ATX General FAQ File
------------------- Section II: About Usenet and the
Alt.Tv.Xena News Group ------------------
QUESTION 1. What is the purpose of alt.tv.xena?
ANSWER 1. This is a news group dedicated to the discussion of the television show
XENA: WARRIOR PRINCESS and related topics.
XENA: WARRIOR PRINCESS is an hour-long action-adventure series exclusively distributed in
syndication in the United States by MCA TV and internationally by MCA TV International. It
premiered the week of September 4, 1995 as a spin-off of the successful HERCULES: THE
LEGENDARY JOURNEYS series.
"...[it] combines mythology with martial arts action, big-screen special effects and
spectacular New Zealand scenery..." -- from the official MCA Web site (http://www.mca.com/tv/xena/)
"Surrounded by enemies, barbaric tribes, slave traders, and a host of other evils,
Xena is on a mission to help people free themselves from tyranny and injustice." --
from the official MCA Web site (http://www.mca.com/tv/xena/)
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QUESTION 2. What sort of stuff should I post to this news group?
ANSWER 2. You are welcome to post any article dealing with any aspect of the show,
its characters, its actors or the production company, related topics (such as ancient
history and mythology), books, magazines, newspapers that concern the show or its actors,
and information about the production company, fan activities and interests, and things
like that. Such articles should be in plain text whenever possible, as not all readers can
read content rich (or HTML) articles.
Although you'll see disagreements here (and the occasional flame war), people sometimes
will try to calm things down by quoting Xena: "Be Niiice!" It's good advice.
There's no reason to go ballistic just because someone else doesn't share your opinion.
But that's your choice to make.
Posts about the "Jack Of All Trades", and "Cleo 2525" shows are also
allowed here, until they get newsgroups of their own.
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QUESTION 3. What sort of stuff should I NOT post to this news group?
ANSWER 3. Most articles are forgivable unless they are :-
1. Multi-Level Marketing (MLM) posts of any kind. Also known as Make Money Fast posts
(MMF).
2. Advertising or Spam, of any kind, unless it relates to either X:WP, or it's actors.
Such adverts should be as short as possible, and posted once per vendor per week.
3. Binaries, (which can be either pictures, programs, sounds, or compressed archive files)
of any kind.
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QUESTION 4. What happens if I post something I shouldn't?
ANSWER 4. You may get flamed. But in general people at ATX are friendly people.
However, you are bound to catch someone who is having a bad day.
But if you post the pyramid scheme, people may complain to your ISP, even if you try to
fake your account, and you may lose your account for that reason (but that's between you
and your provider).
Some unscrupulous people may mail-bomb you by sending your article right back at you 1000
or 10,000 times. Or they may subscribe you to many mailing lists, rendering your account
unusable. THESE ARE NOT PROPER RESPONSES TO USENET ABUSE, but they can happen and we
cannot prevent people from declaring war on you.
If you've read this far into the FAQ and you post one of the above articles anyway, you're
on your own and you'll get no sympathy from the rest of us.
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QUESTION 5. Okay, but what if I want to post binary files SOMEPLACE?
ANSWER 5. Hey, binary files are welcome on the Usenet! Just make sure you post to
one of the "alt.binaries..." news groups. Then post an announcement here in
alt.tv.xena telling us where to look. The news group alt.binaries.multimedia.xena-herc
exists specifically for X:WP and H:TLJ binary posts. However, some ISPs do not carry the
newsgroup.
It is okay to cross-post to several binary groups, especially if their names are in the
alt.* hierarchy, since no alt.* group is guaranteed to be carried by all servers (in fact,
NO news group is guaranteed to be carried by all servers). In practice, it's better to
cross post than to post to individual groups because cross posting saves space. Posting
the same article to many different groups is called "spamming" and is frowned
upon. However, do not cross post binary files between binary and non-binary news groups.
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QUESTION 6. Why is posting a binary file to a non-binary news group such a problem?
ANSWER 6. Some sites have limited resources and carry only a limited selection of
binary news groups. If binary files are posted to non-binary news groups, the only
ultimate recourse the system administrators have is to stop carrying non-binary news
groups with excessive binary file postings.
