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A Glossary of Common Usenet Terms

A Glossary of Commonly Used Abbreviations
Abbreviations Specific to alt.support.crohns-colitis

abbreviations - since you have to type messages before you send them to a newsgroup, people tend to use a lot of abbreviations to make it a bit easier - hopefully, everyone uses the same abbreviations! See the list below for some of the more commonly used abbreviations

add - see subscribe

archive - (1) an Internet site that stores old messages from newsgroups or other discussion forums; (2) a special kind of computer file that stores other files in a compressed format; the most common files of this type are zip, rar, ace and sit

article - a message sent to a newsgroup; also known as a post

binary file or binaries - a binary file is just a computer file of some type, such as a text file, pictures, MP3 or MIDI music files, EXE program files, and ZIP archive files

binary group - a newsgroup devoted to uploading and downloading binary files; it should generally have the word "binary" or "binaries" or a misspelling of either in the name, such as alt.binary.sounds.mp3

cancel - to retract a message you sent to a newsgroup; it would be nice if it worked, but unfortunately, it really doesn't

charter - the official description of what a newsgroup is about including what topics, in general, the newsgroup will discuss; you can find the charter for alt.support.crohns-colitis here

cross-post - to send the same message to several different newsgroups; although this is considered bad manners in message groups, it is encouraged in binary file groups when you cross-post to the appropriate groups

delurk - to post a message after having just read the newsgroup for a period; see lurk

discussion group - a newsgroup devoted to discussion of some particular topic; as newsgroups were originally developed for text-only messages, the majority of newsgroups are discussion groups; however, you can also find discussion groups among the binary groups, usually signified by a .d at the end of the name, such as alt.binaries.sounds.mp3.d

emoticon - little faces made out of common keyboard characters, such as : )

There is quite an extensive library of emoticons available with all kinds of sub-specialties, such as arsecons (in which the characters describe different kinds of ... well, bottoms!) Unfortunately, I lost my copy of the emoticon pictionary and cannot include it here at this point. : (

expired article - an article that is no longer available to download from the news server; servers typically store messages for a specific amount of time or until the amount of storage space dedicated to a group is filled, at which point, older messages are deleted

email list - see list

encoding - both email and newsgroups were originally designed for text-only messages; to transfer a binary file, you have to encode it in a text format such as UUE or MIME; the file must then be decoded once it is downloaded - most software packages encode and decode files automatically; unfortunately, the older formats such as UUE and MIME took up to one-third extra space, meaning you had to download 1.3 Mb of text for a 1 Mb file; a newer format known as yenc avoids this pitfall making encoding a 1 Mb file into just over 1 Mb of text

FAQ - "Frequently Asked Questions" - a list of common questions with their answers on a given subject; most newsgroups have FAQ's that explain the purpose of the group and tell what is appropriate for that group; many software companies have FAQ's for their software available on the Internet or packaged with the software to provide basic support; to read the FAQ's for alt.support.crohns-colitis go to The IBD FAQ and the IBD Resources FAQ

FAQ police - a newsgroup member who is constantly telling people when they violate the FAQ or, in some cases, the spirit of the FAQ

flame - (1) n, an obnoxious message usually meant to start or perpetuate an argument; (2) v, to send an obnoxious message; flaming, flamed, flamer

flame war - obnoxious messages usually get plenty of obnoxious replies, which then get even more obnoxious replies; this is known as a "flame war"

file attachment - a binary file attached to a text message; you may be more familiar with pictures that people send you as "files attached" to an email message

file grabber - a utility program that searches through specified newsgroups and automatically downloads binary files

filter - most email and newsgroup software packages allow you to filter messages so that you can avoid messages about certain topics or from certain people (kill filter) OR that will highlight messages about certain topics or from certain people (watch filter)

header - an often hidden part of a newsgroup or email message that includes information about who sent it, when it was sent, the newsgroup to which or person to whom it was sent, and the path across the Internet that the message took to get from the sender to the recipient

hierarchy - newsgroups are organized in a hierarchy or categorical structure; the part of the name before the first dot is the main category (such as the "alt" in alt.support.crohns-colitis), subsequent parts of the name further define the group; some of the common main categories include:

alt - alternative
comp - computer-related topics
misc - various
news - Usenet topics
rec - recreational
sci - science
soc - society
talk - discussion

