The AltBinariesNospamTeenfem FAQ:
Posting, Requests, Spam, and Spam-fighting
B. Requesting Reposts or Help
Nuisance Requests
B. Requesting Reposts or Help in ABNT.D
Most ABNT regulars will honor requests for reposts or help in abnt.d when they can,
provided that you are rational and polite with your requests. Do not expect a major poster
of original material to respond to all requests when they are in the middle of posting a
series. Please use standard protocol in the subject header, as follows, to:
Request a repost in abnt.d: "REQ Cutie series 2, 8 and 10 - thanks!"
Announce a repost in abnt.d: "ATTN Newbie - requested Cutie series"
Acknowledge a response to a request in abnt.d: "ATTN OldFart - thanks for Cutie
reposts"
Advise a participant about a serious transgression in abnt or abnt.d: "ATTN NewComer
- stop posting resized and renamed files and read the FAQ".
To get help, use the REQ or ATTN protocol in abnt.d, the latter especially if you want a
particular person's attention. Include a brief topic in the subject header: "REQ
index and correct file sizes for Cutie series", "ATTN OldFart - Cutie 8 was
corrupt".
If you think that your requests are being ignored, well, they may be, but it just may be
your use of improper protocol. If you do not preface a question or request to a particular
poster with ATTN (e.g., "ATTN: OldFart") your request may not be noticed above
the din of posts. Alternatively, some ISPs news server choked and your post did not
propagate fully to the server of the target poster.
What are "Nuisance Requests" ?
Nuisance requests either inconvenience the group participants or ask for unreasonable
favors. As with most binary newsgroups, the participants fall into three categories: (1) a
limited number of posters of "original" material, (2) a number of former lurkers
who have gotten the courage to make useful reposts, and (3) an extremely large number of
(silent to vocal) lurkers. If you fall into the last category, don't expect much sympathy
if you make unreasonable or annoying requests.
Major posters of original material don't have time to answer all repost requests (because
they still like to take time to download files), and when they do they may tend to respond
to requests from "regulars". Nonetheless, generally someone will respond to any
reasonable request. To improve your chances of getting a requested repost, avoid the
following types of annoying requests:
"Anyone Got More of This Cutie?" with no filename in the subject header and no
index. Nothing is more annoying than being forced to download an entire file just to see
what the hell you are after.
"Please Repost the Entire 300-File Cutie Series" This is particularly annoying
if the series has just been posted. If you missed it, please wait a while because all of
the other lurker/reposters will soon repost what they got and request reposts to fill in
their gaps. If your news server is far removed from the server of the poster, it may take
a while for all the original posts to trickle in (propagate). If you never seem to get all
of the posts seen in indexes, then it is time to change to a different ISP.
"Anyone Want to Trade by E-mail?" Yeah, we'd all really rather spend our
precious online time trading binary files with one single stranger. Think about it: the
entire idea behind Usenet is that all can mutually and semi-anonymously share in the
posts, not just one person. Go to an AOL chat room if you want to trade images via e-mail
with underage kids and undercover law enforcement agents.
"Help E-mail Bomb this Spammer" - A tempting but not very useful thing to do -
see Spam-fighting section below.