From: utzoo!decvax!harpo!zeppo!wheps!eagle!mhtsa!ihnss!ihps3!pcl
Newsgroups: net.news
Title: A feature to help new netnews users
Article-I.D.: ihps3.247
Posted: Tue Jun  1 13:09:06 1982
Received: Wed Jun  2 01:13:16 1982


One of the problems with netnews is the ease with which people can
become regular users and yet not have, or even know about, the
appropriate documentation.  Besides the frustration that this can cause
for both themselves and others (e.g. when they innocently violate
certain usage conventions), it could contribute to the accidental
disclosure of proprietary information (from those sites that deal in
such things, like BTL).

The best method I can think of to address this problem is to have the
software itself alert new users to any issues of which they should be
aware.  Since new users are easily identifiable by either not having
a .newsrc file or having one with only options line(s) in it, it should
be very easy to have readnews detect this situation and take some
specified action (before going on to let them read their first news). 
Since the "appropriate action" is site dependent, it could be specified
as an installation parameter in the defs file, with the default perhaps
being to simply display a file welcoming them to Usenet and telling them
that documentation exists if they're willing to track it down.  For the
site I administer, I would include the path names of the documentation I
keep on-line (including an annotated list of newsgroups), my name, and a
warning about disclosure of proprietary information.

If nothing like this is currently slated for release 2.7, could it be?

					Paul Lustgarten
					Bell Labs - Indian Hill