Here are some random thoughts to bear in mind when you are posting news.

Most of these, if not all, are gleaned from other people's mistakes,
probably including yours if you are a news-poster.

If there is anything about my articles which annoys you (content aside!),
please let me know.

Remember that many hundreds of people read the ukc news, all on different
terminals and in many different circumstances.

- Pick an appropriate newsgroup for the article.

  The file ~news/newsgroups contains a brief description of the sort
  of subjects which each newsgroup is intended for. If none really
  seem appropriate, post to ukc.misc.
  ukc.general should hardly ever be used by most people.

- Think carefully before posting to more than one newsgroup

  It is hardly ever necessary to post an article to more than one
  newsgroup. The only difference this would make is to people who have
  unsubscribed to one of the newsgroups you are posting to.
  Consider whether you are really doing such people a favour by thrusting
  your article at them, or whether they are just going to hate you for
  defeating the point of having many newsgroups.
  If cross-posting *is* appropriate, don't call Pnews several times on the
  same article; specify a list of newsgroups to Pnews separated by commas.
  This means that people who subscribe to more than one of the newsgroups
  will only be shown the article in one of them by rn.

- Make the subject tell you essentially what is in the article.

  Subjects like "Atari C compilers" lack one vital piece of information:
  what about them?  "Atari C compilers: any recommendations?" or
  "Are there any Public Domain Atari C compilers" are much more helpful.
  Don't feel restricted by the word "Subject" just to give one noun.
  Subjects for adverts, similarly, should say whether the item is for
  sale or wanted.

- Don't diddle with the header lines in the skeleton article which Pnews
  gives you unless you understand what they are for.
  
  Various programs take notice of them; putting garbage in lines like
  Expires: can confuse programs. They may ignore the line, throw the
  article away, or blow up. Putting garbage in Followup-To: would waste
  the time of anyone trying to post a followup who doesn't spot it.

- Keep the maximum line length of the article *under* 80 characters.

  Some terminals (eg bbcs) choke on lines of 80 characters or more.
  Even shorter lines (55 is said to be optimal) make the article
  easier to read because the eye can "fly back" to the start of each
  new line more easily and reliably; that is a subjective choice.
  Nroffing articles to give a straight right hand edge makes them
  more difficult to read for this reason. Also, the spacing becomes
  uneven, which slows down the reading speed.

- Don't include output from banner or large graphics, or boxes of stars.

  You don't need to attract the attention of the reader; they are only
  a foot from the screen and are already looking straight at it.
  *I* read news at 300 baud, as do a lucky few others. If an article
  appears with such things in it, I skip it.
  Funnily enough, people seem to take more notice of brief articles
  which get straight to the point, that verbose ones.
  Lots of multiple blank lines have a similar effect, but not as strongly.

- Get single quotes ( ' ) the right way round.

  Apart from being correct English usage, the other sort, grave quotes ( ` )
  come out as pound signs on BBC terminals. Conversely, if you are posting
  an article from a BBC and need to mention a price, don't use the key
  marked with a pound sign unless you really mean grave quote,
  or are relying on people knowing about this feature of the beeb and
  knowing what you mean. "57 pounds" seems to be the best we can do.

- Wrong spelling and grammar reduce an article's impact

  A carelessly prepared article reduces the amount of attention which
  people pay to it, and does create an impression of the author's
  ignorance. "spell -b" is easy to use on an article which has been
  prepared in a file before invoking Pnews.
  If it would be too tedious to check up on everything, or if English
  is not your first language, at least be aware that people's brains
  trip up on wrong spelling or grammar, and this distracts them
  from what you are are actually trying to say.

- Reply by mail if it is appropriate.

  Only post news if you have something to say which has not already been
  said, and if N hundred people are likely to want to read it.
  Spelling corrections, simply disagreeing with points, "I hate stars"
  and all the rest of the junk which annoys *you* should go by mail to
  the article's author.

And most important of all, learn from other people's mistakes.
Other people may not make mistakes as frequently as you do, but there
are lots and lots of them.

Similar, but more difficult, is to spot good articles and to figure out
what it is about them that makes them good. This is difficult, because
a good article, like good typesetting or a well-designed program, should
not stand out. Its good-article-ness (!) should be transparent.

If there is something in my articles that blows your terminal up,
(or your sensibilities!) please let me know.

	Martin