Other reasons include :- That not every person who reads ATX, has unlimited toll-free time
to download 50k+ binary posts. Most people outside of the US (for example those in the UK
and Europe), are charged for net usage by the second. Some ISP's also automatically block
binary posts in non-binary groups, so a lot of readers won't see your picture anyway.
There is a much better option available for sharing your Xena pictures: the World Wide
Web! Binary news groups have short expiration periods because their articles take up so
much disk space. Web pages that you design and own on the other hand, have NO expiration
periods.
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QUESTION 7. What if I accidentally post something I don't want to?
ANSWER 7. Don't panic. Your newsreader should have a CANCEL POST option somewhere.
Just RELOAD OLD ARTICLES or CHECK NEW ARTICLES without leaving the news group in your
reader. You should see the article come up. Just select the article and then pick CANCEL
POST. Your newsreader will send out a cancellation advisory that may prevent your server
from sending the article out. Your server will propagate the cancellation advisory if your
article has already been sent out, so chances are no one will ever see the article if you
cancel it quickly. It should be noted however, that many ISP's no longer honour cancel
requests, due to wide scale abuse.
CompuServe and AOL users don't presently have the option to cancel their posts.
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QUESTION 8. What are "spoilers" and "spoiler space"?
ANSWER 8. A "spoiler" is an article posted by someone about an episode
they have seen or know about. X:WP is shown world-wide, at different times in the various
national and international markets, sometimes upto 18 months after the episode was
originally shown in the US. Also, some people with satellite dishes pick up the feed to
the affiliates as much as two weeks in advance of the first airdate in the US.
Out of consideration and respect, for other Xenites who want to see the episodes before
they read about them, those people who have seen them should not put plot points in the
subject of their articles. They should add <Spoiler:Episode Name> to the article's
subject line, and then fill the first 20 to 25 lines (called "Spoiler Space") of
the article with either carriage returns or some message warning inattentive readers that
details concerning a potential spoiled episode follow. It's also, not a good idea to
remove "spoiler space", if your post still contains "spoilers".
These guidelines are not rules, but it is considered good netiquette to follow them.
You'll probably get reminded to use 'spoiler space', by other posters if you don't follow
these guidelines.
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QUESTION 9. What is a "Xenite"?
ANSWER 9. If you love and watch the show, you are a Xenite. When the fans were
debating what to call themselves, "Xenite" had some close competition from
"Xenaphile", but Xenite won out.
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QUESTION 10. I'm a new poster/reader of ATX, Is there anywhere where I can aquaint
myself with the conventions of the newsgroup"?
ANSWER 10. There is a webpage called ATX Central, devoted to most things
Alt.tv.xena related. It has links to some posters homepages, Abbreviations and terms used
in the group. And there is also a bulletin board. The webpage, (http://www.lavhouse.com/atxcentral_ontheweb),
also has a link to the web version of this FAQ.
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QUESTION 11. What is the deal with the "6. There is no number 6"?
ANSWER 11. If we're all sitting comfortably then I'll begin: once upon a time the
BBC used to broadcast a series called 'Monty Python's Flying Circus' (a comedy) and in one
program a short sketch was performed in which an Englishman was introduced to his new
professorial colleagues in the Philosophy Department at the 'University of Wollomoloo' in
Australia. At one point the departmental rules were read to the group, including
"Rule Six: There is NO rule Six!".
Since lots of people posting to ATX are either fans of MPFC or are familiar with it, the
'no rule six' rule is often used in lists.
Videos of MPFC can be checked out of some public libraries, and rented. Plus, there are
the full-length videos: 'MP and the Holy Grail' (there's a CD game based on this too) and
'Life of Brian'.
Any websearch utility will find huge numbers of Python sites with scripts, .WAVs, pictures
and words of the many songs. The most interesting sites, to me, are in England, Australia
and Iceland.
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QUESTION 12. What's this <OT> <P> and <SP> all about?
ANSWER 12. We like to think that we talk about Xena, all the time. However from
time to time various posters to the newsgroup, will post articles that are not entirely to
do with Xena. Out of curtesy to those people who do not want to read these types of
articles, the subject of the article is usually 'tagged' with <OT> for Off Topic,
<P> for Pirate (A role-playing group based in Alt.tv.xena) and <SP> for Space
Pirate. <P> and <SP> are not so often used nowadays. But you can still read
about their exploits on Deja News (http://www.deja.com)
Articles flagged with these 'tags' are likely to have almost anything going on in them.
