In article <1992Nov3.145652.16885@aw2.fsl.ca.boeing.com> vds7789@aw2.fsl.ca.boeing.com (Vincent D. Skahan) writes:
   rak@loft (Robert Kiesling) writes:
      > (Stuff Deleted)
      >comp.mail.uucp, and I do not know of any FAQ for Cnews.  There is a
      >high proportion of new users on c.o.l, I think it might be appropriate
      >for this group.  It might help reduce traffic in the group also.
      >Feedback, please.

   once again, I see no reason to write (and have to support) a c.o.l.
   FAQ for things that are already either documented in FAQ's or in books
   you can buy.

   there are a variety of groups regarding uucp including comp.mail.uucp.
   'elm', 'mush', and 'smail' have their own newsgroups.

Agreed.  I've seen them, but maybe others haven't.  There is a FAQ,
for example, with an overview of all these packages that was written
by Chris Lewis.  A c.o.l. FAQ (or possibly Meta-FAQ, which I had in
mind intially) would have a listing of these documents.  And some of
the documentation can be very vague and confusing for beginners when
the docs don't include system-specific information.

   there is a newsgroup for news readers plus some reader-specific groups.
   there is a newsgroup for news administration.

Again, agreed.  However, what are the chances that another reader of
one of those groups is going to be able to provide specific pointers
for Linux?  These are groups for net packages in general, not specific
to this system.  If there is advice that tells beginners, for example,
that setting dtr high permanently is not acceptable for unattended
communication, I haven't seen it in a net posting.  If it's there,
it's buried, probably.  (The mac comminication FAQ, btw, *recommends*
this kind of (putting it mildly) absurd configuration.

   Setting Taylor uucp up in either HDB or 'L.sys' mode is extremely well
   documented in many, many places.  You almost trip over such documents
   daily.

In his uucp internals FAQ, Ian Taylor wrote, "(This FAQ) does not
describe how to configure UUCP, nor how to solve connection problems,
nor how to deal with UUCP mail.  There are currently no FAQ postings
on any of these topics, and I do not plan to write any."

   Just go out and buy O'Reilly+Assoc's "managing uucp and usenet"...
   And subscribe-to/read news.answers for the FAQs.

The nutshell manual is great, *once* Taylor uucp is configured to
correctly use BNU or V2 format config files.  It also tells how to
test the link in a way that's mostly non-disruptive, and has the
clearest description of rs-232 harware handshaking I've read.  But it
says nothing about configuring Taylor UUCP specifically.  Nor smail,
nor Vixie cron, nor any specific newsreader.

I subscribe to the other groups.  These can (and should) be mentioned
in any reference list/Meta-FAQ.  But again, the info often is not
system-specific.  Also, it is possible that someone setting up news or
mail for the first time (I have not spoken with anyone who has not
made the usual beginners' mistakes -- myself included) would not have
access to these groups unless they have a university system or another
net access poitn to lean on.  A small mistake in setting up a
configuration file can result in, for example, multiple test postings
being propagated across the net, several hundred K of news packets
going to /dev/null, or worse, being passed on to another feed site
unnecessarily, and probably using much more bandwidth than a FAQ would.

-- Bob
-- 
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Robert Kiesling                             "Durum et durum non faciunt murum."
rak@loft.ann-arbor.mi.us                                                -- Anon
vela!plex-1!loft!rak