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F I D O N E W S -- Vol.13 No.23-27 (3 Jun - 1 Jul 1996)
+----------------------------+-----------------------------------------+
| The newsletter of the | ISSN 1198-4589 Published by: |
| FidoNet BBS community | "FidoNews Editor" |
| _ | +1-407-383-1372 [1:1/23] |
| / \ | |
| /|oo \ | |
| (_| /_) | |
| _`@/_ \ _ | |
| | | \ \\ | Editor: |
| | (*) | \ )) | Christopher Baker 1:374/14 |
| |__U__| / \// | |
| _//|| _\ / | |
| (_/(_|(____/ | |
| (jm) | Newspapers should have no friends. |
| | -- JOSEPH PULITZER |
+----------------------------+-----------------------------------------+
| Submission address: FidoNews Editor 1:1/23 |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| MORE addresses: |
| |
| submissions=> cbaker84@digital.net |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| For information, copyrights, article submissions, |
| obtaining copies of FidoNews or the internet gateway FAQ |
| please refer to the end of this file. |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
========================================================================
Table of Contents
========================================================================
1. Editorial..................................................... 1
2. Articles...................................................... 2
How to get published in FidoNews: ARTSPEC updated........... 2
3. Fidonews Information.......................................... 3
========================================================================
Editorial
========================================================================
The last issue of FidoNews published by Donald Tees appeared on
27 May 96 [Issue 1322]. Since then nothing has been heard from the
former Editor. This issue is a manual composite comprising Issues 23
through 27 for the sake of numbering continuity and historical
reference. [see Header]
FidoNews is now edited by yours truly from 1:374/14, Rights
On!, in Titusville, FLorida, USA. The Nodelist adjustment to the
FidoNews listing will appear in NODELIST.194 next Friday [12 Jul 96].
In the meantime, you may wish to set a temporary override for 1:1/23
to reflect the following telephone number: 407-383-1372. Flag override
should be: CM,H14,V32B,XA as well.
FidoNews submissions may be made to 1:1/23 as before or to my
Internet address: cbaker84@digital.net. Submission standards are
available in the file ARTSPEC.DOC from this system anytime except
Zone 1 ZMH [0900-1000 UTC/GMT]. ARTSPEC.DOC has also been sent to
every Zone Coordinator for distribution down the chain. Submissions
made as Netmail or email require manual processing so allow more lead
time for the issue in which you wish to have it appear.
FidoNews Issue 28 will put the standard numbering and submission
processing back on track for 1996 [Vol. 13].
--------------------------------------------
FidoNews 13-23/24/25/26/27 Page: 2 3 Jun - 1 Jul 1996
========================================================================
Articles
========================================================================
How to get published in FidoNews: ARTSPEC.DOC updated
Christopher Baker
1:1/23, FidoNews Editor
FidoNews has had a long-standing policy of publishing nearly
anything sent to it. The submission standards for the content of a
FidoNews article do not exist although the Editors, traditionally, have
maintained final control over articles that are repetitious or
defamatory in nature. That tradition will continue. The submission
standards for the physical parameters of the data structure of anything
sent to the Editor are contained in the file called ARTSPEC.DOC.
ARTSPEC [article specifications] has changed very little over the
years but many people in FidoNet are not familiar with the physical
requirements of a FidoNews article. Those new to FidoNet or FidoNews
should obtain a copy of this file from 1:1/23 or their local FidoNet
Coordinator.
In the meantime, here is the entire ARTSPEC.DOC file for reference
until you can get your own copy:
-----
FidoNews Article Submission Guidelines
FidoNet address 1:1/23
Updated 5 Jul 1996 by Christopher Baker
Updated 29 May 1991 by Tom Jennings
Based on the original work by Thom Henderson
"Fido" and "FidoNet" are registered trademarks of Tom Jennings,
Box 77731, San Francisco CA 94107, USA and are used with
permission.
