XPost: alt.sources, alt.sources.d, alt.answers 
 From: ocl@gih.com 
  
 Archive-name: alt-sources-intro 
 Submitted-by: ocl@gih.com (Olivier M.J. Crepin-Leblond) 
 Version: $Id: alt-sources-intro,v 1.17 1999/08/27 01:36:43 ocl Exp $ 
 Original-Author: jik@security.ov.com (Jonathan I. Kamens) 
  
  
          What is alt.sources for? 
  
   The alt.sources newsgroup is intended to be a repository for 
 source-code of all sorts that people wish to distribute and share with 
 other people. 
  
   There are no restrictions on the type of source code you can post 
 here -- any machine, any language, any purpose. 
  
   A common reason to post to alt.sources is when you are posting a 
 useful bit of source code to some other newsgroup, and you think that 
 it might prove useful to other people in the future, in which case you 
 can cross-post it here. 
  
   Please note that alt.sources IS NOT for requests for source code; the 
 alt.sources.wanted newsgroup is for that.  Alt.sources IS NOT for 
 comments and discussion about source code, even source code posted in 
 alt.sources; the alt.sources.d newsgroup is for that. 
  
          Only source code should be posted to alt.sources. 
  
   Posting material in alt.sources that is not human readable is 
 discouraged.  For example, shar archives are preferred to compressed, 
 uuencoded tar files.  Furthermore, the posting of machine-specific 
 executables in alt.sources is HIGHLY discouraged. 
  
  
                       Is alt.sources moderated ? 
  
   No.  alt.sources is unmoderated. There have been times when there 
 were calls for retro-moderation to cancel inappropriate postings 
 like spam, but these never materialized.  In true USENET spirit, 
 it is hoped that posters moderate themselves. 
  
  
          Why post to alt.sources? 
  
   Since alt.sources is unmoderated, your source code will be 
 distributed throughout the USENET (or, at least, the portion of the 
 USENET that receives alt.sources) immediately, without having to wait 
 for a moderator's approval, like you have to do for some of the other 
 source newsgroups. 
  
   Furthermore, alt.sources is archived at quite a few anonymous ftp 
 and mail server archive sites, so people will be able to get your 
 software from the archives after you've posted it, rather than having 
 to ask you to mail it to them. 
  
   Finally, you might have a bit of source code that is really too 
 small to submit as a package to one of the other major source 
 newsgroups.  That's the kind of things that shows up a lot in 
 alt.sources. 
  
  
        Why post to somewhere besides alt.sources? 
  
   Alt.sources isn't as widely propagated as the source newsgroups in 
 the "comp" hierarchy, since more sites tend to get "comp" than "alt". 
 Therefore, if you want your source code to have as wide a distribution 
 as possible, you might want to use one of the "comp" newsgroups. 
  
   The alt.sources archives tend to be less well-organized than the 
 archives of the other source newsgroups, because they are usually 
 maintained automatically rather than by hand, and because non-source 
 postings are often interspersed with the source postings in the 
 archive.  Furthermore, many of the other source newsgroups are 
 available at many more archive sites than alt.sources.  Therefore, if 
 you want people to be able to find your program really easily, 
 alt.sources may not be the best place to post it. 
  
  
      What format should alt.sources postings have? 
  
   Because alt.sources is unmoderated, the format your postings take is 
 up to you.  However, there are certain basic guidelines which, if 
 followed, make alt.sources a more productive newsgroup for everyone: 
  
   1) Choose a good subject line for your posting that describes 
 accurately what it contains.  Many alt.sources archive sites generate 
 their indices of the newsgroup from the subject lines of the postings 
 in it, so try to make sure that there are relevant keywords in your 
 subject that people can search for when looking for your source code 
 later. 
  
   2) Put a Followup-To: header line in your posting which directs 
 followups somewhere other than alt.sources.  This is especially 
 important if you cross-post your alt.sources posting from some other 
 newsgroup, because people will often respond to the posting in that 
 newsgroup without realizing it was cross-posted to alt.sources. 
  
   3) At the top of your posting, separated from the main header of the 
 posting by a blank line, put something that looks like this: 
  
  Archive-name: name 
  Submitted-by: joe@bloggs.com 
  
 The "name" on the first line should be a short one-word string that 
 can serve as a "tag" for the package.  If your program has a somewhat 
 unique name, you can just use the name of the program as the archive 
 name.  If you are posting a patch to a previously posted bit of source 
 code, you would do something like "name/patchN", where N is the number 
 of the patch.  If you post source code in multiple parts, do 
 "name/part1", "name/part2", etc.  The second line should contain a 
 return mail address for you. 
  
   This informational header (note that it is an auxiliary header, in 
 the body of the posting, NOT part of the main message header) is used 
 by some automatic archiving software to maintain alt.sources archives 
 automatically.  There are other useful fields you may want to put in 
 the auxiliary header; if you are curious, see the documentation for 
 the "rkive" program in the comp.sources.misc archives to find out what 
 they are. 
  
   4) Make sure to mention, near the top of your posting (or near the 
 top of your first posting, if you are posting a multi-posting 
 package), exactly what the package is.  If there is a README file, 
 either include that at the top or (if you are using shar) make it the 
 first thing in the first shar file.  People should not have to search 
 through the entire package just to figure out what it is. 
  
  
       Where is alt.sources archived? 
  
   See the article entitled "How to find sources (READ THIS BEFORE 
 POSTING)" in alt.sources.wanted and comp.sources.wanted to find out 
 how to search through the alt.sources archives and how to retrieve 
 source code from the various archive sites. 
  
 In general, alt.sources archives can be found in: 
  
 ftp://ftp.sterling.com/usenet/alt.sources/        <-- recommended 
 ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/usenet/alt.sources/articles/ 
 ftp://src.doc.ic.ac.uk/usenet/alt.sources/articles/ 
  
 Please note that this is a non-exhaustive list. There are quantities 
 of mirrors of wuarchive which stock alt.sources archives, sometimes 
 under a similar path (/usenet/alt.sources/articles/). Please try 
 and select the server that's closest to you. 
  
  
                  Are the sources available elsewhere? 
  
 This question was answered by: 
 Victor Volkman , CUG Acquisitions. Ed.: 
 "The C Users Group wishes to further the distribution of alt.sources 
  
 [continued in next message] 
  
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