-F- The rec.music.tori-amos Survival Guide (2/19/2003)

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|                The rec.music.tori-amos Survival Guide                |
|                        by Midnight Tree Bandit                       |
|     Revised by Andrew Onifer with a little help from his friends     |
|                                 v0.66                                |
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****************************Table of Contents***************************

   I. Intro/Disclaimer
  II. Sources of Information
 III. Clique?
  IV. The Troll
   V. Our Friend Mr. Spoiler Space
  VI. Threadmarkers
 VII. x-no-archive
VIII. People, Objects, and Deities
  IX. Words
   X. The Four Seasons of rmt-a
  XI. ToriCon Info
************************************************************************

Changes since last version:
   1.) Updated ToriCon FAQ address

I. Intro/Disclaimer: 

This is a Survival Guide (hence the title).  It is intended as an
introduction to the quirks of rmt-a.  As such, it is not a complete
immersion in the waters of rmt-a, nor is it a FAQ (in the traditional
sense), or an introduction to Usenet in general.  Well, it is.  Sort
of.  It's more of a bite size portion of rmt-a, rather than those
king-sized, overpriced rmt-a's you get at movie theaters.  Anyway, I
make no guarantees that this is even remotely complete or up-to-date. 
I do, however, thrive on input, so if you have anything you think needs
added, changed, or other, I'm just an email address away -
[EMAIL PROTECTED] By the way, rmt-a is rec.music.tori-amos.  
You're reading it.  Anyway...

II. Sources of Information:

        Rmt-a web page -- has just about everything:
                   http://www.rmta.org/rmt-a/

        Newbie pack -- Send mail, get info (automated reply):
                   [EMAIL PROTECTED]

        Individual FAQs:
                   Tori Amos FAQ -- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
                   Tori Amos Chronology -- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
                   Tori Amos Resource Info -- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
                   Rmt-a Netiquette FAQ -- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
                   Available Services -- [EMAIL PROTECTED]
                   Rmt-a Survival Guide -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
                   ToriCon Information -- [EMAIL PROTECTED]

III. Cliques?:

You came in here expecting to see stuff about Tori.  You didn't expect to
see all these people discussing, well, everything else.  It seems pretty
cool, but gosh!  Everyone seems to know each other and they keep using all
these weird words and the subjects have these weird, cryptic letters in
them.  WTF?!  It's like clique-city in here!  Well, actually, it's not.  
We welcome new people like crazy.  I wouldn't be surprised if half of the
frequent posters here have been around for less than a year.  Besides,
would I bother even writing this if we were trying to keep people out?  I
didn't think so.

To be sure, you should probably lurk for a while, until you get a feel for
the group.  If you have a specific question about Tori or her music, it
would be a good idea to check the Tori Amos FAQ before you post it.  
There are a lot of questions that come up really often around here, and if
your question is one of them, it's often much easier and faster for you to
look it up in the FAQ rather than waiting around for someone to post the
answer.  Not to mention we appreciate it when newbies read the FAQ - a lot
of people have put a lot of time and effort into its creation and
maintenance.  Finally, if you're really new to Usenet, check out
news.newusers.questions and news.announce.newusers.  But other than that,
we don't (usually) bite.

IV. The Troll:

So you're reading along and you see a subject along the lines of "Tori
SUX, D00D!"  Well, you're curious, so you read it.  It says something
like:

Tori sux and u all smell funny!
WaReZ R K3WL, D00D!

Well, this won't do!  You must retort!  Well, before you fire off a 300
line post detailing why Tori doesn't suck and why you don't smell funny
at all (or maybe why you do) and why the poster is not a K3WL D00D, you
should probably know that this is almost certainly a troll.  What that
means is that the poster wants you to reply.  You see, trolls (people who
troll, aka trollers) thrive on attention.  They need it to survive and
become powerful and eventually take over the universe.  To achieve this,
they post trolls (a post that is meant to trick lots of people into
replying) to try to troll (the act of tricking people into replying).  If
they get enough people to reply, they become powerful demons (or daemons)
and take over the entire universe (or your cpu).  We don't want this.  So
please, do your part to save the universe (and your cpu).  Ignore trolls.  

In short, trolls want attention.  Don't give trolls what they want. 
Ignore them.

V. Our Friend Mr. Spoiler Space:

While we are free to discuss anything we want, some subjects are a little
too sensitive for some people to handle.  Also, it's considered impolite
to give out the ending of a book or a movie.  So that's why we have the
spoiler space.  Basically, it's just a bunch of blank lines longer than a
full screen placed before your actual post (24 lines is a full screen on
most monitors. 40-45 just to make sure.  3000 is probably overkill).  You
should probably also mention that you've inserted a spoiler space and why.  
Some topics that probably deserve spoiler spaces include (but are not
limited to):

rape
miscarriages
cutting/self mutilation
book/movie endings

Basically, if you think the subject is a sensitive one, it won't hurt to
insert a spoiler space.

VI. Threadmarkers:

So what are all these -I-'s and -R-'s and crap?  Well, they're
threadmarkers.  People on rmt-a have a tendency to post on subjects that
have little or nothing to do with rmt-a.  In an effort to make Tori-info
gathering easier, (and info gathering in general), a system of
threadmarkers has been introduced.  The following are examples of correct
and incorrect threadmarkers:

-R- Correct
-r- Incorrect
- R - Incorrect
*R* Incorrect

As you can see (or maybe not) the *only* correct format is a dash followed
by a capital letter followed by a dash.  All other ways are wrong, WRONG,
I SAY!  Also, if the topic of a thread changes (say from relevant to
irrelevant), please change the threadmarker, and if you reply to a post
without a threadmarker, don't be afraid to add one.

