletal, but this was one of the first modeling-related web pages so I'm keeping it here for historic purposes. www.ipmsusa.org/ Home page for the U.S. International Plastic Modelers Society. people.csnet.net/larrygre/ On-line version of Larry Greenburg's "Strictly Stock" column (well known to readers of Scale Auto Enthusiast), with links to many car related sites. www.kuai.se/~griffon/misc/modelling/s1colref.txt Contains an extensive listing of model paint equivalents of commonly used, military FS numbered colors. www.wpi.edu/~elmer Another general page with links to info on avaiation, navy ships and trains. Kindly provided by Andrew Toppan. www.gremlins.com Devoted to "garage figure kits" - includes a gallery, reviews, catalogs of various vendors. www.mbnet.mb.ca/~yoshida/index.html Although this is an advertisement for Blair Yoshida's small photo-etch business, he has compiled lots of useful info, like a geographic directory of hobby shops and museums! www.amazon.com This is a big commercial site, but well worth knowing about (if you don't already). Amazon is an on-line bookstore that allegedly offers every book in print at below-retail prices. The great thing is they have a fully searchable on-line database of books that is a great place to find reference material. Searching the database is free, you can then order from Amazon directly or take the title/author/isbn info to your favorite book store and have them order it. www.altavista.digital.com Another pseudo-commerical site worth knowing about. Altavista is a company that offers a searchable index of other web pages - a great way to find information about most anything on the web. There are several such indexes out there - this one is just my favorite. Using this site (and most of the others) is free, you just have to look at the advertizing that pops up on their page. www.dejanews.com Yet another pseudo-commerical site, dejanews maintains a searchable archive of netnews messages (see next question). [Q] Where do old messages go? How can I read them? [A] schmitz@transarc.com (Don Schmitz 1/98) At one time, old messages just disappeared - if you didn't read them quickly enough they were lost forever. However, there is now a web-site that archives all of newsgroups and maintains a searchable archive of all of the messages posted to all of the newsgroups (no, I don't know how they do this or how they make money essentially giving the service away). Dejanews is a great research source, and can further aid in reducing FAQs, since an answer you're looking for may appear in great detail in a previous series of posts that is archived there. Following is a brief explanation of how to use this website: [A] <ModelerAl@aol.com> (Al ?? 1/98) All Usenet Newsgroups, including rec.models.scale, are archived by Deja News. To find out if a specific question you have has already been addressed, go to the Deja News Search Filter at www.dejanews.com/home_sf.shtml and follow these steps: (1) Enter "rec.models.scale" (or any other Newsgroup) in the "Groups" field. Similarly, fill in the "Authors", "Subjects",and "Date From" - "To" fields if desired (note that the "Groups" field is the only one required to initiate the search). Depending upon what you've entered to this point, this may be as far as you need to go. If you do need to filter further, continue on with steps 2 through 4: (2) Click on "Create Filter". (3) Enter a subject in the "Search For" field that then appears. (4) Click on "Find". For a more detailed explanation, click on the "Help" button in the upper right of the initial Search Filter page."
rec.models.scale FAQ, part 3
FAQ Table of Contents