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Archive-name: singles-faq
Posting-Frequency: biweekly
Last-modified: 2000/08/14
Version: 3.0
URL: www.trygve.com/ssfaq-long.html
Maintainer: trygve lode ( trygve@trygve.com )
soc.singles FAQ (long version)
maintained by Trygve Lode ( trygve@trygve.com )
Last-modified: 2000.08.14
the current version is available at
http://www.trygve.com/ssfaq-long.html
Soc.singles FAQ, short version, available at
http://www.trygve.com/ssfaq.html
Welcome to soc.singles! Soc.singles is a place to hang out, discuss
issues serious, mundane, and silly, flirt, share embarrassing personal
secrets, and generally let your hair down and have fun. Whether you're
just reading or are feeling brave enough to leap headlong into any of
the ongoing conversations or start a new one, you'll find a varied
collection of people from around the world all working to keep your
newsreading time from getting boring. Just be warned: soc.singles is
not a place for personal ads, requests for penpals and/or sexually
explicit email, commercial advertisements, or test messages. Remember
that there are real people behind the messages you're reading and
responding to, and if you treat them with the consideration and
respect you'd give to a bunch of people you just met at a party,
you'll be 77.4% of the way to being an accepted and valued contributor
to soc.singles!
This document is called the "FAQ" (short for "Frequently Asked
Questions") and hopefully contains information that will make it
easier to follow and join in on the various conversations happening on
soc.singles at any given time. No warranty is expressed or implied;
for external use only; if rash persists, consult a physician.
Think of this bit here as being sorta like a table of contents:
- Commonly encountered abbreviations and jargon
- What is a 'boink'?
- Should I post personals ads on soc.singles?
- How about commercial ads?
- What if my site doesn't carry alt.personals or soc.penpals?
- OK, if I'm not supposed to post personals, what kinds of articles
should I post?
- Do I have to be single to post on soc.singles?
- Just what does "single" mean anyway?
- What's the difference between soc.singles and soc.singles.moderated?
- Is there anything besides personal ads that should be avoided?
- Sometimes, soc.singles seems very intimidating--it's like everybody
knows everyone else and it's hard just to jump in to all the
ongoing conversations.
- What if I don't like any of the current discussions or just find
them all boring?
- I finally worked up the courage to post my first message and nobody
responded to it. Do you think that the soc.singlers are
conspiring to ignore me?
- Help! I just posted an article and got flamed horribly for it-- will
I ever be able to show my face in public again?
- Hey--someone just posted a personal ad to soc.singles! Should I
flame the pants off this person?
- Soc.singles is just full of flaming and angry-sounding people this
week; can't you guys all just get along?
- Sometimes I write stuff that is just so incredible I think I should
crosspost it to every other newsgroup on the net. Is that okay?
- What is this "editing" stuff I keep hearing about?
- How about editing subject headers?
- What else can I do to improve my ASCII appearance?
- What do these weird combinations of punctuation marks I see
frequently in people's messages mean?
- How do you pronounce "soc"?
- What's a ".GIF" ".JPG" or ".MPG"?
- Is there a World-Wide Web page for soc.singles?
- What, exactly, are "Disney Chemicals"?
- How do you pronounce "Trygve"?
- How come nice guys don't get laid?
- How come nice guys/gals/small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri
get dumped for jerks/bimbos/hyperfungal Rigellian
psuedoshoggoths?
- I met someone last week at a party; what do you think this person's
deepest and innermost feelings for me are?
- Is it possible for men and women to be just friends?
- Do conversations on the net ever blossom into torrid romances?
- What about personal ads?
- Will this message ever end?
- How about posting articles asking for readers to send postcards to a
kid in England who is dying of cancer and wants to set the
world record for most cards received before he dies?
- How come there are so many kooks on the net?
- OK, we're getting near the end of the file now--what's this about
"killfiles" that you promised to tell us about?
- Is there any copyright on this FAQ?
- Are you sure I can't post personals on soc.singles?
OK, you can stop thinking of this as being like a table of contents
now.
Commonly encountered abbreviations and jargon:
[ A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z ]
AFAIK
As Far As I Know
AFAICTY
As Far As I Can Throw You
ASCII
American Standard Code for Information Interchange;
technically, this refers to the encoding scheme whereby the
internally stored binary numbers used by computers correspond
to human-readable symbols like "A", but in common usage on the
net, ASCII also refers to anything that's made of standard text
characters: "@}--,--`---" is an ASCII rose, for example.