Additional main categories exist for specific languages (de. is for German), software companies (Miscrosoft. - kind of speaks for itself), services (aol. or mindspring.), locations (seattle.), sexual orientation (gay-net.), and tons of other things, including a couple of that I can't figure out! The alt hierarchy tends to be the largest and includes a little of everything. Just as an example, if you were looking for a group about stamp collecting, you might find groups such as alt.collecting.stamps, alt.rec.collecting.stamps, alt.stamps, news.administration.collecting.stamps.discuss, rec.collecting.stamps, and stamps.collecting (all groups listed are legitimate newsgroups)

hipcrime - an obnoxious person determined to destroy Usenet; his early attacks were mainly email-bombing (flooding a person's email box with tons of email), but he and his followers have moved on to more insidious methods eventually culminating in the great attack of September 22, 1997; on that date, more than 25,000 Usenet messages were deleted, many of them replaced with fake messages containing gibberish with some of the messages being cross-posted to various groups to try to confuse the issue of whom was directing the attack and further spread chaos; more recent attempts have focused on the creation of hundreds of new newsgroups some of which use the term "hipcrime" in their name, others have names that are mostly gibberish; these should be avoided

hoax - a deliberately false message that attempts to sucker people in; some claim to be a request on behalf of a charity or other apparently good purpose, but the most common hoax seen now is a false virus warning

join - see subscribe

kill file - (1) n, a list of people or topics that your software will automatically ignore so that you do not have to see messages from them or about that topic; most news reader and email software allows you to set up such a list; (2) v, the act of adding someone to such a list

list, news list, email list - a list is similar to a newsgroup except that all messages are sent and received by email; messages are sent by email to a moderator or moderating service and then forwarded to each subscriber by email; some lists offer a "digest" version in which all the messages are combined into one large "digest" email; if you wish to reply to a message, you send your reply to the moderator by email to be included in the next group of messages; ALSO, please note that some lists give you the option of reading and replying to the messages on the Web such as is the case of Yahoo!'s groups or clubs

"list unread" - a command that will list only the messages that you have not read in a particular newsgroup

"list all" - a command that lists all messages available in a newsgroup

lurk - to read a newsgroup without replying; many people will go into "lurk mode" after having been active on a group for a long period as a way of taking a vacation; lurking, lurker

"mark read" - a command that marks specified messages as having been read or, in some cases, marks all remaining messages as having been read (even if you haven't actually read them) depending on your software; this is useful if you have read all the articles that you think will be interesting and want to get rid of the others

message - a newsgroup message is made up of several parts: (1) the subject line which should give the reader an idea of what the message is about; (2) headers which contain information about who sent the information, when it was sent, and the path it took to get from there to here; and (3) the actual message itself, which I hope is self-explanatory

member - we frequently refer to people who subscribe to a group as "members" although we generally only know that they are a member if they actually post messages

moderated newsgroup - a newsgroup in which all messages have to be approved by a moderator or moderating service before they are allowed to be posted; moderated newsgroups usually have a dot-mod (.mod) at the end of the name of the group, as in alt.rec.sports.nascar.mod; some moderated groups require you to send your messages to the moderator by email

moderator - a person, persons or service that makes sure that messages are appropriate for a newsgroup before they are allowed to be posted

newbie - someone who is new at something; on our newsgroup, we get people who are "newbies" to newsgroups or the Internet in general as well as people who are "newbies" to IBD; some people and some groups in general are not very tolerant to newbies as they tend to ask a lot of questions that have already been discussed or are answered in the FAQ file that the newbie has not read as well as people think he/she ought or just do things that aren't considered appropriate; our newsgroup tends to be more tolerant - and we all should be, after all, every expert was once a newbie too!

newsgroup - an electronic bulletin board dedicated to a particular subject upon which members post messages and replies

news list - see list

news reader - software that allows you to download, read and respond to messages from newsgroups

news server - a computer or part of a computer dedicated to gathering and storing messages from newsgroups; most ISP's have them, but smaller ISP's may have smaller news servers or may not be as well connected to other news servers and so may have poor propagation and retention

plonk - a notation placed in the subject line of a reply indicating that the replier is placing the poster of the original message in his/her kill file; we don't use this on alt.support.crohns-colitis

post - (1) n, a message sent to a newsgroup; also known as an article; (2) v, to send a message to a newsgroup; posting, posted, poster

propagation - the rate at which messages trickle down from the original server to all the other servers; because news servers are loosely linked across the Internet rather than all being linked to a central server, most messages do not make it to all the servers available

quote - normally, people will quote part of a message when replying to that message; quoted text is usually set apart from the new text by some kind of symbol, frequently ">" as in the example below:

