FAQ: replacement of a.g.q by rec.games.computer.quake.*

Last edited on: $Date: 1996/04/18 23:09:13 $
Revision: $Revision: 1.12 $

1) What is this FAQ?

This is a list of answers to some questions that have been posted several times in the Quake newsgroups about the purpose of these groups. This is not a FAQ about the game itself. If you want some info about Quake, you should read the Quake Mini-FAQ which is posted weekly in rec.games.computer.quake.announce.

Many people have posted questions about the move from alt.games.quake to rec.games.computer.quake.{announce, editing, misc}. Although the answers to these questions have been posted several times, they had never been summarised and they were often misunderstood. This FAQ will hopefully provide these answers in a clear and consise way and will help you to get a better understanding of the situation.

I will accept any additions or corrections to the answers provided in this FAQ. Comments from those who support or are opposed to the move to the new groups are equally welcome. They will be added to this FAQ as long as they provide accurate and helpful answers. Send your suggestions to me at kapi@gamers.org.

Several Quake players and news administrators have provided answers and suggestions for this FAQ. Most of the answers have been written by Raphaël Quinet, so blame him if you think that some of them are wrong. :-) If you contribute to this FAQ, you can choose to have your name added to this hall of flame.

2) Why did the Quake groups move to rec.games.computer.quake.*?

• Propagation. Since there are no formal rules for creating and removing groups in the alt.* hierarchy, some sites only carry a limited set of alt.* groups, or do not carry any of them because of the additional workload they put on the administrator. On the other hand, most sites carry groups in the rec.* hierarchy. Last year, the readers of a.g.q chose to move to the rec.* hierarchy in order to reach a wider audience and make sure that nobody is deprived from the information about Quake.
• Better structure. Three groups are available in the r.g.c.q.* hierarchy (.announce, .editing, .misc), each with its own set of topics, so that readers can easily choose the articles in which they are interested. Two additional groups should be created soon in order to cover the new topics that appeared since the test version of Quake was released.
• Presence of a moderated r.g.c.q.announce group. This is very useful for those who don't have the time to browse the discussion groups or who pay for their newsfeed and only want to read the important announcements in a low-traffic group. Also, the articles are checked by the moderator before they are posted, so the information is more accurate.
• Room for expansion. A proposal to create two additional groups (r.g.c.q.playing, r.g.c.q.servers) is currently under way and these groups will get the same propagation as the existing ones. This would not be possible if the groups were created under alt.games.quake, because it is now very difficult to create a group in the alt.* hierarchy with a good propagation. This is a consequence of the expansion of the Internet in the last year(s) and the increased number of people trying to abuse the freedom of creating alt.* groups by creating ``joke'' groups, thus causing some admins to ignore all future requests for groups.

3) Why was it necessary to replace a.g.q by r.g.c.q.misc instead of simply adding the new groups and keeping the old one?

• Avoiding the duplication of resources. Keeping groups in two hierarchies would lead to a large number of cross-postings or information posted twice. This is a waste of resources and of reader's time. Besides, cross-posts between a single group and a hierarchy of several groups (each with its own charter) would increase the number of articles that are posted in the wrong part of the new hierarchy and thus reduce the benefits of having a well-structured set of groups.
• Helping the newcomers. It is unfortunately easier to find the old group than the new ones, because the groups are sorted in alphabetical order and r.g.c.q.* is located further down in the list of groups and deeper in the hierarchy (five levels instead of three). Keeping the old group would imply that some newcomers would not find the new ones easily and would be lost for several days or weeks in a.g.q before they can find the FAQ and other useful documents in r.g.c.q.*, as well as getting help from more experienced readers.
• Ensuring that everybody can get the information about Quake. Since a.g.q had a spotty propagation (this was already the case before it was replaced by r.g.c.q.misc), people who only read that group do not get all articles and would miss some information. Also, because many people can get the r.g.c.q.* groups and cannot get a.g.q, they would be deprived from the information posted in the old group (unless all articles are cross-posted, but then we are back to the duplication of resources).

4) Who decided what, and when?