BIF
Basis In Fact
BTDT
Been There, Done That
BTW
By The Way
DCs
"Disney Chemicals" ( see below )
DMV
"Dreaded Monogamy Virus"
FAQ
Frequently Asked Question(s)
Flame
An emotional, often personal attack on another person's
article; "I disagree with your statement because of X" is not a
flame, whereas "I disagree with your moronic statement and the
fact that you would say such a thing proves you're a complete
idiot" is.
Flamebait
Something posted publicly that appears designed to inspire
flames; usually this is a postion that is not only likely to
annoy a lot of people but is also worded in such a way as to
arouse the ire of readers.
FOAF
Friend Of A Friend (Generally used for apocryphal stories.)
FTP
File Transfer Protocol; a way to transfer files between your
computer system and another. For information about FTP, send
e-mail to "mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu" with "send
usenet/news.answers/finding-sources" in the body of the letter.
FWIW
For What It's Worth
FYA
For Your Amusement
FYI
For Your Information
HTH
Hope This Helps / Happy To Help
ICQ
Another kind of "chat" program for Windows-based machines. Each
ICQ user is identified by a unique number.
Ig
Iguana
IIRC
If I Recall Correctly
IMHO
In My Humble Opinion (engineers often prefer to use JMHO)
IMNSHO
In My Not-So-Humble Opinion
IRC
Internet Relay Chat -- "chat rooms" where several participants
can type at each other in real time as opposed to leaving
messages to be read later as one does on newsgroups.
LAFS
Love At First Sight (Alternatively, "Love At First Site" for
those in a hurry.)
LDR
Long Distance Relationship
LJBF
Let's Just Be Friends (now considered a verb)
LO
Lust Object (occasionally also Love Object)
LOL
Laughing Out Loud
LTR
Long Term Relationship
Lurker
Someone who reads a group, but doesn't post; doing so is called
"lurking"
MOTOS
Member Of The Opposite Sex
MOTSS
Member Of The Same Sex
MOTAS
Member Of The Appropriate Sex
MOTIS
Member Of the Inappropriate Sex
MP3
Compressed format for sound files commonly used for
distribution over the net
NBIF
No Basis In Fact
NG
Nice Guy/Gal (also NewsGroup)
NIFOC
Nude In Front Of Computer
NTTAWWI
Not That There's Anything Wrong With IT
OTOH
On The Other Hand
PDA
Public Display of Affection
Plonk
The "sound" of a poster being added to a killfile; also used as
a verb: "I plonked Sylvia 'Snuffelupagus Slayer' DeCrisco, so I
missed her discussion on foot odor."
POSSLQ
Person of Opposite Sex Sharing Living Quarters
POV
Point Of View
POM
ProblemOlderMan
POW
ProblemOlderWoman
PYM
ProblemYoungerMan (also ProblemYoungerMutant)
PYW
ProblemYoungerWoman
RI
Romantic Interest
ROTFL
Rolling On The Floor Laughing (also ROFL)
RL
Real Life
RP
Romantic Partner
RSN
Real Soon Now
SAH
Stay-At-Home (as in SAH parent)
sig or .sig
"Signature," a short, standardized message tacked on to the end
of all one's posts; usually consisting of 1-4 lines of text,
containing one's e-mail address, employer, favorite pithy
quote, and/or other pertinent (or impertinent) personal
information.
SMV
Sexual Market Value
SNAG
Sensitive New-Age Guy
SO
Significant Other
Spam
Articles that are inappropriately posted to large numbers of
newsgroups; these are usually, though not necessarily,
commercial ads, but whatever their nature or content, they're
considered a Bad Thing[tm].
SS
Soc.Singles
SSM
Soc.Singles.Moderated
TIA
Thanks In Advance
TLA
Three Letter Abbreviation
[TM]
TradeMark
TL&EH
True Love & Eternal Happiness
Troll
Someone who posts articles just to get attention or annoy the
other readers and posters; also used as a verb and, if you take
the [flame]bait and respond as if it were a serious post,
you've been "trolled."
