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  FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
  
   
   
   Welcome to the Zippo News Service
   
   Welcome to Zippo. Zippo News is the product of Zippo Dot Com of
   Sunnyvale California. Zippo News Services include free public access
   servers, membership servers, subscription servers, and commercial
   servers for ISPs and business end users.
   
   Original Zippo offers sections for free public access, including an
   WinSock Apps section, as well as membership services for nntp access
   and restricted alt.* group access. Details
   
   Super Zippo, an expanded service, is available only to subscription
   users and commercial customers. Details
   
   Zippo provides Usenet, and other forms of Internet news, at a rate of
   over 140,000 articles per day. Zippo offers full read and post access
   to its users and propagates news throughout the Internet every 15
   minutes. Zippo receives news through numerous educational and
   commercial providers from both US and International sources.
   
   What are the difference between Super Zippo and Original Zippo ?
   
   Super Zippo is a purely commercial subscription service. Original
   Zippo provides free public access with membership only required for
   groups deemed requiring restricted access by current US law. The law
   covers point of origin and we are a US company.
   
   Super Zippo provides 17,000 + news groups, Zippo approx. 4,500. Super
   Zippo ads groups constantly, Zippo is static. Super Zippo permits
   users to add local unique news groups, Zippo does not.
   
   Super Zippo does not have a time limit on usage, Zippo is limited to
   a max. of 6 hours in a 24 hour period.
   
   Super Zippo provides expanded FTP software selections, approx. 20
   Gbytes to approx. 8 Gbytes for Zippo.
   
   Super Zippo has binary image archives, Zippo does not
   
   Super Zippo provides mailboxes to retail subscribers, Zippo does not.
   
   Super Zippo systems and lines are faster than Zippo. During periods
   of light access, the systems may appear to be similar in performance,
   however, as membership grows on Zippo, the system performance will be
   slower. Super Zippo runs a ratio of users to systems that is
   maintained at a lower level.
   
   Super Zippo is available at special rates to commercial users, ISPs
   and Corporate accounts, Zippo is not.
   
   I just signed up for the service and I can't connect through nntp, or
   through Direct Read News. What's wrong ?
   
   Did you receive a confirming message from the service or from a Zippo
   Dot Com representative ? All memberships and subscriptions are
   processed and then confirmed. If you did not receive a confirming the
   order may not have been processed yet, or there was a problem sending
   a confirming to the e-mail address provided on the subscription form.
   Subscriptions are process between 8 AM and 5 PM PST, Monday through
   Friday. All orders received during that time are processed and
   confirmed during the same day. If there is some reason why we could
   not process, an e-mail would have been sent indicating that reason.
   Contact us.
   
   Super Zippo subscriptions and Zippo membership systems are not the
   same, one does not give access to the other. Frequently, users going
   to the wrong system is the problem. The home page and nntp system
   names, respectively, for Super Zippo are: http://super.zippo.com and
   snews.zippo.com. The home page and nntp system names for Zippo are
   http:/www.zippo.com and news.zippo.com.
   
   Case sensitive related issues are the next greatest cause for an
   inability to connect to either service. Our systems see uppercase and
   lower case letters as two distinctly different things. Aazz is not
   the same as AAZZ, or aazz. We took the approach as a security
   enhancement for passwords and e-mail addresses. Using upper and lower
   case distinction greatly decreases the probability of some one
   getting into a user's account.
   
   We entered the password incorrectly for a members account. So far we
   are running 99.8% accuracy, so the chances for this happening are 2
   in 1000. When an e-mail is sent to us in reference to access, the
   first thing we do is a double test for incorrect entries. Once we
   have gone through this check, the chances of incorrect password are
   virtually zero.
   
   Incorrect browser or news reader setup where system information has
   not been entered, or a version of client software does not support
   password access. Send us an e-mail message, with the name and version
   of the access software you are using, and we will work through this
   with you.
   
   Attempted multiple connections will cause a disconnect. Both Super
   Zippo and Zippo memberships and subscriptions are for single user
   access. If a user id and password are already in use, and attempted
   second log on will interrupt the first. We are asked why we do this,
   usually with reference to a provider service where passwords may be
   used many times, simultaneously.
   
