abpw
ALT.BINARIES.PICTURES.WEAPONS
CHARTER & FAQ
Revision 1.06
Changes to the previous versions:
1.06: - Links updated,
1.05: - Revised
section "autoposter",
"no politics" in a-06,
1.04: - Newsreaders
for Mac & Linux,
1.03: - Revised section "autoposter".
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+++++ Print it out and read it carefully !!! +++++
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a.b.p.weapons CHARTER:
The group provides a forum for the exchange of photos of handguns, long guns, knives, swords and other weapons for historical, technical, artistical and craftsmanship information, and of course just to enjoy.
All posts depicting violence are prohibited
Posts to the group should not be crossposted to moderated groups.
Illegal material, Spam and commercial posts are not allowed.
THE FAQ - Frequently asked questions:
Preamble:
This group was created in March 2000 by some people who met in other groups and who were desperately searching for a group to exchange binaries of their hobbies.
The maybe most intensive part of the discussion was about the name.
We were aware of the fact, that a part of the people this group is made for, won't feel comfortable to read and post in a group with "weapon" in it's name.
For some of you, the term weapon might be distasteful. Sports shooters, collectors ...etc... might not feel comfortable with it. A part of them will implicate aggression in the name of the group. We knew that it would be hard for some to identify themselves with the group due to it's name.
Please allow one of the creators and editors of this FAQ to stress, that this name was not chosen to exclude some of you.
Any collector of pocket knifes that doesn't consider his collector's items to be weapons is as welcome as a tank poster
The reason why we finally decided for abp.weapons was, because weapons was the only appropriate term we found to cover the whole subject.
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS:
Q-01: So what's exactly on topic in this group ?
A-01: The charter says: "The group provides a forum for the exchange of photos of handguns, long guns, knives, swords and other weapons for historical, technical, artistical and craftsmanship information, and of course just to enjoy."
Although this group certainly focuses on guns (pistol, revolver, rifle, shotgun, etc.) and edged weapons (knifes, daggers, swords, etc.) ALL PHOTOS, DRAWINGS, SKETCHES OF ANY KIND OF WEAPONS AND IT'S ACCESSORIES ARE ON TOPIC.
Q-02: Hmm, I'm still not quite sure if what I intend to post fits in this group.
A-02: In this case I would advise you to make one or two test posts and to ask the regs what they think of it.
Q-03: What else should I consider ?
A-03: Due to the broad topic of this group, it's highly advisable that you put as much info as you can in the subject line, so that people know what you're posting. Since most of the binaries are relatively large, it's a question of politesse that you inform the readers of the group what you're posting so that nobody who isn't interested has to download your pics just for nothing.
Please do also point out in the subject line if you're doing a repost.
Please do only attach one binary per post.
Q-04: Is there any limitation how much one is allowed to post ?
A-04: Currently there is no rule limiting the amount or size of your posts.
However, depending on the traffic in the group on the present-day and the size of your files, you should consider to split your posts into two or more batches if you intent to post more than 50 pictures.
Q-05: Is there anything that is forbidden to post ?
A-05: Spam, commercial posts and especially illegal posts (and links) are not allowed in this group. In the last case, be aware that you will normally not be warned before you'll get traced and reported to the authorities.
Q-06: Is discussion allowed in this binary group ?
A-06: Yes, it is. But please consider that the retention of a binary group is just about one week, even on good newsservers.
So take into consideration
that the addressee of your message might not get it, if he's not
visiting the group in shorter intervals regularly. It might be
advisable in such cases to make an arrangement to discuss in a
text group.
One more: NO POLITICS ! Keep it in groups like talk.politics.guns.
Q-07: My first language isn't English, I can hardly express myself, can I post in another language ?
A-07: Yes you can, this is an international group . But I would highly advise you to try it in English, so that everybody can follow your discussion. Believe me, it really doesn't matter how awful your English is. NO serious poster of this group will ever criticize your posts just because of some spelling and syntax errors. Be aware of the fact that the author's of these lines native language also isn't English. (Well if you red 'till here you probably found out yourself <G>)
Nevertheless it's certainly a good idea to use the spell checker that should be included in your newsreader.
Q-08: It took me a lot of efforts to make the pictures. Do you mind if I also post them in another group ?
A-08: Yes and No !
MULTIPLE POSTING: Please feel free to post your binaries to as many groups as you want SEPARATELY. But please make sure, that your posts are on topic in all the groups. DON'T POST BINARIES IN TEXT GROUPS (groups that don't have the word "binaries" in their name)
CROSSPOSTING:
Short version: Please don't !
Crossposting means that you add several groups in the newsgroup line to enable you to post to several groups by only sending one message. CROSSPOSTING ATTRACTS SPAM ! It catches the attention of spam-bots. So if you don't want this group to be flooded with unrelated commercial posts DON'T CROSSPOST.
Crossposting to a moderated group: Be aware of the fact that if you do crosspost a message to several groups, and just one of them is moderated, your message will first of all just go to the email address of the moderator of the one group. This is done automatically by your newsserver. Only after the moderator accepted the post for his group, your message will appear in all the other groups.
If your post is rejected by the moderator or if it gets lost on the way due to poor propagation, your posts won't appear anywhere.
That's why the charter of this groups states that "Posts to the group should not be crossposted to moderated group".