WFYITBWNBLJO
Waiting For You In The Bathtub Wearing Nothing But Lime Jell-O
WTH
What The Heck
YKIOK
Your Kink Is OK
YMMV
Your Milage May Vary
Zie
Gender-neutral pronoun equivalent to "She or He" (Alternate
spelling: "Sie")
Zir
Gender-neutral pronoun equivalent to "Him or Her" or possessive
pronoun equivalent to "His or Her" (Alternate spelling: "Hir")
The rest of the FAQ:
What is a 'boink'?
Any publicly announced gathering of soc.singles participants
and lurkers. Frequently these last for days and involve the
flying in of out-of-town soc.singles celebrities.
Should I post personals ads on soc.singles?
No. Personal ads belong in the alt.personals groups; there are
even groups for people with specific tastes (e.g.
alt.personals.poly, alt.personals.bondage,
alt.personals.hamster.duct-tape). If you want to post a request
for pen-friends rather than a personal ad, there's also
soc.penpals which is dedicated for just that very thing. Do not
post personals in soc.singles, you will annoy the readership
and not get any positive responses.
Many, many web-based personals ads sites are available, both
free and pay services. Checking Yahoo shows several hundred
category matches if you search on "personals"; so, you may wish
to add some more search words or just start browsing.
How about commercial ads?
They should also be avoided. Indeed, on the great majority of
newsgroups, any commercial advertising will be received with
hostility. The net is built on the voluntary cooperation of
many machines across the world, owned by businesses,
governments, and educational institutions, and because the
owners generally don't want to be paying for the distribution
of competitors' advertising and, in the case of educational and
governmental machines, they may have strict policies against
carrying any advertising at all, one of the basic premises of
the net is a "gentleman's agreement" not to post commercial
messages outside of the groups specifically set aside for that
purpose (comp.newprod and biz.*). Even for pragmatic reasons,
it's best to avoid commercial messages, simply because you
generally don't want to kick off an advertising campaign by
irritating your potential customer base. For more details
concerning the commercial use of the net, you may wish to check
out the articles your system should have available in the group
news.announce.newusers.
What if my site doesn't carry alt.personals or soc.penpals?
Even if your site doesn't carry a given group, it's still
possible to post to it; fortunately, that's really all you need
to be able to do with a personal ad, since you would normally
be getting responses back in email anyway. A number of
"mail-to-news gateways" exist that will take email messages you
send them and post them to any Usenet group, whether it's on
your system or not (and even if your system only gives you mail
capability and doesn't support news at all).
If you have web access, you can read news and post from
DejaNews, which allows you more to search other people's
personal ads more easily than most newsreaders. If you are
using a newsreader / posting program that allows you to modify
your headers, many if not most will still let you post to a
newsgroup that your site doesn't carry; it may just ask you to
confirm that you really do want to post to the specified
newsgroup and haven't just mistyped it.
OK, if I'm not supposed to post personals, what kinds of articles
should I post?
Think of soc.singles as the electronic version of something
that's partway between a cocktail party and a soap opera.
Appropriate posts should be both interactive and
entertaining--that is, their content should both invite the
participation of others in the electronic conversation and be
entertaining to its readers. You might pose an open question to
the readership about some aspect of the human condition as it
applies to singleness or you might reply to another
contributor's post and add an observation that sheds light on a
different aspect of the issue under discussion or just makes
some people out there laugh and shoot Pepsi out through their
noses onto their computer keyboards. Personal ads are a good
example of what sort of posting isn't appropriate because they
are neither of these--they aren't conducive to public
discussion nor are they entertaining.
Remember, the best way to get a positive response on any group
is to post something that will pique the interest of the other
readers and entertain them as well. On soc.singles, the best
thing to do is simply to post a message that expresses a
stunningly profound observation that is fundamental to the
human condition as it relates to singleness, one that is
unobvious yet clarifies many of the more confusing interactions
between singles and MOTAS and is expressed with succinctness,
humor, an easy, flowing writing style, and-- perhaps most
importantly--good spelling and the effective use of an editor.
Some days we'll just settle for someone who can spell and use
an editor. Then, wait for fan mail while composing your next
opus.
When in doubt, the best thing to do is read the newsgroup for a
while, at least until you get a feel for what's going on; as
the old saying goes, "lurk before you leap." (This is generally
a good approach for any newsgroup, not just soc.singles.) You
may find it easier to leap into a conversation in progress.
