ABMX-H General FAQ File
Archive-name: tv/xena-wp/Binary Posting-Frequency: Bi-weekly or whenever Last-modified: 29th Sept 2002 Version: 3.0.7 Copyright: (c) 1998-2002 Paul A Hilling Copyright: (c) 1997-1998 Ronald J Martin Maintainer: Paul Hilling <gabfan@rocfan.org.uk> URL: http://www.rocfan.net/abmxh-faq.htm
NOTE: This document is not intended to infringe upon the Copyright of MCA, Universal Studios, Ren Pictures or Studios USA in any way.
Portions of this document are Copyright (C) 1998 by R. Martin. This file may be freely copied and redistributed. All I ask is that it remains whole and intact and that this notice is not altered.
This document is intended to provide answers to certain questions that come up in the Alt.Binaries.Multimedia.Xena-Herc (ABMX-H) and other Xena/Hercules related news groups. And also to provide guidelines for people posting to the ABMX-H newsgroup. People who are new to Usenet are encouraged to read this document. Any questions about this FAQ should be sent to the author direct.
Ronald J Martin originally created this FAQ in accordance with the prevailing traditions and customs of the Internet, which place high value on the free dissemination and exchange of information.
Amendments will be made as and when they are needed, or when I am informed of any errors. Please feel free to notify me of any problems, or comments that you may have about this FAQ.
Paul Hilling <gabfan@rocfan.org.uk>
This FAQ is not available via ftp at the moment. To get a copy of this FAQ by e-mail, send an e-mail to <gabfan@rocfan.org.uk> with "ABMX-H FAQ REQUEST" as the subject.
This document uses the following conventions:
X:WP is an acronym for Xena: Warrior Princess. H:TLJ is an acronym for Hercules: The Legendary Journeys.
ATX is an acronym for the Alt.Tv.Xena Newsgroup.
ATH is an acronym for the Alt.Tv.Hercules Newsgroup.
ABMX-H is an acronym for the Alt.Binaries.Multimedia.Xena-Herc newsgroup
About the Binary Newsgroup.
The purpose of ABMX-H, is to provide a forum where fans of the television program Xena: Warrior Princess, (X:WP) and Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, (H:TLJ) can share their favourite photos, drawings, sounds and other media.
Posting such multimedia items, would normally be cripplingly large for the general Xena and Hercules discussion newsgroups. Alt.Binaries.Multimedia.Xena-Herc (ABMX-H) is therefore the correct place for such Xena and Hercules related 'binary' posts on Usenet.
The following types of articles are welcome in ABMX-H.
- Any articles posted here, have to be related to either X:WP and/or H:TLJ, or the actors that appear on either of these shows.
- With the exception of large compressed text files, any posts should either be graphic files in any compressed format: .jpg, .bmp, .gif etc.
- Audio files in any standard format: .wav, .au, .mp3 etc.
- Small video's or snippets of episodes in compressed format: .mpg, .avi, .mov etc.
- Posts telling us the location or URL (Uniform Resource Locator), of where you have stored X:WP or H:TLJ photos, videos and/or sound files.
Posts about the 'Cleo 2525' and 'Jack Of All Trades' shows are also allowed to be posted in ABMX-H, so long as they are properly marked as being from those shows.
The following types of articles are NOT allowed to be posted to ABMX-H
- Fan Fiction (These should be posted, in one of the alt.tv.xena.creative.* newsgroups)
- Contrived or faked pictures of any characters, or actors appearing in either X:WP or H:TLJ.
- Nude pictures of any type.
- Offers or Requests for Nude pictures.
- Multimedia that is not related to X:WP, H:TLJ or their actors.
- Spam or advertising of any kind, unless it relates to either X:WP, H:TLJ or it's actors.
- Multi-Level Marketing (MLM) posts of any kind.
- An excessive number of posts (commonly called 'Flooding')
Unless they relate to either X:WP, H:TLJ or it's actors, adverts are not permitted. Adverts relating to either X:WP, H:TLJ or it's actor's, should be as short as possible, and posted no more than once per vendor per week.