This is no criticism in moderation. But no extraneous moderator should have the right to decide what's posted in this group.
Nobody will flame you if you do crosspost to a moderated group nevertheless, but don't whine if your posts never show up.
Q-09: Okay, I want to post. What software do I need ?
A-09: First of all, you need a newsreader. If you can read this, you got one.
If you use a newsreader that came along with your web browser, sooner or later you might want to get something more sophisticated. Well there are many good newsreaders. Although you might get some helpful hints from the regs in this group, you'll have to try it out yourself, tastes are too different.
One very popular newsreader is Agent. You can get a 30 day trial version at http://www.forteinc.com to check yourself.
Xnews is a free but powerful newsreader you should give a try. http://xnews.newsguy.com/
Another one you might want to try out is Gravity (freeware) Get it at http://lightning.prohosting.com/~tbates/gravity/ or http://gravity.tbates.org/ .
Linux: A
very recommendable sophisticated newsreader is "Pan",
the handling is very close to Agent. Get it at http://www.superpimp.org/ .
Macintosh: MT-NewsWatcher ( freeware - http://www.smfr.org/mtnw/
) and
Thoth ( shareware http://www.thothsw.com/thoth/ ).
Autoposter:
If you're just looking for a tool to upload easily a bunch of
pictures, use an autoposter.
-The classical Autopost32:
The fully registered version is now awailable for free at: http://www.eucalypt.com . It's small, simple & fast
but lacking quite some features.
Don't try to register , it's no longer possible & the
address mentioned in the software isn't valid anymore.
-"News on Rocketfuel" (shareware) is the modern successor of Autopost. Check out http://www.eucalypt.com - it's meanwhile freeware.
-"Powerpost 2000"
(freeware): An amazing software for free ! Self explaining, easy
to use, no installation required - get it at: http://cosmicwolf.com
To view the pictures - guess what - you need a picture viewer. Some newsreaders like Outlook Express have a built in viewer. That's okay to begin with and it's helpful for most of the files since you don't have to start any other application. The problem is, that these viewers don't support too many type of files. So before you start complaining that some files are corrupted because you just get a small red "X" on the screen, make sure you have checked the file with at least one other viewer. Outlook Express for instance doesn't support some types of Jpg/Jpeg files.
I don't recommend image editors for viewing, because they're too large in size, they slow down you system, and you risk to ruin the picture or diminish the quality, if you resave it by mistake.
Some recommendable viewers are:
ACDsee (Shareware) : It's a great viewer with many features that supports almost all picture formats. It's also an excellent picture browser. You can download an evaluation copy at: http://www.acdsystems.com/products/acdsee/index.htm
Thumbs Plus (Shareware) : This is also an excellent proggie, and like the name says, it's the best software to make thumbnails of your pictures. You can download an evaluation copy at: http://www.cerious.com/
Irfanview (Freeware) : An
astounding little program and the fastest viewer I've ever seen.
Very useful, supports all image files I'm aware of, it's small,
it doesn't write in your registry and it's FREE, so just try it
out ! It might not have so many features than the both above, but
you can also make thumbnails with it, make snapshots of every
window of your desktop, etc...
If you intend to burn your image files on a CD, that's the
perfect proggie for the autostart. Copy the Iview.exe on the CD,
and add the "run=Iview.exe firstpic.jpg" command in
your burning software. As soon as you put the CD in any PC with
activated autostart option, the first pic will be shown
automatically by Irfanview. What I'm missing ? Well it just
supports image files and a few audio and video formats. It does
NOT support other formats like "Office" files (e.g.
doc, txt, rtf, xls, etc.). It's a pity, but it is not of
importance in this group. Download it from: http://irfanview.com/ .
Make sure to also download the plugins for the weirdest formats.
Quickview Plus : Although
it is a very good tool, I do NOT recommend it for this group.
It's the program with maybe the greatest bandwidth of the
supported type of files, you can view almost any kind of file you
got on your PC, you can even sneak in files that are still
compressed, and it's a great plugin for your Windows Explorer and
other programs. Unfortunately it's not supporting some image
files (Animated gifs, and some Jpgs for instance).
Hardware and Picture publishing software:
If you intend to post pictures that do not come from a website (If you post web pictures, please be aware of their eventual copyright) you will need one of the following hardware equipment:
- A flatbed scanner for printed patterns and photos,
- a negative scanner for diapositives and negatives (note that some flatbed scanners are also capable of such scans. The quality is not overwhelming, but might be sufficient for posting in this group.)
- A digital camera.
With most of these devices a picture publishing software comes along. This software should be acceptable to rework your pictures for this group.
This FAQ can't go into details here, it would be beyond it's scope. But please don't hesitate to ask the regs if you have any questions. You might also consider to check other NGs that deal with your technical/software problems.
BTW: Most software recommendations rely on the assumption that you use Windows 95 or above. If you use any other OS like Windows NT/2000, Unix, Linux or if you use Macintosh hardware good luck ! I can't help you much there, hopefully somebody else can.
Well that should be enough theory, now go and flood the group !!!
No FAQ is definitive. Any proposals for additions, changes, etc... are welcome and will be considered seriously.
abpw in march 2000
DOCİ
P.S.: I'm searching for
volunteers to translate this FAQ in as many languages as possible.
(Yes, I said volunteers. You don't want me to check your headers
and to designate some ?)