Don't feel shy about "butting in": one of the advantages of the
net is that everyone can get a word in without interrupting
anyone else or being thought rude for speaking up. Keep reading
until you get to a message that inspires an interesting comment
or observation of your own and put that in a followup message;
or, if you're feeling really brave, start a whole new thread
and invite others' comments on a subject that you think is
interesting.
Don't forget who your audience is--people will be reading your
words all over the world with all kinds of software and on all
sorts of service providers. They might not have read an article
you're responding to, gone to the dance club down the street
from where you live, be using the same software you are, or
know what the message numbers are on your service provider
(they're different on every system); try to include enough
information so that a typical reader will understand what
you're talking about without feeling too confused.
Do I have to be single to post on soc.singles?
No. The only requirement is that you have been single at some
time in your life, know someone who was, or are interested in
some of the subjects that people meeting either of these
conditions have been known to talk about.
Soc.Singles isn't exclusively for singles or where non-single
people are unwelcome, but simply a place where it's normal to
be single. The rest of the world often feels like it's built
around couples as the basic social unit, leaving singles
feeling awkward, left out, or like a "third wheel." The basic
"social unit" for soc.singles is the individual, where you're
not defined by whom you're with or any less by not being with
someone.
Just what does "single" mean anyway?
In the context of soc.singles, it means "unmarried"; there's a
tendency for "singles' issues" being discussed on soc.singles
to be directed towards people who don't currently have a
long-term committed partner, but anything interesting and/or
important to people who aren't married is appropriate.
What's the difference between soc.singles and soc.singles.moderated?
As the name suggests, soc.singles.moderated is a moderated
group; that means that your articles get sent off to the the
"moderator" to be approved before they appear. In this
particular case, you just have to invoke the secret password
(which is revealed in the soc.singles.moderated FAQ) and all
your subsequent articles will be approved automatically. This
technique was taken to eliminate hit-and-run advertising and
flamebait from people who aren't interested in taking the time
to read the group and get rid of the massive cross-posting
that's usually used to create long-running, pointless
flamewars.
Many of the same people post to both groups or at least read
them both and will occasionally drop in a comment in the group
they don't participate in as much. It's also permitted to
cross-post between soc.singles and soc.singles.moderated, but
most of the time it's not appreciated and will tend to confuse
soc.singles readers who haven't gone through the approval
process on soc.singles.moderated, because their articles will
get bounced back and not posted to either group.
Is there anything besides personal ads that should be avoided?
Of course there are other things that are best avoided--perhaps
the most important of these are emotional issues for which
other newsgroups have been created. Topics like abortion,
politics, religion, anything by Robert McElwaine, and other
such things are best avoided, not because they aren't valid
issues, but because, like personal ads, it's too easy for them
to take over the newsgroup and drive off those of us who
participate on soc.singles because we like soc.singles.
Remember, anyone who wants to debate abortion can go to
talk.abortion and anyone who wants to post and read personals
can go to alt.personals*--but if soc.singles gets turned into
soc.talk.alt.personals.abortion.religion.politics.McElwaine,
there's no newsgroup where the soc.singlers can go to continue
their discussions.
It's also good form to avoid messages that are pretty much
content-free: don't, for example, quote an entire message that
you agree with and then append "Yeah, what she said" to the
end. Test messages should also be avoided--if you're unsure
whether your messages are getting out or not, post something to
misc.test and you'll get confirmation messages from various
sites around the world to let you know your posting software is
working.
On soc.singles, like any other group, it's best to avoid the
urge to post spelling flames--if you catch a spelling error or
a typo in someone else's post, it does very little good to post
a public message about it, since the other readers will either
have noticed the error themselves--and don't need to be told
about it--or they won't care--in which case they don't need to
be told about it. If it's an informational post that's going to
be reposted later or a signature, you may want to inform the
poster in e-mail, but unless you can turn the spelling error
into an outrageously witty observation (e.g. the original
poster has just made a screamingly funny Freudian slip in
print), there's no reason to post spelling flames publicly.
If you get the urge to add to a pun chain, please don't quote
all the puns so far and then add a pun that already appears
earlier in the message. If you do think of a pun or other witty
rejoinder to add to someone else's article, it's a good idea to
read any followups that have already been posted before posting
your witty response, just to make sure that three or four
people won't have made the same remark already.
