3.7  SPEAKING UP


"Threads" are an integral part of Usenet.  When somebody posts a message, 
often somebody else will respond.  Soon, a thread of conversation begins.  
Following these threads is relatively easy.  In nn, related messages are 
grouped together.  In rn, when you're done with a message, you can hit 
control-N to read the next related message, or followup.  As you explore 
Usenet, it's probably a good idea to read discussions for awhile before 
you jump in.  This way, you can get a feel for the particular newsgroup 
-- each has its own rhythms. 
 
Eventually, though, you'll want to speak up.  There are two main ways to 
do this.  You join an existing conversation, or you can start a whole new 
thread. 

If you want to join a discussion, you have to decide if you want to 
include portions of the message you are responding to in your message.  
The reason to do this is so people can see what you're responding to, 
just in case the original message has disappeared from their system 
(remember that most Usenet messages have a short life span on the average 
host system) or they can't find it.  

If you're using a Unix host system, joining an existing conversation is 
similar in both nn and rn: hit your F key when done with a given article 
in the thread.  In rn, type a small f if you don't want to include 
portions of the message you're responding to; an uppercase F if you do. 
In nn, type a capital F.  You'll then be asked if you want to include 
portions of the original message. 

And here's where you hit another Unix wall.  When you hit your F key, 
your host system calls up its basic Unix text editor.  If you're lucky, 
that'll be pico, a very easy system.  More likely, however, you'll get 
dumped into emacs (or possibly vi), which you've already met in the 
chapter on e-mail.  

The single most important emacs command is 
 
     control-x control-c
 
This means, depress your control key and hit x.  Then depress the control 
key and hit c.  Memorize this.  In fact, it's so important, it bears 
repeating: 
     
     control-x control-c
 
These keystrokes are how you get out of emacs.  If they work well, you'll 
be asked if you want to send, edit, abort or list the message you were 
working on.  If they don't work well (say you accidentally hit some other 
weird key combination that means something special to emacs) and nothing 
seems to happen, or you just get more weird-looking emacs prompts on the 
bottom of your screen, try hitting control-g. This should stop whatever 
emacs was trying to do (you should see the word "quit" on the bottom of 
your screen), after which you can hit control-x control-c. But if this 
still doesn't work, remember that you can always disconnect and dial back 
in! 

If you have told your newsreader you do want to include portions of the 
original message in yours, it will automatically put the entire thing at 
the top of your message.  Use the arrow keys to move down to the lines 
you want to delete and hit control-K, which will delete one line at a 
time. 

You can then write your message.  Remember that you have to hit enter 
before your cursor gets to the end of the line, because emacs does not 
have word wrapping. 

When done, hit control-X control-C.  You'll be asked the question about 
sending, editing, aborting, etc.  Chose one.  If you hit Y, your host 
system will start the process to sending your message across the Net. 

The nn and rn programs work differently when it comes to posting entirely 
new messages.  In nn, type 
 
     :post
 
and hit enter in any newsgroup.  You'll be asked which newsgroup to 
post a message to.  Type in its name and hit enter.  Then you'll be 
asked for "keywords."  These are words you'd use to attract somebody 
scanning a newsgroup.  Say you're selling your car.  You might type 
the type of car here.  Next comes a "summary" line, which is somewhat 
similar.  Finally, you'll be asked for the message's "distribution."
This is where you put how widely you want your message disseminated.  
Think about this one for a second.  If you are selling your car, it 
makes little sense to send a message about it all over the world.  But 
if you want to talk about the environment, it might make a lot of 
sense.  Each host system has its own set of distribution 
classifications, but there's generally a local one (just for users of 
that system), one for the city, state or region it's in, another for 
the country (for example, usa), one for the continent (for Americans 
and Canadians, na) and finally, one for the entire world (usually: 
world).

Which one to use?  Generally, a couple of seconds' thought will help you 
decide.  If you're selling your car, use your city or regional 
distribution -- people in Australia won't much care and may even get 
annoyed.  If you want to discuss presidential politics, using a USA 
distribution makes more sense.  If you want to talk about events in the 
Middle East, sending your message to the entire world is perfectly 
acceptable. One caveat: these rules are not absolute, some systems pick 
up messages from all over, regardless of the distribution you've set, so 
don't be surprised if, sooner or later, you get a response to a "local" 
message from several thousand miles away. 
    
Then you can type your message.  If you've composed your message 
offline (generally a good idea if you and emacs don't get along), you 
can upload it now.  You may see a lot of weird looking characters as 
it uploads into emacs, but those will disappear when you hit control-X 
and then control-C.  Alternately: "save" the message (for example, by 
hitting m in rn), log out, compose your message offline, log back on and 
upload your message into a file on your host system.  Then call up 
Usenet, find the article you "saved." Start a reply, and you'll be asked 
if you want to include a prepared message.  Type in the name of the file 
you just created and hit enter.

In rn, you have to wait until you get to the end of a newsgroup to hit F, 
which will bring up a message-composing system.  Alternately, at your 
host system's command line, you can type 
 
     Pnews
 
and hit enter.  You'll be prompted somewhat similarly to the nn 
system, except that you'll be given a list of possible distributions.  
If you chose "world," you'll get this message:
 
                                                                               
 This program posts news to thousands of machines throughout the entire         
 civilized world.  Your message will cost the net hundreds if not thousands of  
 dollars to send everywhere.  Please be sure you know what you are doing.       
                                                                               
 Are you absolutely sure that you want to do this? [ny]                         
 
Don't worry -- your message won't really cost the Net untold amounts, 
although, again, it's a good idea to think for a second whether your 
message really should go everywhere. 
 
If you want to respond to a given post through e-mail, instead of 
publicly, hit R in nn or r or R in rn.  In rn, as with follow-up 
articles, the upper-case key includes the original message in yours. 

Most newsgroups are unmoderated, which means that every message you post 
will eventually wind up on every host system within the geographic region 
you specified that carries that newsgroup. 

Some newsgroups, however, are moderated, as you saw earlier with 
comp.risks.  In these groups, messages are shipped to a single location 
where a moderator, acting much like a magazine editor, decides what 
actually gets posted.  In some cases, groups are moderated like scholarly 
journals.  In other cases, it's to try to cut down on the massive number 
of messages that might otherwise be posted.  


You'll notice that many articles in Usenet end with a fancy "signature" 
that often contains some witty saying, a clever drawing and, almost 
incidentally, the poster's name and e-mail address.  You too can have 
your own "signature" automatically appended to everything you post.  On 
your own computer, create a signature file.  Try to keep it to four lines 
or less, lest you annoy others on the Net.  Then, while 

connected to your host system, at the prompt, type 
 
     cat>.signature
 
and hit enter (note the period before the s).  Upload your signature 
file into this using your communications software's ASCII upload 
protocol.  When done, hit control-D, the Unix command for closing a 
file.  Now, every time you post a message, this will be appended to it. 

There are a few caveats to posting.  Usenet is no different from a Town 
Meeting or publication: you're not supposed to break the law, whether 
that's posting copyrighted material or engaging in illegal activities.  
It is also not a place to try to sell products (except in certain biz. 
and for-sale newsgroups).