Subject: () Welcome to the Quake newsgroups! ()
From: [email-masked] (Raphael Quinet)
Newsgroups: rec.games.computer.quake.misc,rec.games.computer.quake.editing,rec.games.computer.quake.playing,rec.games.computer.quake.servers,rec.games.computer.quake.quake-c,alt.binaries.games.quake

Greetings, fellow Quake players!

Six newsgroups are available for discussing the game Quake, by id
Software, and the various add-ons related to Quake.  Some news servers
also carry a seventh group, alt.binaries.games.quake, in which binary
files can be posted.  This article will give you some advice about
where and how to post your articles, in order to make these groups
more useful and more enjoyable for you and the other readers.

All Quake newsgroups have their charter, which defines the topics that
are appropriate for the group and the ones that are not.  Since all
groups (except for r.g.c.q.announce) are unmoderated, you are
theoretically free to post anything you want, and nobody will force
you to respect the charters of the groups.  However, posting to the
wrong group or cross-posting to many groups defeats the purpose of
having separate groups for different topics.  That's why it is useful
to know where your articles would be the most appropriate.  This
article should not be considered as a set of "rules", but as sensible
recommendations that you should keep in mind when posting an article.
Usenet is cooperative by nature, so it is up to you, as a reader and
contributor to the Quake newsgroups, to make these groups more --or
less-- interesting to read.

General advice
--------------

* Minimize cross-postings.  If you think that your article is
  appropriate for more than one group, re-read the charters of the
  groups and think twice before cross-posting.  If you cross-post, it is
  always a good idea to direct the followups to a single group, by using
  the "Followup-To:" line in the header of your article.

* When you are posting a followup to another article, check where you
  are posting.  If that article was cross-posted, you should consider
  trimming down the list of groups or setting the followups in order
  to redirect the thread to the most appropriate group.  Also, if you
  are quoting the text from the original article, trim it down so that
  only the relevant lines to which you respond are included in your
  message (seeing the same text quoted fully several times is annoying
  for the regular readers).

* Do not post or cross-post binary files in the discussion groups.
  Binaries should be posted to alt.binaries.games.quake (or if you do
  not have a.b.g.q, to alt.binaries.misc).  Remember that the FTP and
  WWW archive sites are a much more suitable and less volatile means for
  distributing files, so it is better to upload your files to
  ftp.cdrom.com and post only an announcement in the relevant group.

* Avoid flame wars and useless discussions.  If some people do not
  respect the charters of the groups or post provocative articles,
  ignore them or deal with them by e-mail only.  Do not reply in the
  newsgroups because it will probably make the problem worse.

* Before posting a question, take the time to read the other articles,
  especially the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs).  Maybe the answer
  to your question can be found easily in one of these articles?  Or in
  one of the documentation files that are referenced in these FAQs?
  You will find some info in r.g.c.q.announce and on the Quake FTP and
  WWW sites, such as: http://www.cdrom.com/pub/idgames2/docs/

rec.games.computer.quake.announce
---------------------------------

This is the only moderated group in this hierarchy.  The sort of
postings likely to be approved by the moderator (Tony Lezard) are
general announcements that are interesting to the broad spectrum of
Quake players.  Examples of these types of articles are:
- anything from id Software
- FAQs and other periodical informational postings,
- announcement of new levels or utilities,
- announcements of new servers,
- reviews, etc.

rec.games.computer.quake.editing
--------------------------------

Discussion in this group covers all aspects of editing and modifying
the game.  This includes topics related to:
- Quake editors and utilities
- how to edit MAP files (Quake levels), MDL files (player or monster
  models), PAK files or other Quake-related files
- how to convert levels or object models to other formats
- design techniques and playability issues
Discussion of QuakeC, the Quake programming language, should be posted
in r.g.c.q.quake-c.