 ------Why does it matter?-------

It matters because of the way filters and watchfiles work.  People who set
their filters and watchfiles to sort thru messages write their filters
based on this, and if you mark your message (or leave an incorrect thread
marker in a follow-up) the filters simply won't work.

 ------Okay, so what are they?------

First, basics...
 -R- : General Torelevant post, about the albums or whatever
 -I- : General irrelevant, non-Torelevant
 -M- : Meta (discussions about rmt-a itself)
 -F- : FAQ postings


Second, specialized
 -G- : Fan activity, gatherings, and so forth.
 -O- : Poll question
 -S- : Sex

Notes:

 An easy way to remember -O- is that "o" can be thought of to stand for
 "opinion".

 FS is commonly used to mark "For Sale" posts.  This is not an
 official threadmarker, but you may see it occasionally in rmt-a.

VII. x-no-archive:

Sometimes people don't want certain posts to appear in Usenet archives such
as Google (http://groups.google.com/).  The way this is done is with the
x-no-archive header.  If, for some reason, you don't want a certain post to
be archived, put the line

x-no-archive: yes 

in the header of your post.  If you don't know how to add something to the
header, you can put the x-no-archive as the *first line* of your post,
followed by a blank line. It will not work if it isn't the very first
line!

If you are replying to a post with x-no-archive in it, please remove any
quotes before the x-no-archive.  Make sure it's the first line in the post
and that there's a blank line following it.

VIII. People, Objects, and Deities:

        rmt-a - Short for rec.music.tori-amos, which is the newsgroup
you're reading now (unless this was mailed to you).

        Invisible Pink Unicorn (IPU) - I finally got a good definition for
this (thanks, Aimee): She was invented in alt.atheism in a futile attempt
to show maurauding fundies how their conversion attempts are perceived
there.  This resulted in the creation of an entire theology and a good
chunk of holy writings relating to the IPU.  The most controversial issue
within IPUism is the apparent contradiction between the attributes
invisible and pink.  One school insists that invisible is a shade of pink
(indeed, the most beautiful shade of pink), and the other opines that
invisible pinkness is a holy mystery which should be accepted on faith
(much like the Christian concept of trinity).  As a member of the latter
school has said, "We know She is invisible because we've never seen Her,
and we have faith that She is pink."

In rmt-a the IPU is most often referred to as a substitute for mention of
other gods in certain expressions.  For instance: "Thank the IPU Tori came
to my town on her last tour!"

        The Javajunkies - Basically it's a bunch of people who like 
coffee.  For more info see the rmt-a page.

        The rmt-a life - Rmt-a's own communal social life.  The idea is
that you check the life out for a weekend or so and then return it (like a
library), but people usually just take it and give it back whenever.  
Right now, we only have one, but an order has been place for more.  Due to
backorders, however, it is unclear when the new lives will arrive.

        Go me dance - That little jig one must dance when they have done
something really cool. Similar to the cabbage patch dance football
players do on touchdowns.

        Asparagus - It's green.  It's a vegetable.  It has been the
subject of many wars in rmt-a.  It has been the weapon of choice in many
wars.  Please, know your asparagus.

        Peanut Butter - Again, it has been the subject of many wars (OK,
maybe small battles) in rmt-a, not so much pb itself as its existence in
the form of either creamy or crunchy.  While the author chooses not to
take sides, it will be noted that there is an empty jar of crunchy on his
desk at the moment.

IX. Words:

No one is a perfect typist, the Author of this document being a prime
example. While it is not nice to make fun of bad spelling, accidental
typos are not really bad spelling, more like accidents, so they are fair
game. A few of these typos have managed to enter the standard jargon of
many rmt-a regulars, with special meanings of their own. As a rule,
definitions of these words are to be determined by either the person who
committed the typo (first choice) or the first person to catch it (second
choice). Failing those, it's an open market.

        higs - This is perhaps the most important of the rmt-a
vocabulary. A "hig" is defined as "a fluffy hug." Higs are to be applied
liberally to those rmt-aers who are feeling down, feeling good, or just
plain like higs. In short, everyone.

        smae - A delicacy which is especially good when barbecued.
Ingredients vary, from penguin to beef to vegetarian. No beefalo, though.
Each rmt-a member makes a unique flavor. Not sure why, they just turn out
that way.

        furrfu - A noise of exasperation used frequently in response to
exasperatingly cryptic situations.

X. The Four Seasons of rmt-a:

Just like any other temperate ecosystem, rmt-a has four seasons. These
are topics that seem to come up over and over and over and over and over
and over...well, you get the point (not that we don't like talking about
them. Otherwise they wouldn't come up over and over and over and over...)

    Kate Bush season
    Trent Reznor season
    hair-color season
    is-she-gay season

In addition to that, there are also some religion storms that pop up
every now and then.

XI. ToriCon Info:

>From the ToriCon FAQ:

ToriCon is a gathering of toriphiles, especially those from rmt-a, and
their friends, lovers, and hostages.

All information about upcoming ToriCon will be posted to rec.music.tori-amos
under the -G- header and also sent to people who have signed up for the
mailing list.  The mailing list doesn't get any extra or priveleged
information, but is good for those who either have problem newsfeeds or
can't/don't keep up with rmta.  Email [EMAIL PROTECTED] if you have any
questions or if you'd like to be added to or dropped from the mailing
list.  A current copy of the FAQ can always be had by sending mail to
[EMAIL PROTECTED]