--------
SYNOPSIS:
FidoNews is the newsletter of the FidoNet computer network, its
Sysops and users. It is passed to its readers electronically via
the FidoNet and other computer networks and to non-network
readers as well.
This document intends to tell you how to write and submit
articles for publication in FidoNews. Much of it describes the
technical specifications which an article must meet in order to
be included in the newsletter, as well as broad (very) guidelines
on content. (Of course you realize articles can be submitted only
electronically.) Please read it carefully. The article you save
might be your own.
FidoNews 13-23/24/25/26/27 Page: 3 3 Jun - 1 Jul 1996
------------
INTRODUCTION:
FidoNews was originally founded in early 1984 to include all
parts of the lives of its member Sysops and users, which of
course means not just technical matters. We do not have fixed
goals of maximum distribution or maximum readership (i.e. lowest
common denominator) but only to meet the needs of our individual
network members. The success of this venture has always been
contentious at best (ahem).
In any case the grand experiment continues. Twelve years later
(at this writing) and over 30,000 Nodes in the network, the
editorial policy, or lack of one, of FidoNews has shown to
best fit our ever-changing and unpredictable needs.
--------------
SUBJECT MATTER:
Articles on any subject of interest to FidoNet members and users
are welcome and encouraged, not necessarily of a technical
nature, though priority may be, but not necessarily, given to
articles of importance to the FidoNet, its technology and its
uses; other networks such as uucp and the Internet; social
aspects of communications; ethical issues; other related matters.
--------------
ARTICLE LENGTH:
Try to keep articles short. The longer it is, the less likely
people are to read it. Consider splitting long articles (more
than five pages) into smaller articles to be run serially.
Exceptions will be made at the whim of the editors.
For practical reasons, we will attempt to keep FidoNews to a
"reasonable size", which is of course a highly subjective and
variable thing. As of May 1991, the goal is under 100,000 bytes.
Decisions regarding content may be made based upon this, though
in general it shouldn't be an issue.
FidoNews 13-23/24/25/26/27 Page: 4 3 Jun - 1 Jul 1996
------------------
WRITING GUIDELINES:
We are not all professional writers, nor is that even a goal for
the FidoNews -- we want real communication to and from real
people; even at the expense of so-called "good writing", which is
frequently a tool to exclude. There are a few minimum
requirements though for any successful writing, even for the
lowly FidoNews:
* The subject discussed must be clear to people other than the
author! Don't assume that people will pick up the context from
your writing. Tell them explicitly.
* Why are you writing this? It may seem obvious -- "Review of the
new Acme 75-baud Modem" -- but it's not. Are you the
manufacturer? An irate customer? Let us know your point of
view.
* Who are you? A good question! Anonymity is acceptable, though
most people want to take credit for their work. Include full
contact information including electronic mail addresses.
* Articles will appear when space becomes available, not
necessarily the "next" issue. If your article is of a time-
critical nature, please say so when you submit it; the editor
still has final say.
* The editor reserves the right to request changes from an author
to meet these "standards", which you have to admit are pretty
loose. It is not the intent for this to be a mechanism to
refuse articles the editor does not like, but simply to keep
the contents intelligible.
* If we have a backlog of articles, we may get fussier about
things. Historically, this has not been a serious problem.
---------------------
SUBMITTING AN ARTICLE
TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS:
If all that hasn't scared you away, the next step is to create a
text file which contains the text of your article. The resulting
file should be sent or uploaded to "FidoNews Editor", FidoNet
address 1:1/23. The "physical" location (and phone number) of
FidoNews varies, and hence must be found elsewhere, such as
within a recent copy of FidoNews itself.
FidoNews 13-23/24/25/26/27 Page: 5 3 Jun - 1 Jul 1996
Filenames must follow the MSDOS standard:
FILENAME.TYP
a 1 to 8 character file name (A - Z, 0 - 9)
a period,
a 0 to 3 character file type (A - Z, 0 - 9)
File types are used to distinguish types of submissions, as
follows:
.ART An article, commentary, open letter, or general news
item.
