------------------------------------------------- - Rules on IB-BBS for Usenet News and Email - ------------------------------------------------- ============================================== !!!! PLEASE READ THIS TEXT VERY CAREFULLY !!!! It contains important information for you on what is allowed and what's not on Internet and on IB-BBS. You can easily loose your access by not following these simple rules! Please read! ==============================================  A SPECIAL NOTE ABOUT FTP MAIL SERVERS AND MAILING LISTS -------------------------------------------------------- Please note that IB-BBS, in order to limit the e-mail dataflow, does NOT allow the use of FTP-servers nor the subscription of individual IVP users to automatic mailing lists. Such uses of E-mail easely generate Megabytes of mail traffic, wich would make a low-cost setup as this get out of hand very easily. However, if you are in desparate need of a file that is available through FTP-mail, and the size is reasonable, an IVP member can write a message to SYSOP, asking him to get the file for him. On the other hand, if you know about an interesting mailing list that could be of interest for several IB-BBS users, you can also talk about it to the SYSOP. When there is enough interest for this particular mailing list we will then consider to subscribe the list as IB-BBS and make it available to our users as a public message area and import it within the newsgroups section. ABOUT POSTING ARTICLES IN INTERNET NEWSGROUPS. ============================================== The topic of most newsgroups is quite specialized. Please be sure that you only write messages in newsgroups that directly concern the given subject. This is generally known as "staying on-topic". Flames, rudeness, and other similar aberrations will not be tolerated. Private messages are not allowed. All messages posted in a newsgroup are public and should contain information interesting for more than just you and your friend. So by default you should try to answer most articles by replying personally to the author through E-mail. This can easily be done by using the reply function on the BBS (At first the BBS software will create a message to NEWS, wich means all readers of the newsgroup), but then you add, as THE FIRST CHARACTERS of the mes- sagetext (body): To: Internet.address.author@his.site This HAS to be a capital T as the VERY FIRST character of the mes- sagetext, followed by an undercase o followed by a colon followed by ONE space and followed by a the complete Internet address of the person you want to send the message to, and followed by an empty line. You can find the address of the author of the message easily by pasting it from the From: field. The "To: " will be recognized by our BBS software and your message will be send as E-mail to the address specified, and will not be entered in the newsgroup. This technique works equally well from your favourite off-line messagereader as when entering messages on-line. As a sidenote, please remark that this technique will work in your private E-mail box too: If "To: " is found in the very beginning of an E-mail message, it will OVERRIDE the address in the TO: field of the message-header. This can be handy in case you send messages to people with very long addresses, (This especially concerns QWK users; the TO: field in QWK being limited to 25 positions....). In E-mail, however, note that the real TO: field should at least contain the @ character somewhere in the field for our BBS software to recognise it as an Internet message. This is not the case for messages in NEWS areas. Note that a message posted this way will still be readeble for users of this BBS that subscribe to that particular newsgroup. It will not be send into the newsgroup distribution though. Thus for matters that you really do not want it to be read by others, use the E-mail section. =====================================================================  PLEASE THINK TWICE BEFORE YOU POST A MESSAGE IN AN INTERNET NEWSGROUP ===================================================================== You should be sure your writing is NOT a personal answer to someone, that your writing is polite and concerns the subject of the group. The risk you take is called "being flamed". What actually happens is that Internet (Usenet) Users judge themseves. I explain: Any offending messages in newsgroups generally generate lots of E-mail messages privately addressed to you, and containing their complaints. Since most newsgroups are read by millions of people all over the world this quickly can mean that you will receive a lot of E-mail messages. Since E-mail is paid by the byte and since you are generally limited to a fixed quantity of bytes per month, your IVP status may become locked-up very fast! These streams of unhappy answers are called "flames" Receiving them is called "being flamed". The official language of most newsgroups is English. It is expected that all posts will be written in English or the language of the newsgroup. This is because most of the newsgroup members are from the United States, with large numbers of additional native English speakers in Australia, Great Britian, New Zealand, and the Republic of South Africa. As a result, even if posting in a language other than English were not against usenet rules, posting a message in a language other than English reduces the number of people who can respond to it. Exceptions are the nlnet. and fr. newsgroups, using Dutch and French respectively. Be nice. Read the newsgroups you're interested in, before asking stupid questions. Several thousands (even +100.000) people follow these newsgroups. They want to read interesting questions/reactions/solutions like you do. In most Newsgroups a FAQ's (Frequently Asked Questions - and their answers!) are published at regulary intervals (every 14 days in most cases). Please wait to see if the FAQ does not already contain the answer to you question before asking it publically in a Newsgroup. This is done to limit the repeated posting of basic questions by newcomers, which wasts bandwith and sometimes can make the group unreadeble. First try to follow a newsgroup for some time before trying to post messages in it. Don't be excessively annoying. It can cost you money if they send you flame mail (by e-mail!!). There are a number of newsgroups that are moderated. This means you can and may NOT place a message directly in the newsgroup. Even reactions on other messages aren't allowed. If you have an interesting question/recation, you can write an E-mail message to the moderator. If he judges your posting is of interest to the group he will forward your message into the group. Attention: Posting in a moderated group without passing by the moderator can generate serious flames. Most newsgroups periodically publish the rules of the group. Herein you will find the procedures to follow on how to post messages in the group Messages concerning goods or services for sale are off-topic in nearly all newsgroups. (Exeption: nlnet.markt , but only personal sales allowed) Commercial advertisement is not allowed anywhere in Usenet and is havely flamed if ever attempted. About posting messages in private Internet E-mail: ================================================== Requesting files through E-mail (FTPMail), subscribing to mailing lists or all other messages that cause heavy E-mail flow are not allowed on IB-BBS without consulting the sysop first. If several users are interested in a particular Mailing list, it can eventually be considered to import it to the BBS and make it readable as if it were a newsgroup. Please talk about this to your Sysop if you are interested in a particular mailing list. Attention: Be aware that Internet E-mail travels in a non-coded format and thus theoretically can be read by a lot of people on it's way. I said theoretically because: 1. There is so much trafic that it is not practically possible for a person or system operator to read much of it, 2. It is common practice on Internet not to read or publish private mail unless neccessary for technical reasons. (And if publishing is needed, then to ask for the authors permission. This all means that E-mail privacy is pretty safe (unless someone in the net is really looking after you). BUT: there is NO guarantee! Neither on the arrival of your message, neither on its privacy! If you are a normal user though, you should not worry to much about anyone other than you and your addressee reading your mail, nobody will have the time to do that anyway..... On the other hand though there is ONE BIG EXCEPTION to this: NEVER send the number of your creditcard through Internet without taking special precautions. Rumours go round about bandits using custom software to recognise the specific format of creditcardnumbers in the E-mail flow. This can easily be done in E-mail, much easier than it would be to decode fax-signals or even listen to voice channels. This already caused problems in the past. So if you use E-mail to order something please confirm your order by phone or fax to your suplier and DON'T include the number of your card in an E-mail unless you use a known as safe encryption utility. If you do, you are on your own. Neither our provider, neither IB-BBS will take any liabilities in case of problems whatsoever.  Enforcement =========== Violations of these rules will be dealt with on IB-BBS as fast as possible. (A big part of it happening actually automatically because of the flames). We can and will take away your access on IB-BBS and we will not be able to pay you back your money in any case of offending the rules. This may sound hard but please understand that we do not really have a choice. If one of our users would offend the Internet community, AND we would fail to react on that, we will might as well be kicked-out alltogether.....  Thank you for understanding and acting accordingly! Your SyOps.