MLM adverts are expressly forbidden from being posted in ABMX-H. MLM posts, can be any type of pyramid scheme, including lists of names, and/or mailing money to the names on those lists.
Such schemes DO NOT work and are in fact ILLEGAL in many countries including the US, Canada, UK and Australia. Posting a MLM scheme is most likely to be a contravention of your ISP's terms of service and could result in termination of your service with them.
The majority of ABMX-H's readers only have (at best) a 56K modem, so posting multi megabytes of AVI's/MPG's etc, will be beyond most readers ability to download, before the post(s) expire from their servers. It is suggested that posters to ABMX-H, limit themselves to posting about 3Mb's a day.
This has a two fold purpose. Firstly it enables ordinary modem users to be able to download everything posted here, if they wanted to. And secondly, it won't push older posts off of people servers before they can be downloaded.
Before you ask for/post those scans, you should be aware that Renee, gave the photos to the Fan Club magazine, and she has requested that they should not be disseminated into other formats, and posted to other forums. If you REALLY want the pictures of Renee's wedding, please goto www.primenet.com/~outback/ and look into purchasing the #4 Fan Kit.
Due to the way that Usenet works, no one server is guaranteed to have all the posts. Using more than one server increases the likelihood of your getting all the posts available. You should be able to add more new servers to your newsreader (see your newsreaders documentation on how to do this).
Most public access news-servers however (those not provided by your ISP), tend to be set as read only (meaning you won't be able to post using them, but you will be able to read posts using them). I have a small list of public access servers, that readers may find helpful.
- openbeta.news.uk.uu.net (Limit on number of connections)
- testnews.execpc.com
- pubnews.netcom.net.uk
- reader2.news.rcn.net username:guest password:guest
- biggulp.readfreenews.net
You should be aware that any of these servers may stop working at ANY time.
Some newsreaders may not able to decode certain types of posts. Mainly this problem is seen, with multi-part posts. Firstly you have to be absolutely sure you have all the parts of the post available on your news-server. Then you'll have to combine and decode all the parts using the options of your newsreader. I am afraid, that it's not possible to say how this is done with every newsreader.
You might also have to download the latest drivers for your playback program.
Whooooaa!! Stop right there... This newsgroup was not created for the posting of entire episodes. Short segments yes, but entire episodes should not be posted to Usenet newsgroups.
By doing so, the poster is forcing the various ISP's around the world to carry the entire post which is usually around 400Mb (550Mb's+ once it's UUencoded).
Storage space on ISP's is not something that can be infinitely expanded, and with that in mind ISP's might drop heavily posted to groups... And in-case you think that doesn't happen, my own ISP has dropped alt.chello.binaries. and *.repost. This is to save retention in the other groups.
Also by posting a 550Mb+ file you'll be pushing other smaller posts off all the servers around the world, just so one person can download an illegal video.
If you really want that episode..
a) Find out it's name.
b) Goto www.zeropaid.com and get one of the many P2P clients that are available, and start searching.
Usenet was NOT designed for the posting of multi megabyte files... They don't belong on Usenet.
Of course you could also actually buy the episode on VHS or DVD. And reward the creators of the shows with currency instead of piracy.
You are strongly advised to obtain the information you require, from either, the ATX or ATH newsgroups. Their respective FAQ's or Web Sites.
The FAQ for the ATX newsgroup can be found at :- http://www.rocfan.net/atx-faq.htm
The FAQ for the ATH newsgroup, and indexes to X:WP and H:TLJ related websites can be found at Xenite On-Line Resources, located @ http://www.xenite.org/xenaonln.htm
CREDITS.
Michael Martinez <michael@xenite.org>
Ronald J Martin
Paul Hilling <gabfan@rocfan.org.uk>
FAQ produced using ASCtoHTM from http://www.jarsoft.com
Why this document is so short compared to the ATX and ATH FAQ's? I don't know, but both FAQ's are certainly comprehensive and informative, and indicate that we're quite involved with the show and believe in what we do or some such thing :-)