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 .