Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!iuvax!cica!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!attctc!vector!vector.dallas.tx.us!telecom-request
From: telecom-request@vector.dallas.tx.us
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: {{{ administrative note -- Welcome to comp.dcom.telecom! }}}
Message-ID: 
Date: 11 Jul 89 03:50:14 GMT
Expires: 24 Aug 89 22:50:14 GMT
Sender: news@vector.Dallas.TX.US
Lines: 76
Approved: telecom-request@vector.dallas.tx.us
Supersedes: 
X-SCCS-Id: @(#) monthly 1.3 89/07/10 23:22:28

Welcome to comp.dcom.telecom.

If you are a new reader, please take a moment to review this message.
Comp.dcom.telecom is a bit different from most USENET newsgroups, and
the information here will help you use it most effectively.  What
makes comp.dcom.telecom so different is that it is a moderated newsgroup
derived from the [TELECOM Digest].

This message covers:

    - The charter of comp.dcom.telecom.
    - Where do the messages come from?
    - Posting a message to this newsgroup.
    - Replying to the author of a message.
    - Contact names.

The charter of this newsgroup is:

    TELECOM Digest/comp.dcom.telecom is a forum for all aspects of modern
    telephony.  Although the Digest began several years ago as primarily
    a technical journal, it now serves as a place for questions and answers
    on all matters relating to telephones and telecommunications.  Consumer,
    political, and social commentary relating to telephone service is
    welcome, along with the more technical questions and answers.

Everything in comp.dcom.telecom (except administrative messages such as
this) comes from the [TELECOM Digest].  The main difference is that in
the digest all messages are collated into one issue, but here they are
presented as individual news articles.  That's because most USENET software
works best with this format.  Every comp.dcom.telecom message contains
an "X-TELECOM-Digest" header which indicates the digest issue the message
came from.

In order to get a message into comp.dcom.telecom, you must send it to the
[TELECOM Digest] Moderator at .  THIS IS IMPORTANT!
Failure to do this could cause your submission to be swallowed by a black
hole.  More likely, hundreds of news sites will catch this mistake, reroute
your message via mail, and dump hundreds of messages into the Telecom
Moderator's e-mailbox.

Modern versions of the news software support a "mailpaths" file.  If yours
does *and* you have the following entry in it:

    comp.dcom.telecom   telecom@eecs.nwu.edu

then you can use your news posting program (postnews, Pnews, etc.) to
submit comp.dcom.telecom messages; they will be automatically routed via
mail.  This also means that you can do followups from your news reader
(rn, readnews, vnews, etc.).  In other words, if your local news
administrator has an up-to-date "mailpaths" file, then you won't have to
worry about all of these complexities.

If you want to mail a message back to the author of an article, you can't
use the "Path" field in the article's header as his or her e-mail address.
This is true for any moderated newsgroup, not just comp.dcom.telecom.
The "Path" takes you back to where the article entered USENET, and in the
case of a moderated newsgroup this is *not* the message's author.  Instead,
you must use the "From" and "Reply-To" fields.  If you try to use the
"Path" field you will get back a (hopefully polite) note back from the
comp.dcom.telecom gateway saying that you blew it.

The "From" fields in all messages are checked for (1) USENET syntactic
validity and (2) routability before posting.  By "routability" I mean
that the message can be routed by "smail" based upon the most recent
data posted to comp.mail.maps.  If a "From" line is rewritten, an
"X-Originally-From" header will contain the original information.

The [TELECOM Digest] is moderated by Patrick Townson.  The USENET gateway
is administered by Chip Rosenthal.  If you have any questions or
administrative issues, you may reach them at addresses:

    telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu         Patrick for [TELECOM Digest] issues
    telecom-request@vector.dallas.tx.us  Chip for USENET gateway issues

Questions about, suggestions for, and corrections to this message are
encouraged and may be sent to .