BeingFool-HOWNOTTO ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ or How Not To Make Yourself Look Like A Complete Idiot When Posting To rec.games.roguelike.nethack Administrativia =============== The Weird Character String All UNIX Folks Usually Put To Their Documents ------------------------------------------------------------------------ (Or Revision Control System IDentification) $Id: postfaq.txt,v 1.4 1999/03/07 18:45:23 wwwwolf Exp wwwwolf $ Copyrights ---------- Copyright (C) 1999 Weyfour WWWWolf (Urpo Lankinen). This file is 100% made of recycled bits. Written using XEmacs 20.4, the only text editor that recycles its killed bytes completely without wasting a single bit. Author uses Debian GNU/Linux and is *damn* proud of it. No warranty expressed or implied. This document does NOT use ISO 8859-1 hi-byte characters, troff, stupid Dos/Win CR+LF combos, TeX, texinfo, SGML-Tools, Docbook or anything other stuff that generally just add more weight. It's getting late. ::yawn:: I'm also supposed to add even more of these stupid jokes here, but I don't just simply feel like doing so. Beats me why. I might as well quit wri... ah, what the heck, I can abuse this stupid windone keyboard till bitter end, and none shall question the usefulness of this document!!!!! Availability and contacting author ---------------------------------- This file is posted to rec.games.roguelike.nethack every two weeks. It's also available from RGRNCA website . Author can be reached by E-mail . You can also try finding me from either IRC or FurryMUCK (as WWWWolf). The Plain Old Mail is also read, but I seriously doubt anyone is going to snail-mail me anything. Heck, I can even receive faxes, but hah, no use for them... Oh, by the way, my home page is in . Somethin' in your mind? ----------------------- This document is still in its infancy. Thus, it might not cover all the essential things you really, really should know about the game or the newsgroup. It's also only the second FAQ document I've ever written, so don't expect wonders. So, feel free to send me suggestions about this document. What this document isn't? ------------------------- This document does not talk about some of the interesting topics: What Internet is, what Usenet is, how to get into Usenet, how to read articles, how to post replies, and such. I'm not talking about the great, great wonders of the Nethack, how great game is, how to play it, how to hack, how to fight to the bitter end, how to die, how to cheat, how to edit it and such. There's no information on how to track down those spammers. My advise? abuse.net is your help. Also, get the knack of reading headers. That's a vital skill. And I'm not going to tell you what NoCeM is. You have to find all about that from elsewhere - namely, . So, you have found our respectable newsfroup. Thats goof. ========================================================= What is rec.games.roguelike.nethack? ------------------------------------ Well, it's a newsgroup in the Usenet. Usenet, on the other hand, is just a part of the services offered by the global network of networks called the Internet. But, speaking of Usenet and Internet in general is definitely not in the scope of this FAQ; If you are reading this FAQ, you probably know what Internet is, and if you're reading this from the newsgroup itself, you probably know about Usenet and know how to read articles. Thus, no further explanations. "Right, a newsgroup. What for? Net hacking?" you might be thinking right now. Nope, definitely not fur net hacking. The newsgroup is for discussion about one particular computer game called Nethack. Nethack is a game that descended from a game called Rogue. Games similiar to this game are called "roguelikes". And, as you already might know, Nethack is a game, and games, as anyone know, are form of recreation. Stacking these hard facts togheter in opposite order, we get rec.games.roguelike.nethack, name of the newsgroup. ImmA K00L D00D! I wAnnA Cr0ZzP0St T0 Al1 HaKK3R b0ArDz CuZ 1'm 3133+! --------------------------------------------------------------------- Yeah, right. Many clueless people just see the part 'hack' in the newsgroup name. They think this group has something to do with cracking and any such illegalities. Some more clever (and that's not much said) people see the name 'nethack', thinking it as 'net hacking', thinking this is a newsgroup where you can discuss about cracking web servers, hijacking (bug-ridden and infamously insecure) ICQ, or anything like that. Some people with even less clue spam their cracker stuff to *every* group whose name includes "hack" (this is what I call "regexping"). They're wrong about two things: 1) That their ideas about the purpose would be correct, and 2) That we would just simply ignore such things. Yeah, but I really believe this is a d00d group. I will post d00d stuff! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Go ahead. ::grins evilly:: We'll see if you survive. I even score thy pathetic attempt based on how many parts of the newsgroup name thou dost notice before we LART thee. What happens if I do such blatatant misunderstanding? ----------------------------------------------------- You'll be transported to a room where you are faced by a certain anthropomorphic timber wolf who points at you accusingly and says, "Death to the d00dz!" You'll immediately get attacked by all sorts of denizens of the Dungeons of Doom and several other places: there is a cobra chewing on your leg, a troglodyte is bashing your brains out with a gold nugget, a crocodile is removing large chunks of flesh from you, a rhinoceros is goring you with his horn, a sabre-tooth cat is busy trying to disembowel you, you are being trampled by a large mammoth, a vampire is sucking you dry, a Tyranosaurus Rex is sinking his six inch long fangs into various parts of your anatomy, a large bear is dismembering your body, a gargoyle is bouncing up and down on your head, a burly troll is tearing you limb from limb, several dire wolves are making mince meat out of your torso, and the said wolf-man is about to drag you out and shoot you with a Kewlashnikow RK200bt assault rifle. Oh dear, you'll seem to have gotten yourself killed, as well. You scored 0 out of 250 possible points. That gives you a ranking of junior Usenet abuser. To achieve the next higher rating, you need to score 32 more points. (Beware. I've got a fortune cookie database and I'm not afraid to use it.) No, really. If you post the d00dous stuff to the group, expect some bad things to happen. First, if you spammed or spread stuff that is considered illegal in the civilized world, there's a good likelihood that your ISP will terminate your account. The least severe option is that your ISP will approach you and tell you that you really, REALLY should consider reading that Acceptable Use Policy document they gave to you, lest they nuke your account. What is this RGRNCA then? ------------------------- RGRNCA is the r.g.r.n CR3T1NZ Advisory. RGRNCA is a VR-based paramilitary group whose job is best explained by our motto ("CR3T1Nism Must Be Eradictated") and our battlecry ("Wrong newsgroup, pal!"). In reality, in case you do d00dings, it is our job to 1) Post a rather abusive reply to the newsgroup, 2) Send you a detailed explanation why you should behave yourself, OR tell your ISP that you have been misbehaving and they should tell you some manners. (You know, I'm so lazy that I prefur to delegate it to authorities.) 3) Laugh at you mercilessly and whine about moronity in the world. 4) Collect those "The account in question has been terminated" messages the ISPs send to us. Hey, I'm new here. What should I do? ------------------------------------ To be a civilian... * So, when you have subscribed to the group, you should start posting to r.g.r.n after a shortish lurking period - thus, you know your way a little better... and you won't trip over some trivial netiquette details. * Post about Nethack, or things that relate to Nethack somehow. (Well, more or less.) * THERE ARE NO STUPID QUESTIONS. Only answers might or might not be stupid. To be a Good Citizen... * Flame the CR3T1Nz to tiny little piles of ash. * Feed their charred carcasses to ADCOMPLAIN, Spam Hater, or any other implement of cretin torture. Being a Good Citizen is usually enough. Once the CR3T1N gets 10 replies from the readers, he might thing twice before posting again. If his ISP will be notified, with the same amount of complaints ... ::hums a tune:: hmm hmm hmmm hm-hmmm ::whistles::... To join the effort... * Use the Official RGRNCA Signatures. * Reply with Honor. Reply only to rgrn, don't spam back if crossposted. * Reply with Wit. Flame the hell outta the Odd Beings. Note: Flames are supposed to be funny fur both sides. (well, they usually seem funny only to the groupers....) Avoid really offensive language at all costs. * Oh, and if you want your strike report archived, forward me a copy. Prefurrably with full headers. =) Offical Signatures? Huh? ------------------------ Yes, Signatures. I've used the following siggy in the strike reports: - Signed, of rec.games.roguelike.nethack CR3T1NZ advisory (Mobile Unit), Vestrum Excrucibo (Our battlecry: "Wrong Newsgroup, pal!") And following in when signing abuse reports / replies to d00dz: - Signed, of rec.games.roguelike.nethack CR3T1NZ advisory (Our battlecry: "Wrong Newsgroup, pal!") You DON'T need to use these sigs all the time. Do what I'm doing: I just put this signature as the last thing *before* my real signature (and as you know, the real signatures, no more than four lines of length, should be separated from the message body with dash-dash-space-enter combination.) I