The article's subject should be an indicator of what the article is about, and should be
changed if the content varies from the subject. You are still advised to proceed at your
peril :D
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QUESTION 13. What the heck does BGSB or GGGHD mean?
ANSWER 13. As is common with most newsgroups, there are abbreviations for almost
everything. Below are some of the more commonly used ones in this newsgroup. Most of these
are provided by curtesy of Bluesong (bluesong@aol.com)
The ATX.* SPECIFIC ACRONYMS
-----------------------------------
notes: lower case may be used too; Quotation marks surround
episode titles. Numbers refer to episodes 2:22 means the 22nd
episode in the 2nd season.
<P> Used in Subject to identify threads originated (or
hijacked!) by the crew of the imaginary pirate ship "Dark Warrior," which
sometimes sails the waters of ATX
<SP> Same as above, only the "ship" is the spaceship
"Godiva"
AA "Animal Attraction" 5.4
ABMX-H alt.binaries.multimedia.xena-herc (the newsgroup)
ACOE, COE "A Comedy of Eros" 2.22
ADITL "A Day in the Life" 2.15
AFA "A Family Affair" 4.3
AGD "A Good Day" 4.5
AITST1 "Adventures In The Sin Trade Pt 1" 4.1
AITST2 "Adventures In The Sin Trade Pt 2" 4.2
AKTTK "A Key To The Kingdom" 4.10
AUS "Amphibolis Under Seige" 5.14
ANE "A Necessary Evil" 2.14
ASC "A Solstice Carol" 2.9
ATOTM "A Tale Of Two Muses" 4.6
ATX alt.tv.xena (the newsgroup)
ATX-S alt.tv.xena-subtext (the newsgroup)
ATX-SM alt.tv.xena-subtext.misc (the newsgroup)
BF "Blind Faith" 2.18
BGSB Bilious Green Sports Bra
(Gabrielle's cropped green top in season 2)
BITB "Back In The Bottle" 5.7
BTDT "Been There, Done That" 3.2
BTL "Between The Lines" 4.15
COH "Cradle of Hope" 1.4
DI "The Debt (part I)" 3.6
DII "The Debt (part II)" 3.7
DoP "Daughter Of Pomira" 4.11
DVAOA "Deja Vu, All Over Again" 4.22
DW Dark Warrior (imaginary pirate ship on atx)
EB "Eternal Bonds" 5.13
FA "Fallen Angel" 5.1
FHTBT "For Him the Bell Tolls" 2.16
FF&"G "Fins, Femmes and Gems" 3.18
FMN "Forget Me Not" 3.17
G Gabrielle (other variations: Gab, Gabe, Gabby)
GFC "God Fearing Child" 5.12
GGG Great Goddess Gabrielle
GGGHD Great Goddess Gabrielle's Honour Defenders
(for short: GHD) (a group on atx sworn to defend Gabrielle's honour)
GH "Gabrielle's Hope" 3.5
GJWHF "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" 2.4
GK "Giant Killer" 2.3
HBD Hinds Blood Dagger
HLAK Hot Lesbian Action Knob
HSCMA "Here She Comes...Miss Amphipolis" 2.11
HTLJ Hercules: The Legendary Journeys (also, H:TLJ)
IOM "Ides Of March" (also, IoM) 4.21
IS "Intimate Stranger" 2.7
IS&"IH "In Sickness &" In Hell" 4.4
ITSF "If The Shoe Fits" 4.12
JS Joxer Shields
(a group on atx which admires &" defends Joxer)
KC "King Con" 3.15
LL Lucy Lawless
LLHOF "Lyre, Lyre, Hearts On Fire" 5.10
LM "Lost Mariner" 2.21
LP "Little Problem" 5.8
LU&"TD "Locked Up &" Tied Down" 4.7
MI "Maternal Instincts" 3.11
MBGSB Mini Bilious Green Sports Bra.
