DISCLAIMER:

Everything written by robin-of-lox in the "Welcome to alt.discuss" articles is my own personal opinion. These may or may not be the opinions of WebTV, and nothing written here has any "official sanction" from WebTV Networks.

For instructions on how to access the WebTV newgroups, go here.

ALTERING SUBJECT HEADINGS

Generally, it is considered rude to change a Subject Heading within a thread. Adding a person's name at the end of the Subject is OK if you are responding to the specific person and remain on-topic to the thread.

But if someone makes a number of points in a post and you feel one of them is particularly worthy to call attention to, then it is acceptable to start a new thread with a new Subject Heading. This helps keep threads from becoming monsterously long, and opens the new subject for others to comment on.

When startng a new thread you will need to make reference to the post in the other thread, so people will know what you are talking about. Cut & Paste comes in very handy here. You can Paste the whole post, or the part of the post that you are referring to into your post. If you can't C&P, then it is reommended that you refer to the post by Subject Heading, poster's name, and date of post. That way others can find it.

POST LIFE

The length of time that a post stays "on the board" is generally 30 days. If you post something on October 20th, then it will "fall off the board" (be deleted) on November 19th (there being 31 days in October).

If you are posting in a very active group the post may fall off the board sooner. An alt.discuss group can carry up to 1500 posts at any given time. In an quickly moving group it is possible for there to be over 1000 posts a day. When this happens, the posts at the end of the group get pushed into oblivion as the new posts come up.

When an older post is responded to (ie: Oct. 20th gets a response on Nov.18th) the older post will still disappear after it's 30 day shelf life. That is why at times you will see threads of RE: with no original post. Responding will not add to the life of the original post.

If you would like to keep the original post for more than the 30 days, it is suggested that you Cut & Paste it into a new post.

There is no guarantee to the 30 day expiration. At times there have been sweeps at 10 days and at 14 days that wipe out all previous posts. 30 days is the norm, but it is not always the reality.

Reminder: Always lurk for a while and read numerous posts and entire threads before posting to any alt.discuss or Usenet newsgroup.

With Thanksgiving around the corner, I thought I would cover the groups that seem to fall into that category. We will look at Health, Kids, and Pets groups. My reasoning is this: no matter what shape we are in, we can be thankful that our health is better than it could be. If we have children and/or pets, we are usually thankful for them.

Of course, other groups could fall into this category too, but there is only space for so much, and these are the ones I felt like doing this month.

Also being covered this month are the Sports groups. Many people watch Football on Thanksgiving, so it seemed appropriate to include these also.

HEALTH

.disability
A place for the disabled to share experiences, find support, ask and answer questions.

.disability.learning
Discussion of the various learning disabilities, and a place for the learning disabled to hang out without being flamed for mis-spellings.

.health.alternative
Discussion of alternative healing methods.

.health.womens
Talk about women's health.

.health-care.home
Discussion among home health care providers.

.illness.cancer
Support for those with cancer and for their families and loved ones.

.recovery
Discussion of 12 Step Programs.

.recovery.rational
Recovery without 12 step programs.

.support
A place to give and/or seek support in times of crisis.

.support.grief
Support for the grieving.

.talk.veterans
Support and discussion among veterans.

KIDS

.activist.against.child.porn
A forum for discussing the proliferation of child pornography on the web. How it affects our society and what can be done to eradicate it.

.family.talk
Discussion of family issues.

.gayteens
A place for homosexual teenagers to converse with each other. (NOTICE: this is NOT a pick-up group for adults)

.missing.children
To help find missing children and help families cope with their grief.

.mygrandchild
Bragging and complaining about grandchildren.

.parenting
Parenting issues for moms and dads.

.teen.personals
A place for teenagers to meet each other. (NOTICE: this is NOT a pick-up group for adults)

.teens
Discussions between teenagers.

.webtv.kids
Sharing of kid-friendly websites.

PETS

.cats
Talk about those furry felines.

.ferrets
Discussions among ferret owners.

.pets
Various kinds of pets are discussed in this group.

.pets.dogs
Man's best friend has a group here.

SPORTS
(Ok, this is not my specialty, so I will just list them here. Some of these groups are seasonal, so when they are off season they tend to be slower than when at their height.)

.football

.football.fantasy-leagues

.sport.baseball

.sport.basketball

.sport.football

.sport.hockey

.sport.nascar

.sport.pro-wrestling

.sport.soccer

.wrestling

With the Year 2000 on your mind (after having read the TechTalk Article in this month's Newsletter), I thought I would tell you that an alt.discuss newsgroup named y2k is up for votes at the moment. If you would like to see a newsgroup devoted to this topic, I suggest that you vote for alt.discuss.y2k (see the Newsgroup Creation and Voting Rules on how to vote here ).

In the meantime, alt.discuss.queenschamber has opened it's doors to both men and women who are interested in discussing preparations for the future. This is not a group for learning the basics of the Y2K possibilities, nor is it fear based. The discussion centers around survival hints and tips, food storage, and the emotional impact that the possible Year 2000 computer crashes is having and may have on our lives.

Question:
I have heard that I can get spammed from posting in newsgroups. Will I get spammed if I post in alt.discuss?

Answer:
Most of the spam (unsolicited e-mail advertisements) that people get comes from posting in Usenet. Alt.discuss is "firewalled", computer users cannot read the posts in alt.discuss. Therefore, they cannot access your e-mail address from alt.discuss.

If you get spammed by a WebTVer it is advised that you forward the e-mail to abuse@corp.webtv.net . WebTV takes spam very seriously, and it is against the TOS (Terms Of Service) for any WebTV User to engage in such practices.

So the bottom line is, very rarely will you get spammed from posting in any of the alt.discuss groups, and then only from another WebTV User.