Archive-name: radio/rec-radio-info/guidelines
Last-modified: $Date: 1994/04/14 22:00 $
Version: $Revision: 1.03 $

*** rec.radio.info - Submission Guidelines and Etiquette ***

Two introductory articles about rec.radio.info are posted to this group and to
news.answers every two weeks. You are now reading the second article, which
explains how to submit something to rec.radio.info, and which answers some
Frequently Asked Questions about the submission process. The first article is
titled "Welcome to rec.radio.info", and it might be a good idea to check it out
as well.

 -- How do I submit something to rec.radio.info?

Two possibilities. You can use your newsreading software to just post the
article to rec.radio.info, as you would do with any other newsgroup. The
difference is that the software recognizes the special status of rec.radio.info
as a moderated group, and will e-mail your article to me, the moderator,
instead of posting it to the group.

Alternatively, you can mail your article directly to me at the following
address:

 rec-radio-info@ve6mgs.ampr.ab.ca

Mailing me directly is probably (a wee bit) faster, but using the transparency
offered by the newsreading software is probably more convenient.

If you have any questions, or wish to deal with some administrivia with the
moderator, I suggest mailing to the following address:

 rec-radio-request@ve6mgs.ampr.ab.ca

 -- How soon will I see my article appear?

It depends on how busy I am. Your article reaches me as mail, I have to read
it first, possibly edit it, give it the stamp of approval, and finally send it
on to the group.

I try to check and process the rec-radio-info mailbox at least three times a
day.  Since my site is UUCP connected (and in Canada, sometimes viewed as
a foreign country from the US :-), the turnaround time may be somewhat
lengthy. If you post a periodic article, and have shown to be trustworthy,
we may allow you to post directly if the article is of a timely nature. See
the section below on direct posting.

 -- Should my article be in a specific format?

No. If it is not totally illegible, I will accept it, and if it does not have
a correct subject-line I will correct it -- that's what a moderator is for.

However.

You could do me a big favor by making sure your article conforms to these
simple requirements:

1) The article must present information, not discussion or requests, I will
   reject the article or require you to change the wording if it is worth it.
2) A good, descriptive Subject line.
3) Always mention what source you got the information from.
4) Don't forget to include a Followup-To header, at least if you don't want
   further discussion to automatically be forwarded to you, the poster, which is
   the default if the article is only posted to rec.radio.info.
5) Please try to keep commercial advertising out of the signature. One of the
   goals is to allow many of these messages to traverse through to Amateur
   Packet Radio, and even a mention of a company name can get some of the
   Arm-Chair lawyers up in arms :-}

As I said: if your article is appropriate I will post it even if you don't
follow these guidelines, but then don't blame me for not processing it
immediately. 'Perfect' articles I can send on with a couple of keystrokes.
Stuff that needs minor editing is going to have to wait until I have time to
do so.

Please do not waste both mine and your time by posting requests, as this is
an information only news group.

 -- What about cross-posting?

If you send something to rec.radio.info, just name any group you'd like to
cross-post to in the Newsgroups field. Then, when I approve the article for
rec.radio.info it will get automatically cross-posted to any other groups
mentioned. This will also override the default Followup-To: poster, replacing
it with the groups you cross posted to.

I would prefer if the group be cross-posted to the various discussion groups
in the rec.radio.* heirarchy that are appropriate:
 rec.radio.amateur.misc   Amateur (ham) radio and related matters
 rec.radio.amateur.packet  Amateur Packet Radio discussions
 rec.radio.amateur.policy  Amateur Radio practices, rules, etc.
 rec.radio.noncomm   Non commercial radio discussions
 rec.radio.shortwave   International broadcasting on the 'HF' bands
 rec.radio.cb    Citizens Band (27 MHz) discussion
 rec.radio.scanner   Scanner discussions (unsupported group)
or in the moderated group:
 rec.radio.broadcasting   Discussion of *domestic* radio broadcasting
I will leave it up to the poster to decide which group(s) are appropriate, but
reserve the right to add groups if I feel it has broader interest.

Note: rec.radio.broadcasting is also a moderated group.  It *may* be necessary
to 'manually' post your articles to it's moderator.  If you wish the article to
cross-post to rec.radio.info and rec.radio.broadcasting, place the e-mail
address of - rrb@airwaves.chi.il.us - in the Cc: (carbon copy) field when you
mail, and state, in the article, where you want the Followup-To: to be set.
Since William Pfeiffer, the rec.radio.broadcasting moderator, is part of the
moderation team for rec.radio.info, I will typically abide by his decision
whether the article is appropriate for rec.radio.info.

If you post to another moderated group it may be better to make special
arrangements with both moderators before posting by contacting us at our
administrivia addresses.

In addition, cross-posts do not take up extra space; modern newsreaders can be
configured to show you cross-posted articles only once anyway; not everybody
reads rec.radio.info; and rec.radio.info was never meant to reduce the volume
of the regular discussion newsgroups. But keep in mind that some of the mail
gateways may filter out the informational postings (at request of the
subscribers) to keep the load down.

You decide.

 -- I have a regular posting with timely information, can I make arrangements
    to help speed up delivery by posting directly from my site?

Yes, there is! It may take a bit of chatter with the moderator, but we are
willing to take responsible people and provide them the means of posting the
articles directly from their site. We will try everything we can as we fully
realize that DX (distant signal) and astronomical data can be somewhat
transitory. We are also willing to allow regular posters of information the
same courtesy, even if the information is not as timely.

We refer to this as self-moderation, which is partly based on the model for
news.answer. This requires co-operation and good will to be beneficial to
the community in the rec.radio hierarchy.

If you are currently maintaining (or plan to maintain) a radio-related periodic
information posting, you may wish to consider cross-posting it to news.answers.
Postings that are approved by the news.answers moderator for this treatment
are automatically pre-approved for cross-posting to rec.radio.info (as the
news.answers requirements are far more rigorous than the requirements this
newsgroup ever plans to use).  For more information about this option, consult
the appropriate information articles and posting guidelines in news.answers.

Realize also, that even if your post is not approved for news.answers, it can
still be approved for rec.radio.info.  The intention is not so much to get
every last bit of radio-related information on news.answers, but rather to
provide an alternative avenue of approval (as well as grandfather existing
maintainers of radio-related information and spare them additional
bureaucratic hurdles).  Again, cross-posting to either rec.radio.info or
news.answers, both, or neither, is at the discretion of the poster (subject to
the approval of the moderators).  You decide what is most appropriate for your
article. 

Please remember that as an information maintainer, you are not alone.  There
are many others on the net who maintain and post periodic information postings,
using various intermediate-to-advanced features of Usenet (usually via
automated tools).  Various degrees of technical support and general
hand-holding are available from many Usenet veterans.  Send me some E-mail
describing your needs, and I'll try to help, or at least refer you to the
right knowledgeable individual(s).

 -- And Follow-ups?

If the only newsgroup you have specified is rec.radio.info, then the
Followup-To: field will always be set to poster. If you do not want this, you
must supply a Followup-To line of your own, and I will honor that one.

If you specify newsgroups to cross-post to, then the Followup-To field will be
set to include all the cross-posted groups, excepting rec.radio.info itself.
Again, if you do not wish this behavior, supply your own Followup-To line.

We maintain other standards on the various RFC-1036 (news transport) header
lines. For example, if the article is appropriate for passing into the Packet
Radio Information Network, we encapsulate the Packet Bulletin Identifier (BID)
in the Message-ID: news header line indicating the machine of origin as the
ampr.org domain:

 Message-ID: <$opa.55.1994@ampr.org>

where the Packet Radio BID, in this example, is `$OPA.55', and it was posted in
the year 1994, because some of the Bid numbers are cycled yearly. Hopefully,
this can be used as a key to re-introduce the articles for the Packet Radio
network. Also, if the article is a repost of an already existing information
article in the rec.radio heirarchy, we ensure that the References: header line
is linked to that previously posted article. This also helps to tag articles,
and may be used for additional filtering if needed.

Since the articles are archived, please use the Summary and Keywords header
lines to help one search for your article.

 -- Why have I received no reply from you?

I never reject anything in silence, and I make a point of it to answer all my
mail. However, e-mail, like a brain cell, can and does get lost, every now and
again. In addition, I find that I stop acknowledging the more prolific posters.

So, if you send me something, and you don't see it appear it rec.radio.info, 
and you still have not heard from me in reply after say, five days, you can
be pretty sure that either your mail never reached me, or that my answer has
never reached you. In that case, please try again (I will filter out
duplicates).

-- 
Mark Salyzyn -- Moderator rec.radio.info
Submissions to: rec-radio-info@ve6mgs.ampr.ab.ca
Administrivia to: rec-radio-request@ve6mgs.ampr.ab.ca
