Date: Wed, 1 May 1996 23:14:14 -0400 From: "t(wink)ies!" Subject: FAQ, ALL: Reminder - 24 April 1996 - EVERYONE, PLEASE READ! Welcome to Writers@mitvma.mit.edu. Here are Answers to some Frequently Asked Questions (see, FAQ does mean something...silly net acronyms, words are for people, acronyms are hard to figure out:-) For those of you who haven't done this before--welcome! This may look a bit long, but give it a read. Print it out. Keep a copy around. Go on, I want you to do it. Okay? [for those who haven't had the pleasure before--first, a few words from me. then the answers you might have thought you would find here. and, if we're lucky, something to end it all...with a BANG!] the smoke hovers. your eyes sting. the ancient figure that ushered you into this strange cavern of shadows seems to have vanished while you were blinking. and... in the east, sunrise blares up from the darkened hulks of sleeping mammoths and other detritus of the city. streaks slide in and up, widen, and slowly feed blood into the dark sky, beating it into blue life for another day. in the west, a hungry thunderstorm slavers and scratches across the quivering backs of foothills. from time to time, it roars out a challenge to the world, afraid of nothing and showing it. do not tease it, for it is cornered and sorely fearful, and its bite is worse than its bark. in the north, the frozen wastes quietly snore their way into crystalline dreams of glory. They glint, remembering the ancient days when ice gripped the wide spaces to the south in a clean white glove of tender glacial calm. They crackle in the cold air, as ears ache and noses drip, with sympathy for the poor enslaved relatives forced into cubes by human technology. They snort, nightmares recurring, as they think of being dunked in soda or alcohol at the hands of a human. Imagine! melting, melting, turning into mere water, just for human tastes. in the south, outlaws cuss, horses rear, and other quaint relics of a mythical past fan their six-guns and stand tall, no matter how short they may be... all this, while in the mystical write direction, words tumble and shimmer, coating ideas with fractal colors and incoherence, cracked! and limited by punctuation, mere passing letters on the river of ink... in the center, spinning slowly inside a tangled web of grammar, lies... [oh, heck, let me put down my tropes and yack at you. this is writers. glad you could drop by. feel free to take part in the continuing mailstorm, and don't feel too surprised if things aren't exactly what you expected. just keep on writing, keep on reading, and you may be surprised to find that while it isn't what you thought you wanted, it may be exactly what you needed...:-] and with a flashing clash of ? and !, he brought the wild sentence to a . and there was a submission: the beginning. by a. writer (next, your words, please?...yes, fill in the blank and send it soon!) So, did that answer all your questions? okay. you still want to know how things work. read on... tink +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+= Please read this if you want to know how to: 1. Introduce yourself to the list 2. Get off the list, take a vacation, or even cut down daily mail 3. To check your mail settings (or check if email is working!) 4. Select postings by TOPICS 5. Get a membership list 6. Get a copy of a recent Frequently Asked Questions posting 7. Get a discussion of touchy points to avoid 8. Get guidelines for sub'ing and crit'ing 9. Put something in the archives 10. Get something from the archives 11. Get a copy of our very own newspaper! 12. Poke around with the web... 13. Commercial or Information? 14. Message Overflow at Listserv 15. Worried about the "Good Times" virus? 1. Introducing yourself to the list Most people start with a little bio or other hint about just who they are. You can include BIO or INTRO in the subject line. It also can be useful to include your email address (mail systems sometimes modify it, and including it there will help people who want to write directly to you). Also, if you don't mind, please list your town/city, state, (and/or country). That helps if someone is "in the neighborhood" or when we get into discussions of regional quirks. Mostly, though, step right up and introduce yourself. We like to meet new folks (I'm not going to mention new blood in front of the critical vampires...:-) and appreciate anyone taking that first step. "Hi, I'm tink. I'm a writer..." To do 2 to 5 of these, send email to LISTSERV@MITVMA.BITNET