   The answer is that they are selling time and we are selling
   information. Time based services encourage as many people to be on
   line as possible because their billing is additive, they will charge
   for every minute a password is in use, so if 10 people are using the
   service, they will charge for all of them. We are a flat rate
   subscription service and do not bill for time, so 10 connections
   under the same user names consumes 10 times the amount of system
   resources, but the revenue to us remains the same.
   
   I have service through an ISP and I cannot access restricted Alt
   groups. Are you censoring the news ?
   
   News laws impose many news responsibilities on our service as well as
   ISPs. As a US based central service, we cannot default access to all
   groups. If we are not specifically asked for restricted group access,
   we are required to default to no access. In the case of the ISP,
   where they have the additional community standards test to comply
   with, we provide them with several choices.
   
   The ISP may request none of the restricted groups be provided for
   their domain. They may request access to these groups through their
   domain, only with a password they provide to their membership, on
   request. An ISP may also request open access where all groups are
   provided to their membership.
   
   If you are having difficulties connecting to restricted newsgroups,
   and you are gaining access through and ISP, send us an e-mail and we
   will let you know which case applies to your ISP.
   
   I've posted to Super Zippo, or Zippo, and my posts aren't showing up,
   what is happening to them ? 
   
   Posts through nntp or Direct News, should show up on our servers
   between 15 minutes and half an hour of being posted. With 120,000 -
   150,000 articles coming each day, 15 minute batches of posts are the
   most efficient way of placing them on the system. If they do not show
   up within this time frame, and they would not be classified as SPAM,
   something is wrong, and we would appreciate it if you would let us
   know.
   
   If the article is directed to a newsgroup that has a moderator, it
   will be directed to the moderator for approval, before it is posted.
   When approved, it will propagated back to us through the news
   network, so they will not appear instantly. If the moderator does not
   approve the post, it may never be posted. We keep a list of moderated
   newsgroups.
   
   If your post was SPAM, it may never show up. Major commercial messages
   in non-commercial groups are screened, as are articles cross posted to
   many groups that are not of common interest. If you are not sure if a
   post is SPAM, as us
   
   I've seen posts on other news servers that don't show up on the Zippo
   Servers ? All news servers are independent. There is not central
   hub, or originating point for news. Each server also has it's own
   policies on what groups to carry \, what to feed outbound to other
   news services, and where they will get inbound news from. Generally,
   because we have many inbound news feeds, we get the bulk of the news
   that is placed into general circulation. If you consistently see
   posts on another server, that you do not see on Super Zippo or Zippo,
   send us a copy of the post header and we'll see if we can track it
   down, or arrange for a feed from the source.
   
   Why does it take so long for articles to show up on Super Zippo, or
   Zippo, when they are posted on other news servers. ? I think the
   misleading term is "news". I think it should be called publicly
   distributed mail. News is not like broadcast news. The news migrates
   amongst perhaps 10,000 significant servers and, depending where you
   are in the overall flow, articles will be received in a few hours, or
   a few days. You may see a post on a server that took three
   connections to get there and a few hours. The same post may have
   taken 9 connections to get to us and 4 days. The reverse will also be
   true, where there will be articles you find on our servers that do
   not appear on other servers. We are very conscientiously about
   outbound feeds, and do so every 15 minutes. Other server may outbound
   feed only once per day.
   
   I use Agent to count new articles on news servers and sometimes Super
   Zippo and Zippo have less. ?
   
   It would be very easy for us to match or exceed the number of
   articles on other large news servers. All we would have to do is open
   the flood gates to SPAM and prevent any external post cancellations.
   We'd rather not. On a daily bases we remove at least 4,000 posts of
   "Make Money Fast" , approximately 8,000 posts by the guys that
   advertise dial-aporn hotlines by putting their number on a picture
   from alt.binary.pictures.erotica.girlfriends, etc. We hope our net
   articles are more worthwhile and will encourage people to post, when
   they see their messages won't be lost in a pile of garbage.
   
   
   
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