.AD "For Sale", "Wanted" or other advertisement.
.NOT A notice for the back of the issue.
If your file doesn't have one of the above extensions, then it
will lay around taking up disk space until someone takes a look
at it and realizes what it is. Maybe.
The name of the file is up to you, though you should use a name
which is not likely to be "stepped on" by someone else -- the
system will not guarantee file names are unique. For example,
FNEWS.ART is probably not a good name for an article.
--------------
CHARACTER SETS:
The character by character contents of the file itself must meet
the following standards or it cannot be published in FidoNews.
The FidoNews staff WILL NOT be responsible for making file
contents conform to these standards.
* FLUSH LEFT MARGIN: Please do not put a "left margin" on your
articles. Have the text start at the very first column.
* RIGHT MARGIN AT COLUMN 72 OR LESS: Less is tolerable, more is
definitely not.
* RAGGED-RIGHT TEXT: Word-Star style "justification" (inserting
spaces into sentences so that a paragraph is perfectly rec-
tangular) is extremely hard to read, and consumes needless space.
Please don't use it!
* NO FUNNY CHARACTERS: This includes formfeeds, returns without
linefeeds, linefeeds without returns, tabs and other oddities.
The only control codes (character codes 0 through 31 decimal)
allowed are carriage return (CR) and linefeed (LF). The only
exception is: Control-Z "end of file" terminator characters are
tolerated. Not required.
* NO GRAPHICS CHARACTERS: Believe it or not, not everyone in the
world has an IBM PC. Please restrict yourself to printable
ASCII characters in the range 20 hex to 7E hex (space to
tilde).
* LINES TERMINATED: Each line in the article should be terminated
with a 'newline' -- either the MSDOS standard (CR/LF) or the
unix standard (LF only).
FidoNews 13-23/24/25/26/27 Page: 6 3 Jun - 1 Jul 1996
-----------------
SUBMISSION FORMAT:
Below is a sample article properly formatted. Features of it are
discussed further below.
--article file example begins below this line--
* A Sample Article
This is My Title
by Joe Schmoe, [Netmail/email address]
And here is my article. Note that it is flush left (zero indent).
Also note that the right margin is at column seventy so that it
won't overflow "most" text windows. Each line has a newline. Note
the *'ed first line. My article will be listed in the table of
contents exactly as it appears after the * above.
Figure 1. Table 1.
+-------+ ========
| A Box | Alpha
+-------+ Bravo
Note that we am not using any funny-o characters. This ensures
that the final article will look the same to every user, no
matter what sort of hardware he has.
This is the last sentence of our article.
--article file example ends above this line--
The first line of text is the Table of Contents line. It must
begin with an asterisk * as shown above. If you do not, the
article will not be listed in the table of contents.
* Everything that follows the *'ed line will appear in the body
of the newsletter.
* Next should be the title or name of your article, your name,
and contact information (network address(es), Postal Service
address, etc) Try to keep it to one or two lines each.
* Put a blank line between paragraphs. Paragraphs that all run
together are very difficult to read, and may be rejected.
* If you want to put in a table or a figure, go right ahead.
We do not rearrange text, so your table or figure will
remain exactly as you entered it. Try to limit them to ones
that make the communication CLEARER.
FidoNews 13-23/24/25/26/27 Page: 7 3 Jun - 1 Jul 1996
* Don't put a lot of blank space at the top or bottom. The
FidoNews-generator programs will visually separate articles
automatically.
* Please check for basic errors in spelling, grammar, and
punctuation. We're not publishing a textbook, but you don't
want it to embarrass yourself do you?
* Don't use FidoNews to grind your personal axes against other
FidoNet members. An article presenting a side of an internal
dispute is one thing. An article defaming or perseverating over
several issues is another. Articles that merely quote endlessly
from other sources to no particular effect are also not a good
idea.