or listserv@mitvma.mit.edu (NOT WRITERS!) with the following messages: 2. To get off the list, take a vacation, or even cut down daily mail SIGNOFF WRITERS No one on the list can remove you, you must do it yourself. [NOTE: listserv sometimes is comparitively SLOW! also, the internet often runs two hours to two DAYS behind in delivery of mail. so--especially when signing off, which is known to take time, be patient. I recommend setting yourself NOMAIL, then SIGNOFF. okay?] for temporary vacations: SET WRITERS NOMAIL then to get your mail again: SET WRITERS MAIL To have all messages collected and mailed to you in batches: SET WRITERS DIGEST To quit digest, SET WRITERS MAIL 3. To check your mail settings (or check if email is working!) QUERY WRITERS if LISTSERV says you aren't a member, please feel free to subscribe again SUBSCRIBE WRITERS yourfirstname yourlastname if it sends you settings that don't match what you like, change them. [NOTE: this is also a good way to check if email is getting through without filling the list with test messages. if you get a response, email is working. if not, well...] 4. Select postings by TOPICS normally, readers get all the postings here on writers. For those who need to limit their mail, the TOPICS system provides a way to cut down. when people post using these TOPIC tags SUBMISSION, CRITIQUE, TECHNIQUE, EXERCISE, WOW, FILLER, INTERACTIVE you can choose to receive any combination of these specific areas. Send listserv@mitvma.mit.edu a message with the following SET WRITERS TOPICS: SUB CRIT TECH or whatever selection of topics you want to try. You can also add or subtract topics with messages like SET WRITERS TOPICS: +EXER SET WRITERS TOPICS: -WOW To return to getting ALL, send the message SET WRITERS TOPICS: ALL 5. To get a list of all the members alphabetized by name: REVIEW WRITERS BY NAME 6. To receive a copy of a FAQ: Send a message to WFILES-SEARCH-REQUEST@mitvma.mit.edu with the message 16 The FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) provides a quick introduction to services of the list and additional resources you may want to investigate. [Note: for those with web access, FAQS can also be found at either http://web.mit.edu/mbarker/www/writers.html or (more specifically) http://web.mit.edu/mbarker/www/faqs/faqs.html so be good little webcrawlers...] 7. To help avoid stepping on toes, I also recommend: Send a message to WFILES-SEARCH-REQUEST@mitvma.mit.edu with this number as the only message 3776 Listserv will send you a copy of a FAQ that discusses some topics which have caused problems in the past. The title is: FAQ: A Preliminary List of Sparks and Irritants - some upsetting topics 8. FAQS for sub'ing and crit'ing You can also send a message to WFILES-SEARCH-REQUEST@mitvma.mit.edu with these numbers as the text 3777 3778 these will get these FAQs 003777 FAQ: SUB guidelines (DRAFT!) 003778 FAQ: CRIT guidelines (DRAFT!) 9. Submissions To send something to the list, send a message to WRITERS@mitvma.mit.edu or WRITERS@mitvma.bitnet (SOME LOCALES ARE HAVING TROUBLE WITH mitvma.bitnet--use mitvma.mit.edu!). Everyone will get a copy. Please use the Subject line to tell us what you are sending. It should look like: (no dash in front) -Subject: TOPIC: title You can have re: in there, too, without hurting anything. The topics are: SUBMISSION or SUB--for the original work CRITIQUE or CRIT--for comments or critique of the work TECHNIQUE or TECH--for pieces about the technical side of writing EXERCISE or EXER--for exercises WOW--for news about the World Of Writing FILLER or FILL--the odd fluff that keeps sleepy heads from pillows INTERACTIVE or IN--interactive thread stories. join in the fun. So your first bio might be entitled: -Subject: FILL, INTRO: Bio of A Budding Ogrette Please try to avoid attachments, Microsoft rtf formats, and other extensions. Use plain ASCII text. To file things in the archives, send a copy to the address WFILES@mitvma.mit.edu. It will be filed. You may want to also post it, or simply send notification to the list that it is available. Basic length guidelines: Some mailers cannot handle messages longer than 50 Kbytes. Assuming a word is about 5 characters, that works out to a little over 8,000 words. If you use big words, put fewer in a single message:-) If you have something longer than that, put it in several messages and post it over a period of time (not all the same day, please?). Use a subject line that links the pieces together. 