2.   News groups

2.8   What are the abbreviations people use in messages?

There is a list in Turnpike help under Abbreviations (Acronyms, from Turnpike 4.00 onwards). There is also a comprehensive list at: http://www.astro.umd.edu/~marshall/abbrev.html.

Other terms you are likely to see in Newsgroups are:

cross-posting Posting a message to more than one group by including several newsgroup names in the newsgroups header. This can be a recipe for confusion and in most cases is best avoided. Multi-posting (posting the same message separately to more than one group) should never be done (see spam below).
spam Posting the same article separately to a large number of newsgroups (see section 12 on Net Abuse).
flame A rude and personal attack on an individual.
troll A deliberately off-topic or outrageous article, posted to disrupt a newsgroup by soliciting maximum response.
header Technical information normally hidden at the start of a message (in Turnpike, press Ctrl-H to see a header).
f.u. Follow-ups. The poster has included a header to direct replies either to a more appropriate newsgroup or to the poster's email address (perhaps because the subject has become off-topic or of merely personal interest).
moderated A newsgroup in which articles must be posted via a moderator, who vets their suitability for the group. Only a small minority of groups are moderated.
Back Menu Next