also add "-==(RGRNCA)==-" to my real signature. Oh, and one last thing: IF you want your stories to be archived in the RGRNCA site, you need to e-mail a copy to me. Of course, I usually archive all RGRNCAish messages to my private archive. I just don't add them to the web site. This is also *mightily recommended* on times I'm not around in the group, and especially if you use that x-no-archive thing I hate so much. Okay, and how do I reply to these d00d messages? ------------------------------------------------ First and foremost, keep this old Usenet advice in mind: E-mail is private, Usenet is public. Don't say private things in Usenet. To keep the peace in order, take off-topic threads to E-mail. That conserves bandwidth fur you and me. First, when you reply, check where your reply goes. If it goes to r.g.r.n only, good. If it gets crossposted to hell and back (as it usually happens when you reply to d00d's crossposted crap) and if it would be, trim the headers so it will not go to anywhere else besides r.g.r.n. Then, the tags. Some people don't like the way some other people (like me) reply to these d00dally great messages. So, I decided to make use of the tag system that is widely used in the Usenet. Tag Description ======================================================================= [RGRNCA] RGRNCA Strike. [RGRNCA-news] RGRNCA News. [RGRNCA-d] Discussion about RGRNCA. [RGRNCA-ad] If a member of the organization wants to advertise a Weapon fur True Yeti Warriors s/he is using for fighting spam/d00ds/whatever, this message will be hir Declaration of Rulingness. [RGRNCA-NoCeM] NoCeM Notice. A message that magically (i.e. not in any case, but in those cases that it works) causes the d00d messages to *poof* vanish. ======================================================================= If you reply to [RGRNCA] message, change this tag to [RGRNCA-d]. (Extra questions? Well, there we go!) Every tag may or may not have 'Re: ' in front of them (indicating a reply, as you might know.) Examples: Subject: [RGRNCA] Re: H1 D00dz! V1S1t My 31337 W3BBaPgA3. (Flame. Fire and brimstone replaced with RK200bt, high-tech implements of destruction and cartoon weapons. At least in my case...) Subject: Re: [RGRNCA-d] To *plonk* or not to *plonk*, that's the question (Razor-lined debate on the said subject.) Subject: [RGRNCA-news] The stupidity in the world has increased (no news...) ("Hear ye! I collected n+5 d00dheads last month" and such.) Subject: [RGRNCA-ad] ADCOMPLAIN site has moved, but we love the proggy anyway! Subject: [RGRNCA-NoCeM] NoCeM Notice 6 Frobuary 3096 for newsgroup @@rec.... Also, there are lots of tags that don't relate to RGRNCA - for example, Off-topic threads should be marked with [OT], and so on. Feel free to devise your own tags - hey, we're used to YABAs - but don't use them completely shamelessly. The NoCeM notices always have similiar subject line: "NoCeM Notice dd Mth yyyy #x for newsgroup @@rec.games.roguelike.nethack". (The #x is there only if there are more than one issued that day. Sounds rare? I did this on the week I started issuing nocem notices, so there. =) I really want to flame the living sh** out of those ****heads... ---------------------------------------------------------------- Hmph. You know, I happen to know a real dragon. I'm Hoki-aamrel's typist. Hoki is a self-admitted *and* acknowledged king of flamers. And he, if anyone, knows what are the best qualities of really excellent flaming. After all, he breathes fire, and thus flames proficiently. "Flaming", Hoki says, "is an art. There is so much bad flaming performance in the Usenet that it makes me feel sick. Let me tell you this: Bad flame hurts the enemy, and that is not good. Bad flames also make people think that you use foul language all the time. That is not good. Really good flames are rare these days. You're supposed to insult the flame target, true, but doing so, you must cause ridicule; People must think it is somehow, if marginally, funny. It also should make the flame target think that it's no good to keep arguing. Outright hurting of people is bad, but making them to laugh and think about things, now *that* is great." If you use Debian, you can try my neet hack that generates flames . This package is not available from Debian main distribution, because a. it doesn't work well enough yet, b. it probably never will and c. it might generate flamage. I posted this warez stuff and now I'm sorry... no, really. ---------------------------------------------------------- Excellent. If you're really, really sorry and promise not to do it again, we'll forgive and forget. Welcome to r.g.r.n, have good time and chitter about Nethack and how it revolutionarized your previously miserable life of a Warez Spammer. Closing words ============= Post with honor and have fun. -- Weyfour WWWWolf