>this is the text from the original message
>that I am quoting in my reply

and here is what my reply might look like

reply - (1) n, a message sent as a response to another message; a reply will commonly include the phrase "re:" in front of the original subject line; (2) v, to send a message in response to another message

retention - the length of time that messages are kept available; because message groups tend to have small messages that take up less space, retention time tends to be much higher for these groups; on the other hand, binary groups get huge messages that quickly over-run the amount of space that a server has reserved for that group, so that retention times are much shorter

signal-to-noise ratio - a phrase co-opted from radio that refers to the number of legitimate, appropriate messages on a newsgroup as compared to the number of spam messages or other useless junk

signature or sig - text added to the bottom of a message that gives information about the poster, such as email address; some people include quotes or text-art in their sig, but sigs should not be longer than 5 lines (generally speaking); in our newsgroup, you may frequently find "CD Class of '82" or "UC Class of '94" in a person's sig as a way of stating which of the more common types of inflammatory bowel disease the person has (Crohn's Disease or Ulcerative Colitis) and when they were diagnosed; most software packages let you set up a "sig file" that will automatically be included in any message you send; some allow you to set up several different sig files that may rotate randomly or may be used only in specific newsgroups

spam - unsolicited or unwanted messages, usually advertisements but may also include chain letters and hoaxes

spam-proofing - unfortunately, some people have software that will search through Usenet messages and find any and all email addresses hidden therein; to avoid the spam that can come from such automatic systems, people will normally disguise their real email address in such a way that anyone who is really trying to send them email could figure it out; common examples are ispoilboysNOSPAM@yahoo.com (In which case you remove the NOSPAM to send them email) or ispoilboysATyahooDOTcom (in which case you replace the AT and DOT with the appropriate symbol); you have to tell your software to do this or your real email may appear splashed all over Usenet, and your email box may be swamped with spam

spoiler - information that might give away details of a book or movie ending or any other information that people may not want to read; to allow people to avoid the message, you should clearly label the post with SPOILER: in the subject line and add spoiler lines to the top of the message (many news readers will automatically show the first so-many lines of a message so people will add blank lines or count-down lines at the top of the message so that the actual text of the message doesn't show in the message window); this method is also used in certain other circumstances, for example, on a sexual assault support newsgroup, people may not be able to tolerate a post that contains explicit details of a sexual assault even though it is appropriate to post such messages - using a spoiler helps people who cannot handle such things avoid the message; on our own newsgroup, if you are going to use explicit language (such as the "f" word), we ask that you spoiler the post; a spoiler may look something like this

Following post is spoilered for language:
10
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
Actual message begins here - notice the use of "count-down lines" to hide the "actual message" from a casual glance at the message window

subject line - the part of an email or newsgroup message that should tell what the message is about

subscribe (as applies to newsgroups only) - to join a newsgroup; basically this means telling your software that you want to watch the messages in a particular newsgroup; please note that you do not send a message to the group to subscribe or to unsubscribe, you do it on your own computer only; this is also known as "adding" or "joining" (as applies to lists) - to join a list which usually involves sending an email message to the owner or moderator of the list asking to join; to unsubscribe, you must send a message to the owner or moderator, but the exact process may vary according to the group

test - a post to see if everything is working properly; these should only be done in groups specifically named as "test" groups, such as alt.test; posting such a message in many groups will get you flamed horribly, although our particular group chooses to have fun with them!

thread - a group of messages within a newsgroup or other discussion group about the same specific subject; a thread generally consists of an original message and all the replies to that message

traffic - the number of messages on a newsgroup, can be measured by number or by total size

troll - a nasty person who lives under a bridge and/or sends messages to newsgroups just for the purpose of causing trouble, starting arguments, and the like

Usenet - a fancy name for newsgroups as a whole; more fully as Usenet Newsgroups

warez - software, usually pirated

Commonly Used Abbreviations:

ad - an advertisement of some kind, should be placed in the subject line

afaik - as far as I know

btw - by the way

imho - in my humble opinion, which is usually better translated as "In my not-so-humble opinion!"

j/k or jk - just kidding

lol - laughing out loud

mmf - make money fast, usually only seen in spam

ng - newsgroup or newsgroups

oic - "Oh, I see!"

OT: - off topic, usually only seen in the subject line to warn readers that the message does not relate to the toic of the newsgroup

REQ: - request, usually seen in the subject line indicating that someone wants a particular file posted or subject discussed

roflmao! - rolling on the floor laughing my @ss off!

rtfm - "Read the flowery manual!" Okay, so maybe the "f" doesn't stand for "flowery!" Also: rtm

TIA - thanks in advance

wbg - wicked big grin

People use a lot of abbreviations, some of which can be pretty obvious, like using the letter "y" instead of typing the whole word "why," but unless you're reasonably sure that everyone will understand what you mean, it's better just to type the whole word. Because our newsgroup is based on a particular disorder, there are jargon-related abbreviations as well. So ...

Abbreviations Specific to alt.support.crohns-colitis:

ascc - alt.support.crohns-colitis

CC - Collagenous Colitis although it can also mean "Carbon Copy" another phrase co-opted from earlier times when to send a copy of something to someone you had to actually make a carbon copy to physically send them, it simply means that you are sending a copy of an email or post to someone else as well as the original intended recipient

CCFA - The Crohn's and Colitis Foundation of America

CCFC - The Crohn's and Colitis Foundation of Canada

CD - Crohn's Disease

IBD - inflammatory bowel disease

IBS - irritable bowel syndrome

UC - Ulcerative Colitis

 

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