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