10. To get information from the archives, first send a message to LISTSERV similar to the one between the dashes -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= // JOB Echo=No,Reply-To=None Database Search DD=Rules Echo=Yes //Rules DD * search * in wfiles from 1 jan 1995 to 1 feb 1995 index -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= you may also want to use search lines such as: search * in wfiles where sender contains ( barker ) search exercise in wfiles since 1 jan 1995 LISTSERV will send you a list of available postings matching your search. second, send WFILES-SEARCH-REQUEST@mitvma.mit.edu with the number(s) of pieces you want to get a copy (change the number to what you want). it's that simple. 11. To get a copy of our very own newspaper, send a message to WFILES-SEARCH-REQUEST@mitvma.mit.edu with this number as the only text: 115 you will get your very own copy of the PM&I, suitable for lining birdcages or other festivities... 12. Poke around with the web... try this URL (the list is NOT complete--if someone wants to collate and send me an updated list, I'd appreciate it) http://web.mit.edu/mbarker/www/writers/urls.html 13. Commercial or Information? "Here's my rule of thumb on the subject: Why am I supposed to be interested? Because I'm a writer, or because I'm a WRITER? If neither of these two, then it's advertising. If Jane Hamilton were to announce that _The Guardian_ was going into another printing in September, I think that the members of the list would have a legitimate interest in knowing where and how they can order it if they choose... If Joe Blow @ Idaho.com has a book out called _Jumper Cables: Ten Ways to Restart Your Writing,_ I think it's legitimate to call it a pointer to a resource rather than advertising. But when the information has no particular interest for us that it wouldn't have for any other mailing list, I think that's taking advantage of our group." (quote from feldspar@netcom.com) 14. Message Overflow at Listserv Occasionally, our flock gets noisy and overflows the number of messages allowed per day (currently 200). When this happens, the mail stops until the listowner sends a special message to listserv. If you happen to post during this period, you may get back a message from listserv that looks like -Subject: Output of your job "YOURUSERNAME" -> > I am fairly careful to crit only stuff -Unknown command - ">". Try HELP. and more repetitions, as if LISTSERV tried to run your posting as commands. When this happens, please don't just keep posting, it doesn't help. You may also get this message: -You had 20 tries. From now on your requests will be ignored without any -reply. You can restore your access to LISTSERV by having another person send -the following command to LISTSERV@MITVMA: SERVE youraddress -All subsequent commands have been flushed. If you get the message saying to get someone to send SERVE youraddress to listserv, tell mbarker@mit.edu or any other member of the list about it, and we'll help. 15. Worried about the "Good Times" virus? There are several hoaxes and urban legends that appear repeatedly on the networks. One is the "Good Times" hoax--which is mail claiming that there is a virus spread by reading mail with the title "good times". THERE IS NO SUCH VIRUS. There also are chain letters of various sorts. One of the famous ones claims to be from someone who was sold a cookie recipe by Neiman-Marcus for $250, and is "fighting" this outrage by giving everyone the recipe. DON'T SEND IT TO US, WE'VE ALL SEEN IT! There are books and interest groups devoted to keeping track of this kind of twisted thinking. For more details, try http://www.cathouse.org/UrbanLegends/AFUFAQ/ http://galileo.desy.de/~sean/afufaq/ . Welcome! We look forward to your contributions. tink -=-=-=-=-=--=-=-=-=-=--=-=-=-=-=--=-=-=-=-=--=-=-=-=-=- Today's @>--,--'--,-- Flowery @>--,--'--,-- Thoughts Not far from here, by a white sun, behind a green star, lived the Steelypips, illustrious, industrious, and they hadn't a care: no spats in their vats, no rules, no schools, no gloom, no evil influence of the moon, no trouble from matter or antimatter -- for they had a machine, a dream of a machine, with springs and gears and perfect in every respect. And they lived with it, and on it, and under it, and inside it, for it was all they had -- first they saved up all their atoms, then they put them all together, and if one didn't fit, why they chipped at it a bit, and everything was just fine ... -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad"