Welcome to austin.announce [periodic posting of newsgroup guidelines]

Archive-name: austx-ann
News-answers-archive-name: austin-texas/announce/welcome
Posting-frequency: monthly
Version: $Id: austx-ann,v 1.25 2003/11/09 05:55:51 dougmc Exp $

Welcome to "austin.announce".  This newsgroup is for announcements of
general interest to the Usenet community in Austin, Texas.

Contents:
    - Introduction
    - Newsgroup Charter
    - Submitting Your Announcement
    - The austin.announce Guidelines
    - FAQ:  Why should I use austin.announce?  Nobody reads it!
    - FAQ:  Why are you so strict about no cross-posting?

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Subject: Introduction

Welcome to "austin.announce".  This newsgroup is for announcements
of general interest to the Usenet community in Austin, Texas.  This
document contains the austin.announce charter and submission
guidelines.  Please review them before submitting your announcement.

This message also answers a few questions (FAQs) we've been asked
from time to time.

These guidelines are revised from time to time.  Please examine the
date near the top of this message; older versions may be obsolete.
The most up-to-date version of these guidelines is available on the
World-Wide Web at <http://austin.frenzy.com/austin.announce>.

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Subject: Newsgroup Charter

austin.announce publishes announcements of widespread interest
to Usenet readers in Austin.  

Appropriate submissions include advance notice of events, meetings,
lectures, symposia, etc.  If you have an important bulletin that
should receive rapid and wide distribution throughout Austin, we
encourage you to submit it.  On the other hand, we want to publish
fun stuff too.  Let us publish the monthly meeting notice for your
club or organization.

This newsgroup is moderated to ensure postings are appropriate,
timely, and meet the guidelines discussed here.  This is a
low-volume (and nearly no-noise) newsgroup.  All Usenet users
in Austin should consider subscribing to this group.

This is austin.announce, so items posted here must be happening in or
related to Austin.

This newsgroup is moderated by Doug McLaren.  This periodic
informational message is maintained by the moderator.  You comments
and suggestions, both about the newsgroup and this message, are welcome.
Our emailing address is <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>.

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Subject: Submitting Your Announcement

The guidelines are simple and mostly commonsense -- but strictly
enforced.  Full details are in the next section.

You either may email your submission to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
or just post it to the group (your news software will route the
submission to the moderator for review).  If your submission meets
the guidelines, it will be posted by the moderator -- usually within
the day.

Messages that do not meet the guidelines will be returned, unposted.
The return notice will indicate why the submission was not accepted.
Often a returned message would have been accepted except for a minor
problem.  In this case, we strongly encourage you to revise and
resubmit your announcement.  Blatant spam will be neither returned nor
posted.  The same goes for emails in HTML format.

Although accepted submissions are processed quickly, returned
submissions take longer.  That's because announcements that meet
the guidelines can be posted with the push of a button.  When we
return submissions, we need to take the time to compose an explanation.

The moderator reserves the right to silently toss submissions that are
mere blatant commercial ads from outside of Austin and have nothing
whatsoever to do with Austin.  Do be aware that the moderator finds
himself exercising this right at least 90 times each day, so if your
message even looks like spam it may be inadvertently overlooked.
Having a good Subject: header goes a long ways towards keeping this
from happening.

Let me say that again ... spammers try to post to austin.announce
approximately 100 times a day, so I'm looking at a lot of spam, and if
your post looks like spam, I may miss it.  Putting AUSTIN in the
Subject header like this --

   Subject: AUSTIN Eeyore's birthday party!

will help ensure that I see it (I'll edit out the AUSTIN when I post
it.) and don't overlook it.

The two most common reason for rejections are: 1) the message is not
an announcement of widespread interest, or 2) violation of the no
cross-/re-posting rule.

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Subject: The austin.announce Guidelines

This section lists the full guidelines for austin.announce submissions.
Please review them carefully before submitting your announcement.
What all of this boils down to is two basic things:  wide-spread
interest and no crossposting.

    - Your submission should be an announcement of general interest
      to a large number of Usenet readers throughout Austin.

    - The posting must somehow pertain to Austin.  This includes
      announcements of events held in Austin, something being done by
      an Austin-based organization, and such.

    - Your message must be in text format -- not HTML, and must not
      include any binary files.

    - Commercial announcements (seminars, sales meetings, dog
      and pony shows, etc.) will be considered only if they might appeal
      to a large number of readers.  Special consideration given to
      events with free food. :-)

    - DO NOT CROSS-POST YOUR MESSAGE.  This is the number one reason
      cause for rejection.  This newsgroup is carried throughout Austin,
      and is one of the most visible groups for Austin-area readers.
      Cross-posting to other groups just adds clutter and is unnecessary.
      We almost never accept cross-posted announcements.  (See below
      for more info on this rule -- including when we bend it.)

    - DO NOT RE-POST YOUR MESSAGE.  Posting a single message multiple
      times to separate newsgroups is even worse than cross-posting.
      Forget these guidelines, that's an outright abuse of the net!

    - We generally do not edit or modify submissions -- although we
      we reserve the right to do so.  The moderator simply tries to
      review submissions with respect to the guidelines, and get them
      approved and posted as quickly as possible.  If the submission
      is formatted strangely or is incurably ugly, we probably will
      bounce it back.

    - If you haven't already done so, please read the periodic postings
      in news.announce.newusers entitled "A Primer on How Work With
      the Usenet Community", "Answers to Frequently Asked Questions
      about Usenet", and "Hints on Writing Style for Usenet".  New
      users should spend a few weeks reading "austin.announce" prior
      to their first posting to get a feeling for what is appropriate
      for this group.

    - Please allow several days for your submission to be reviewed.
      The turnaround normally is just a day or so.  If, however, the
      moderator gets called out of town or tied up in a project, it
      might be a couple of days.

------------------------------

Subject: FAQ:  Why should I use austin.announce?  Nobody reads it!

The level of traffic on austin.announce is very light.  Some people
look at that and think since the group is so small, nobody reads it.
They think it might be better to use a big group, such as austin.general,
for their announcements.

In fact, the opposite is true.  austin.announce is easy to read -- so
people read it!  Your announcement doesn't have to fight for attention
among 120 other messages complaining about drivers on Mo-Pac or the
lunkheads in City Hall.  When you use austin.announce, you do not have
to run a gauntlet of killfiles to get your announcement seen.

OK, you want me to prove it?  Here is an unsolicited testimonial
(gawd...I feel like a TV infomercial) from one person who published
a conference announcement in austin.announce.  The announcement was
posted on a Saturday morning.  The moderator received a message first
thing Monday that said:

    > [This] group is really effective!!!  I was inundated with
    > registrants all weekend.

So there you have it.

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Subject: FAQ:  Why are you so strict about no cross-posting?

The guidelines say ``no cross-posting'', and we mean it.  We often
are asked why.

The most frequently selected cross-posting target is austin.general.
That's one where the rule holds hard and fast.  Cross-posting to
austin.general doesn't bring you any benefits (c.f. the "Why should
I use" question).  It just adds clutter to an already congested
newsgroup.  The whole purpose of this group is to move announcements
out of austin.general.  If you go cross-posting back there, you've
defeated the entire purpose of this group.

There are additional reasons why we do not accept cross-postings.
For instance, there are technical difficulties with handling cross-posted
messages to moderated groups.  Many moderators (including yours truly)
discourage them, because they create added hassle and work for
moderators.

We will, on occasion, bend this rule when the cross-posting is to
a highly appropriate group.  We will not accept cross-postings that
appear to be a scattershot attempt to reach every news system on
the face of the planet.

Please note that re-posting is something different than cross-posting.
Cross-posting is when you specify a comma-delimited list of groups in
your Newsgroups: line.  When you do that, only a single message is
transmitted, and that one message gets placed into all the cross-posted
groups.  Re-posting is sending your message multiple times to multiple
groups.  Re-posting is an outright violation of Usenet netiquette.
The best you can expect from a re-posting to austin.announce is a
stern lecture from the moderator. :-)

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End of austx-ann Guidelines
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