* Don't republish copyrighted material from other sources WITHOUT
the permission of those sources. Include the permission in such
articles.
* Remember that FidoNews is no better or worse than the articles
submitted to it. If you want FidoNews to be a useful newsletter,
get involved and submit useful articles. It's up to YOU to make
it work.
-- END
-30-
Okay. Now, YOU have the information to make your own article
submission to FidoNews. What are you waiting for? The NEXT issue
could be yours. [grin]
All FidoNet Coordinators are encouraged to forward articles from
their respective Nodes in FidoNet Policy. Likewise, they should obtain
and make available the ARTSPEC.DOC file for anyone who wants to
load or file-request it.
TTFN.
Chris
------------------------------------------
FidoNews 13-23/24/25/26/27 Page: 8 3 Jun - 1 Jul 1996
========================================================================
Fidonews Information
========================================================================
------- FIDONEWS MASTHEAD AND CONTACT INFORMATION ----------------
Editor: Christopher Baker
Editors Emeritii: Thom Henderson, Dale Lovell,
Vince Perriello, Tim Pozar,
Tom Jennings, Sylvia Maxwell,
Donald Tees
"FidoNews Editor"
FidoNet 1:1/23
BBS +1-407-383-1372, 300/1200/2400/14400/V.32bis/HST(ds)
more addresses:
Christopher Baker -- 1:374/14, cbaker84@digital.net
cbak.rights@opus.global.org
(Postal Service mailing address)
FidoNews Editor
P.O. Box 5921
Titusville, FL 32783-5921
U.S.A.
voice: (407) 264-2994 [1400-2100 ET only, please] [1800-0100 UTC/GMT]
---------------------------------
FidoNews 13-23/24/25/26/27 Page: 9 3 Jun - 1 Jul 1996
FidoNews is published weekly by and for the members of the FIDONET
INTERNATIONAL AMATEUR ELECTRONIC MAIL system. It is a compilation
of individual articles contributed by their authors or their
authorized agents. The contribution of articles to this compilation
does not diminish the rights of the authors. Opinions expressed in
these articles are those of the authors and not necessarily those of
FidoNews.
Authors retain copyright on individual works; otherwise FidoNews is
Copyright 1996 Christopher Baker. All rights reserved. Duplication
and/or distribution permitted for noncommercial purposes only. For use
in other circumstances, please contact the original authors, or the ed.
OBTAINING COPIES: The most recent issue of FidoNews in electronic
form may be obtained from the FidoNews Editor via manual download or
file-request, or from various sites in the FidoNet and Internet.
PRINTED COPIES may be obtained by sending SASE to the above postal
address.
INTERNET USERS: FidoNews is available via FTP from ftp.fidonet.org,
in directory ~ftp/pub/fidonet/fidonews.
Anyone interested in getting a copy of the INTERNET GATEWAY FAQ may
file-request GISFAQ.ZIP from 1:133/411.0, or send an internet message
to fidofaq@gisatl.fidonet.org. No message or text or subject is
necessary. The address is a keyword that will trigger the automated
response. People wishing to send inquiries directly to David Deitch
should now mail to fidonet@gisatl.fidonet.org rather than the
previously listed address.
SUBMISSIONS: You are encouraged to submit articles for publication in
FidoNews. Article submission requirements are contained in the file
ARTSPEC.DOC, available from the FidoNews Editor, or file-requestable
from 1:1/23 as file "ARTSPEC.DOC". Please read it.
"Fido", "FidoNet" and the dog-with-diskette are U.S. registered
trademarks of Tom Jennings, and are used with permission.
' ' disagreement is actually necessary,
or we'd all have to get in fights
or something to amuse ourselves,,
and create the requisite chaos."
-Tom Jennings
-- END
-------------------------------------------------------------------
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