Comments about configuring a server or playing user-written levels
should not be posted here; they should go to .servers and .playing,
respectively.

rec.games.computer.quake.misc
-----------------------------

This group covers all topics that are not already covered by the other
groups in this hierarchy, such as comparisons with other games, piracy
issues, discussions about id Software, etc.  Most of the topics that
are currently posted to r.g.c.q.misc would fit into r.g.c.q.playing or
one of the other groups, so you should consider setting the followups
and directing the discussions to the most appropriate group.

rec.games.computer.quake.playing
--------------------------------

Discussion about playing original or user-written Quake levels takes
place here.  Topics include:
- how to complete the levels (in the original game or modified
  versions) and how to find the secrets areas,
- playing tactics and keyboard/mouse movement techniques,
- discussions and comparisons of user-written levels,
- multi-player games and tournaments,
- announcements of new levels (if not already posted in .announce),
- announcements of new servers and how to connect to them.

rec.games.computer.quake.quake-c
--------------------------------

This group is for discussing Quake-C, the language which defines
Quake's behavior.  All technical topics related to Quake-C are
allowed, such as programming tricks and special effects, how to enable
some features, etc.  Level editing topics do not belong here and
should be posted in .editing.  Please choose the most suitable group
and avoid cross-posting between .quake-c and .editing.

Excerpts of source code may be posted here, as long as they are
reasonably short (not more than a few dozen lines).  Longer scripts or
compiled code should only be announced here and posted in a binaries
group (alt.binaries.games.quake) or uploaded on a FTP or WWW server.

rec.games.computer.quake.servers
--------------------------------

This group is for technical discussion of Quake servers.  It should
serve as a forum in which maintainers of public servers can exchange
information about the configuration of Quake servers.  Setup questions
about large public servers (TCP/IP or modem) as well as local servers
(on a LAN running IPX or TCP/IP) can be posted here.

Announcements of new servers should be posted in .announce and may be
cross-posted to .playing, but they should not be posted here.

Discussion about how to use a server from the client side (i.e. how to
play a multi-player game) belongs in the .playing group.

alt.binaries.games.quake
------------------------

Any files related to Quake can be posted in alt.binaries.games.quake,
as long as they do not include copyrighted material for which
redistribution is not permitted.  Examples of files that can be posted
in that group (in a uuencoded ZIP file if possible):
- custom levels (MAP or BSP files)
- player or monster models, graphics or sounds
- scripts in QuakeC (source .qc or progs.dat)
- Quake editors and utilities.

General discussion about Quake or requests for files should not take
place in this group.  It is recommended that all articles set
followups to rec.games.computer.quake.playing or r.g.c.q.editing.

For more information
--------------------

General guidelines about Usenet can be found in the newsgroup
news.announce.newusers.  It is highly recommended that you read the
couple of articles that are always available in that group, because
they usually give very good advice, even for experienced Usenetters.

If your local news administrator needs more info about the Quake
newsgroups, the original charters of the Quake newsgroups can be found
in the RFD/CFV related to these groups, archived at ftp.uu.net:
  ftp://ftp.uu.net/usenet/news.announce.newgroups/rec/rec.games.computer.quake
  ftp://ftp.uu.net/usenet/news.announce.newgroups/rec/rec.games.computer.quake.playing
  ftp://ftp.uu.net/usenet/news.announce.newgroups/rec/rec.games.computer.quake.quake-c

Some comments about why the old Quake group (alt.games.quake) should
not be used anymore can be found in the following documents:
  ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/pub/idgames2/docs/rgcq-pips/agqr_faq
  ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/pub/idgames2/docs/rgcq-pips/agqm_tip

This article will be re-posted weekly, so that it is always available
for new readers of these groups.  The subject line will always be the
same, so that you can easily put it in your killfile if you do not
want to see it again.  This article is available from:
  ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/pub/idgames2/docs/rgcq-pips/Welcome
You can also get an HTML version from:
  http://www.cdrom.com/pub/idgames2/docs/faqs/Welcome.html

Thank you for reading this far...

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright (C) 1996 by Raphael Quinet <[email-masked]>.  You are allowed
(and encouraged) to distribute verbatim copies of the text or HTML versions
of this article, on FTP or WWW sites.  If you want to distribute a modified
copy, please get in touch with me first.      Last update: 30 October 1996.