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Starting a Newsgroup is No Easy Job!
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When Carol asked me to tell you about my experiences in getting a
newsgroup started she had no idea what she was really asking. It may seem
like smoke and mirrors, but behind all the illusion is a great deal of
work, and frustration.
In June of 1996, I decided that the Internet needed another newsgroup. I had been spending time on the bead craft newsgroups; alt.beadworld and rec.crafts.beads, and there always seemed to be answers
to questions and descriptions that couldn't be adequately covered in just
words. I realized that what we needed was a newsgroup where crafters could post pictures of their crafts, and pictures to help explain a technique.
I first checked the bead craft groups to see if there was any interest. There was some positive response, so I asked the same question on all the groups I thought had crafts they could share with others. As the interest grew, the question of how to start
a group became a concern. I use concentric.net for internet access, but had been using super.zippo.com for almost 6 months for e-mail. I contacted super.zippo and asked how to set up a newsgroup. It was suggested that since this was going to be a
newsgroup of binary pictures, it belonged in the alt.binaries.pictures hierarchy. Also, I would need a second newsgroup for discussion of the items posted. They volunteered to help me with getting it set up there, but I preferred to be in the rec.crafts
hierarchy, so I began to gather information on how it was done.
The difficult part was gathering information on how to set up a
newsgroup. Getting into the rec.crafts hierarchy was too involved, so I
went back to super.zippo, to ask if it could be a moderated group so that
the undesirable posts could be blocked. This could be done, but all posts
would need to be sent to an e-mail address for approval.
The address for the posts for moderated groups should be a separate account so the posts would not be confused with personal mail. Super.zippo, to my great appreciation, donated the account for the moderated group. With their encouragement, we decided to
set up alt.binaries.pictures.crafts and alt.binaries.pictures.crafts.d.
Jeanne Kent had been keeping a steady dialogue with me during this process so I offered the job of co-moderator. I think she has regretted accepting it at least once a week since.
By July the group was still nowhere. Super.zippo had set up everything on
their servers, but Jeanne and I discovered that everything stayed local on
super.zippo. Finally super.zippo had everything ready for the control
message, and on August 16, 1996 the message was sent. Jeanne and I braced for what we thought would be a flood of messages.
The flood was not even a trickle. Jeanne and I both posted messages, and watched for them come through on our own servers. Jeanne was seeing the newsgroups on her server but no posts came through. I couldn't
even get the newsgroups on the concentric servers. We learned the
newsgroups had not been picked up by the major news feeds; AT&T, MCI and SPRINT.
I vainly tried a 'booster' message where the control message is
sent again, then contacted David Lawrence at tale@uunet.uu.net (MR. UUNET) for assistance. In my haste I had failed to request addition to the moderators list. He was able to do that, asking for another email address for administrators (which super.zippo
also furnished). We made it onto the moderators list, but the groups still didn't come through. David suggested I go to alt.config and post a message for help. I had neglected to send a proposal of the group to alt.config, and suitable time for comments.
I posted the proposals, and then I posted to all of the craft groups requesting and receiving support for the groups.
Someone else sent a control message out to start the unmoderated
group alt.binaries.craft.pictures. I realized the name he had sent the
control message for was slightly different, but the posting of his control
message gave me the clues, I thought, to finally understand how control
messages work.
I still failed to put the information in the control message to
make it moderated. It wasn't until the groups showed up on concentric, and
SPAMs came directly through that I realized my mistake. I could send out a cancel control message, and kill the groups (but I was afraid it would be hard to get them re-established) or send a correction message. They were
showing up on other servers, and I wanted to keep it that way, but I didn't want to leave them unmoderated. There really isn't a 'correction message'
as such, but I sent a 'booster' message where you add some information in
the body of the message explaining why it is being sent.
There are some reports of servers showing SPAMS, but I contact
them and request a change. I hope that eventually all servers will set up
our groups as moderated. If you are getting non-craft related posts,
contact your administrator and request that the groups be moderated. They
can contact me at craftpic-requests@super.zippo.com if they need any
information.
The groups are growing; now we're still trying to figure out and
resolve the bottlenecks. The largest problem currently is posting size. You
can send in your posts as an attachment, but if I send the post forward,
and it is larger than about 1,000 lines (or 60,000 bytes) it doesn't
propagate. That is why there are posts in multi-parts in the newsgroup.There are applications to help recombine the posts. I have PC
experience, and Jeanne has MAC experience, and we will be glad to try and help anyone who is having difficulty.
What did I hope to achieve in creating the groups? I hope they will
become a place where people can learn new techniques, where crafters can
show others what they can accomplish. There are lots of web pages out there, but not all of us have the expertise to do a web page, or the time to keep it current. These newsgroups are an open forum for information and ideas.They are for the
crafters...they belong to the crafters.
Where can you find the newsgroups? Look for alt.binaries.pictures.crafts and alt.binaries.pictures.crafts.d in your
news reader. Subscribe and join in. If your news server doesn't carry the
groups, send them a message asking them to add the groups. A request
coming from one of their subscribers will have more weight than a message from me. However, I will help in any way that I can.
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Copyright, 1997 by George Walters
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