Finally, don't ever post chain letters, regardless of whether
they're disguised as plans to create "mailing lists" for big
bucks or not--posting such a message on soc.singles or any
other newsgroup is likely to get your account revoked. It's
been remarked that the "Make Money Fast" chain letters are one
of the few crimminal activities in which the perpetrator signs
his name at the bottom; not only does this make it easy to
report the person posting the article to his or her sysadmin
(and getting the account in question revoked), but the IRS does
consider illegal income taxable and would probably want to
check up on whether the writer claiming to have received
hundreds of thousands of dollars in the mail has paid
everything from income tax to self-employment tax on that
money. (In the unlikely event that the writer actually has
received that kind of money, there may even be a reward to the
person who brings this to the attention of the IRS.)
Sometimes, soc.singles seems very intimidating--it's like everybody
knows everyone else and it's hard just to jump in to all the
ongoing conversations.
Remember that every poster on soc.singles had to post his or
her first message sometime and, even now, it's no more
difficult for you to press the followup-key than it is for
anyone else. Sometimes it helps just to read the newsgroup for
a while--get a feel for what's going on and what the other
posters are like, what sorts of topics have already been beaten
to death many times over, and what sorts of insights, knowlege,
and experience you might have to add that others might not
think of. When you do decide to leap into the fray and post
something, don't be discouraged if it doesn't get a response
right away or even if it gets a negative response--after all,
the net is an imperfect medium and it's easy to be
misunderstood, so don't feel too bad if you sometimes don't get
your ideas across in quite the way you had intended. If you
keep your cool and continue participating, people will get to
know you, you'll get to know them, and misunderstandings will
become less frequent.
What if I don't like any of the current discussions or just find them
all boring?
On the net, just like in real life, when you don't like
something, you're better off working constructively to change
it instead of just complaining about it. If you'd like to talk
about something else, then post a message about it and add
enough of your thoughts about it that the other contributors
will have something to bite on. Writing, "what do you think
about single people who bring their pet squids on dates?" is
good, but "what do you think about single people who bring
their pet squids on dates? I was on a date last week with
someone who insisted in bringing 'Sigmund' the squid along and
taking pieces of food off my plate to feed to Sigmund without
asking first." is even better.
In general, the worst thing that you can do is post a message
along the lines of "this group sucks; I've read every single
message on this group every day for five years now and each one
has been worse than having my toenails ripped out using a badly
misaligned electric can opener." Remember that all the people
posting to and reading soc.singles are real people and tend to
react rather like people would if you were to walk into a party
and sulk in the corner, loudly shouting out "this party sucks"
every few minutes while the people all around you are busily
having a good time. If the messages aren't to your liking,
either try to contribute positively towards making the group
more what you'd like it to be, use killfiles more extensively,
or locate another group that is more to your liking. Just
announcing your displeasure is unlikely to motivate the other
participants to post things that you'll want to read, since
obviously they must be enjoying the current tone and content of
soc.singles or they wouldn't be contributing to it.
I finally worked up the courage to post my first message and nobody
responded to it. Do you think that the soc.singlers are conspiring
to ignore me?
Alas, the contributors to soc.singlers are far too disorganized
to conspire against anyone. Most messages don't generate
responses anyway, otherwise the volume of soc.singles would be
even greater than it is. So, you may need to post a few
messages before anyone responds to something you've written. If
you want to maximize your chances of getting a response, try to
make sure that your articles contain room for others to
respond--they should invite others to add their thoughts to
yours and, ideally, say something new and different that will
get the attention of your readers. Sometimes messages can even
be too good--they can simply cover the whole subject and do it
so authoritatively that there's nothing left for anyone to say,
so not getting a response to a message doesn't mean that people
aren't reading it or aren't interested by it.
Help! I just posted an article and got flamed horribly for it-- will I
ever be able to show my face in public again?
Yep; just make sure you don't show it by posting a .gif of your
face to a non-binaries group. The truth is that most people
flame articles, not people--you could post two messages in one
day and have one flamed mercilessly and the other lauded with
ASCII roses by the same people. Just because someone flamed you
for something you said doesn't mean that the person in question
hates you--the best thing to do is just take it all in stride
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