(Gabrielle's smaller cropped green top in season 3+)
MOFE Marvel of Feminine Engineering
(Gabrielle's brown outfit season 5)
OAAA "One Against An Army" 3.13
OOW "Orphan of War" 2.1
PF "Paradise Found" 4.13
PI "Past Imperfect" 4.9
PL "Punch Lines" 5.11
RN "Remember Nothing" 2.2
ROC, RO Renee O'Connor
RoC "Return of Callisto" 2.5
Sac1/Sac2 "Sacrifice (Part 1)" "Part 2" 3.21,22
SoF "Seeds Of Faith" 5.9
SOTP "Sins Of The Past" 1.1
TBTB "Them Bones, Them Bones" 5.5
TBS "The Bitter Suite" 3.12
TD "The Deliverer" 3.4
TDI, TDII "The Debt (part I)" "(part II)" 3.6,7
TDHD "The Dirty Half-Dozen" 3.3
TE "The Execution" 2.17
TF "The Furies" 3.1
TKOA "The King of Assassins" (also, KOA) 3.8
TLW "Ten Little Warlords" (also, 10LW) 2.8
TOTKO "Takes One To Know One" 4.19
TP "The Price" 2.20
TPTT "The Play's The Thing 4.17
TQ "The Quest" 2.13
TQIM "The Quill Is Mightier" 3.10
TW "The Way" 4.16
TXS "The Xena Scrolls" 2.10
U "Ulysses" 2.19
VA "Vanishing Act" 3.20
WIR "When In Rome" 3.16
WPT "Warrior...Princess...Tramp" 2.6
WPT2,WPrT "Warrior...Priestess...Tramp" 3.9
X Xena
XWP,X:WP Xena: Warrior Princess (the TV show, not the character)
GENERAL ACRONYMS &" EMOTICONS
----------------------------
AFAIK As Far As I Know
BTW By The Way
C/P Cross-Post (post to multiple newsgroups)
EP Episode (of a TV show)
FAQ Frequently Asked Questions (and answers to same)
FWIW For What It's Worth
FYI For Your Information
HTH Hope This/That Helps
IANAL I Am Not A Lawyer
IIRC If I Recall Correctly
IMHO In My Humble Opinion
IMNSO In My Not-So-Humble Opinion
IMO In My Opinion
IOW In Other Words
IRL In Real Life
ISP Internet Service Provider
J/K Just Kidding
LART Luser Attitude Readjustment Tool (a.k.a. baseball bat)
LMK Let Me Know
LOL Laughing Out Loud
LTNS Long Time No See
KEWL Cool (as in "fashionable")
NG Newsgroup
OOC Out Of Character
OTOH On The Other Hand
POV Point Of View
ROTFL Rolling On The Floor Laughing (variation: ROFL)
ROTFLMAO " My Ass Off; may also be LAG (Laughing And Groaning)
"CRSSARBP " Cracking Ribs, Splitting Sides, And Raising Blood
Pressure
"SHISTC " So Hard I Scared The Cat (variations: F=ferret,
P=poodles)
"SHISTEPOC " So Hard I Scared The Entire Population Of California
RPG Role-Playing Game
SWAG Sealed With A Grin
TIC Tongue In Cheek
TPTB The Powers That Be (in this context, producers and
other bigwigs)
TIA Thanks In Advance
TIIC The Idiot(s) In charge (or control)
TTYL Talk To You (or y'all) Later
TV Television
URL Uniform Resource Locator
(Internet address, eg. www.yahoo.com or www.xenafan.com)
XO Executive Officer (2nd in command)
:) Smile
:-) Smile
:-} Crooked Smile
;) Wink (same variants as above)
:p "Bronx cheer" a.k.a. "Raspberry" (an impolite sound
effect)
<g> Grin
<eg> Evil Grin
<beg> Big Evil Grin
<bwg> Big Wide Grin (?)
<vbeg> Very Big Evil Grin
8<----- Clip and save (scissors and a dotted line)
:: Used to indicate an action, eg. ::sob::
_ Used to indicate they are _underlined_
* Used for emphasis, eg. That's how *I* feel.
UPPERCASE Used for emphasis or shouting, eg. NOOO!! It CAN'T be
true!
Parts (c) Copyright 1998 by Amy W. Thompson, used with permission.
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QUESTION 14. What do "Flaming" and "Flame War" mean? What can I do
about it?
