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Ladies and Gentlemen of AFE. Use your "Mark All Read" button. If I could offer you only one tip for all of Usenet, the "Mark All Read" button would be it. The long-term benefits of the "Mark All Read" button have been proven by scientists, many of whom surf Usenet and get bogged down in flame wars, Spam, and pointless posts, such as this one. The rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own status as an AFE poster. I will dispense this advice now. Enjoy the power and beauty of Ian Bell's website. Oh, nevermind. You will not understand or appreciate the power and beauty of Ian Bell's website until David Braben prevents you from getting on the website one day, and you have no choice but to play second rate sequels instead. But, trust me, one day you'll understand on a level that you can't grasp now just how much information is on that site, and how quickly it loads. The URL is not as difficult to remember as you imagine. Don't play FFE. Or, play FFE, but know that everyone who plays FFE will be taunted and made fun of for weeks. Remember that playing FFE is the kind of thing that causes people's computers to lock up at 4PM on some idle Tuesday. Read one message every day which bewilders you. Lurk. Don't flame people who make mistakes, and don't tolerate trolls who flame you when you do. Remember the copyright you own. Forget the infringements. If you succeed in doing this, tell me how. Keep your old copies of Elite. Throw away your old copies of Frontier. Don't feel guilty if you post some goofy message and then can't figure out how to cancel it. Some of the most interesting people I know post goofy messages all the time. I, in fact, am posting one now. Maybe you'll use Microsoft Outlook Express, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll upgrade your browser every two weeks, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll never get past Web-TV, maybe you'll own fifty servers in an air-conditioned vault somewhere. However you surf, don't congratulate yourself too much, or berate yourself, either. Your browser will eventually crash. So will everyone else's. Enjoy your "post new message" button. Use it every way you can. Don't be afraid to post messages, or worry too much about what others think of the messages you post. That button is the most powerful button on your whole newsgroup interface. Mark entire threads read, even if you've not read a single message. Read the "Rules of Netiquette," even if you don't follow them. Do not read the FAQ, it will only make you feel stupid. Understand that newbies come and go, and that it's a precious few who post more than once. Get to know the long-time-posters. You'll miss them when their eyesight gets so bad that they can't read off a monitor anymore and they have to quit posting. Accept certain inalienable truths. Idiots will top post. Spammers will Spam. You, too, will get old. And, when you do, you'll fantasize that, when you were young, AFE was made up exclusively of smart, diehard Elite fans, the Spam-count was low, and everyone marked off-topic messages with OT. Mark off-topic messages with OT. Be careful which long, rambling messages you read, but be patient with those who post them. Remember that long, rambling messages are just a way of fishing for compliments, and giving them only encourages the blow-hard who posts them in the first place. But trust me on the "mark all read" button. (Based on a post made to alt.books.kurt-vonnegut by Darrell Loudermilk which was based on Mary Schmich's Sunscreen article.) -- Regards, Christian. http://www.darkkind.com |