Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site brl-tgr.ARPA
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!mgnetp!ihnp4!zehntel!dual!amd!noao!hao!seismo!brl-tgr!wmartin
From: wmartin@brl-tgr.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.news
Subject: Article on USENET in HARDCOPY
Message-ID: <3956@brl-tgr.ARPA>
Date: Tue, 14-Aug-84 15:26:21 EDT
Article-I.D.: brl-tgr.3956
Posted: Tue Aug 14 15:26:21 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 17-Aug-84 23:47:04 EDT
Organization: Ballistics Research Lab
Lines: 35

Just received my copy of the August 84 issue of HARDCOPY, a freebie
magazine for DEC equipment users, and there, beginning on page 20,
is an article on USENET. Usually you read articles about something
with which you are familiar with a steadily-rising sense of outrage,
as the mistakes mount up. This one isn't bad. The article is better
than the graphics, which purport to be screen images of some USENET
postings, but which lack the formatted-display characteristics that
the user interface I'm familiar with provides (number of lines stated,
the output of "more" or the next header, etc.), and in one "net.women"
is misspelled as "net.woman". Also, one example, a sample from the
debate about "net.tv.soaps", is presented as if it was one message,
rather than an extract from a preceeding message and the reply to
same.

Aside from calling newsgroups "SIGs", I suppose to use terminology
familiar to the readership, and repeating the falsehood about UNIX
being distributed "free" to colleges [I don't care how cheap the
educational license distribution was on a per-machine basis, it was
NOT free], the article is pretty accurate, as far as I can tell.
"net.announce.newusers" is misnamed "net.announce.newcomers"; that's
the only actual error that I noticed in the text itself -- if a group
with that name gets created (with the old software) in the future,
by someone trying to post to it, this is the source of their info.

The author is Marc Beishon, identified as "deputy editor of 'DEC USER'".
I don't recall his name on postings, but I suppose he reads the news.
Hi, there, Marc!

Anyway, the general thrust of the article is that "netnews is a
good and worthwhile thing". Having this in commercial print might
be of value to those of you who have to defend the associated
expenses to your accountants and managers. I recommend you take
a look at it.

Regards, Will