ANSWER 14. From time to time, some of the posters to ATX might have a disagreement
with what another poster has written, and will post a strongly worded reply, which appears
to be attacking that poster personally. This is called "Flaming". When several
people are engaged in this practice, it is commonly referred to as a "Flame
War".
The best thing to do, if a "Flame War" breaks out, is to ignore the posters
concerned. You can do this by using your newsreader to set a 'Killfile' or 'Newsgroup
Filter' on the posters concerned, or by marking "Flame" threads as read.
What you should not do, is reply to a "Flame" post, as this will escalate the
problem further out of control. If you *have* to say something to one of the posters, it
is far better if you e-mail them personally, to save wasting newsgroup bandwidth. It is
not recommended to continue the "Flaming" on ATX or to re-direct the
"Flames" to *ANY* other newsgroup. By doing so, you will be encouraging more
newsgroup readers to get involved in the "Flaming", which is not what readers of
ATX would like to see.
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QUESTION 15. I just read a post I thought was abusive, either towards me or another
person. What can I do about it?
ANSWER 15. You do have a couple of options here. You can attempt to reason with the
poster concerned, in the hope of their changing the tone of their posts. You are better
off doing this via e-mail. You can also do this via the newsgroup. But if you do, you
might be risking a "Flame War" breaking out, or making one in progress worse.
Another option is to forward the entire post, complete with it's headers to the abuse
department of the posters ISP. You should point out what you feel is abusive about the
post, but NOT recommend a course of action. You can be accused of attempting to commit a
'Denial of Service' attack otherwise.
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QUESTION 16. What is Net Abuse and where can I learn more about it?
ANSWER 16. Net Abuse refers to any of several generally disapproved practices. The
practices include the use of fake addresses (not screen names -- as long as email can
reach you, screen names are okay), posting the same article to multiple news groups (this
is called "spam"), cross-posting off-topic articles to multiple news groups,
posting crude and malicious articles (such as defaming Jesus in a Christian news group, or
telling C programmers that BASIC rules -- these are called "trolls"), or posting
the same article dozens of times, etc.
It is common to see "fake" addresses on articles. As long as the people posting
the articles mind their manners otherwise, no one really cares what they call themselves.
But using a fake address may be a violation of your ISP's guidelines and service
agreement. And if you try to hide behind a faked address in order to flame someone, there
are usually people who can track you down from the information contained in the headers of
your articles, so you aren't likely to get away with anything.
The worst offenders are the trolls, the illegal pyramid schemes, and heavily cross-posted
off-topic articles. In some cases you can complain to an offender's ISP and that service
provider will send out a cancellation message that kills the thread on all the machines
where it's propagated (well, most of them).
There is also a group of volunteer system administrators who regularly browse news groups
on a random basis and send out cancellation advisories, usually just to remove binary
files, but also to get rid of "spam" articles. These folks will post an advisory
article telling the appropriate news groups what they are doing and why. Their activities
are accepted Usenet practice and they come as close as anyone to being monitors for Usenet
traffic.
There is a FAQ on net abuse that discusses many aspects of good and bad Usenet behavior.
It also outlines accepted responses used in handling abusive articles, and explains why
other practices (such as posting follow-up articles) are discouraged.
The Net Abuse FAQ is posted regularly to news.admin.net-abuse.misc and to news.answers.
The Net Abuse FAQ explains where and how to report net abuse or suspected abuse.
The net abuse newsgroup maintains several FAQs. The ATX FAQ is not guaranteed to reflect
the current views and information provided in the net abuse FAQs. The reader is therefore
advised to retrieve the current Net Abuse FAQs for more current and detailed information
about net abuse.
A master HTML version of the net abuse FAQ may be useful (http://www.cybernothing.org/faqs/net-abuse-faq.html).
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QUESTION 17. Is Alt.Tv.Xena moderated or censored in anyway?
ANSWER 17. ATX is an unmoderated forum. This means that if you post to ATX, your
post isn't read by someone who can say whether or not it's allowed to be posted. *Anyone*
is free to post about whatever they want, (provided what they post isn't a spam, abusive
in someway to another person, or a binary post), however the poster, should expect
follow-ups from other posters, who might not share their opinion. If you post a 'spam' or
binary to ATX, it will most probably be cancelled, and abusive posts will probably be
reported. But other than this, no posts are actually cancelled because of their content.
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