• The creation of new groups for Quake was discussed in alt.games.quake in August 1995. A mailing list (quake-proposal) was created for this purpose and after a few weeks (on the 19th of September), a formal Request For Discussion (RFD) was posted to all related groups. On the 20th of October, this was followed by a Call For Votes (CFV), asking the readers of alt.games.quake to vote for or against the move to the new groups. The results were published on the 10th of November and showed that a large majority of readers (199:43) voted for the new groups. The full text of the RFD, CFV and results of the Usenet vote are available on ftp.uu.net, at the following URL: ftp://ftp.uu.net/usenet/news.announce.newgroups/rec/rec.games.computer.quake The three groups were officially created on the 8th of January by David C. Lawrence, the moderator of news.announce.newgroups.
• The replacement of a.g.q was part of the RFD for the new groups. The RFDs for rec.* groups have no direct power over the alt.* hierarchy, for which the creation and removal of groups should be discussed in alt.config. But the results of the vote give useful indications (like an opinion poll would) and are usually appreciated by the Usenet administrators who read alt.config. On the 31st of January, a double proposal was posted, including the creation of alt.games.upcoming-3d and the removal of alt.games.quake. This proposal was discussed both in alt.games.quake and alt.config. Two weeks later, a control message was sent, suggesting to alias a.g.q to r.g.c.q.misc, so that all messages would be directed to the new group automatically. As is always the case with alt.* groups, the decision of removing, aliasing or keeping the old group at each site was left up to the administrator of that site.
• The way Usenet works, regarding the creation or removal of groups, is often confusing. Several articles try to describe it and you should read them if you want more information about this. Take a look in news.announce.newusers and news.answers, and read the following articles: ``What is Usenet?'', ``What is Usenet? A second opinion.'', ``How to Create a New Usenet Newsgroup'', ``Guidelines on Usenet Newsgroup Names''. Read them in that order if possible. They will give you more information and explain things better than this FAQ. Once you have read these articles, you should also take a look at: http://www.tezcat.com/~haz1/alt/faqindex.html

5) I didn't know all that. How was I supposed to know?

If you never saw an article discussing the move to the r.g.c.q.* groups or announcing the replacement of a.g.q by r.g.c.q.misc, you probably didn't read a.g.q between August 1995 and March 1996. Or maybe you subscribed to the Quake groups after the release of the test version of Quake and you are wondering what is happening to the newsgroups (maybe you were lost in the noise that followed the release). During the RFD and CFV period last year, a lot of articles were posted in a.g.q about the creation of the new groups.

During January and February of this year, several threads of discussion were cross-posted in a.g.q and r.g.c.q.misc, proposing and then announcing the replacement of the old group by r.g.c.q.misc. If these articles have expired on your server, you can use , Alta-Vista or Excite and do a search on the following subjects: ``PROPOSALS: alt.games.upcoming-3d, removal of alt.games.quake'', ``NOTICE: removal of alt.games.quake'', ``Please move to rec.games.computer.quake.misc or alt.games.upcoming-3d''. The move to the new groups was also announced several times in the Quake Mini-FAQ and in the ``alt.games.quake FAQ'', in order to make sure that all readers were aware of this.

Between the 1st of February and the 11th of March, a total of 274 articles about the move to r.g.c.q.* were posted in various groups and 218 of them were posted or cross-posted in alt.games.quake (not counting the periodical postings of the FAQs).

6) Why do I still see alt.games.quake at my site?

• Some sites ignore all rmgroup control messages for alt.* groups and only remove a group if it had no traffic for three months or more. On these servers, the only way to make sure that alt.games.quake is removed or aliased to rec.games.computer.quake.misc is to e-mail the news administrator (usually by sending a message to the address news, newsmaster or usenet at your site) or wait until no more messages are posted in this group.
• A technical error in the second rmgroup message caused it to be ignored or rejected by most sites. This will be fixed in the next booster message, which will be sent in a few days and will again suggest that a.g.q should be aliased to rec.games.computer.quake.misc.

7) Can I do something about this? How can I help?

• If your site is still carrying alt.games.quake, you should get in touch with your news administrator and ask him/her to alias it to rec.games.computer.quake.misc, preparatory to removing it when the traffic dies down. The address of your news administrator should be something like news, newsmaster or usenet.
• Stop posting in alt.games.quake and post only in the new r.g.c.q.* groups. By posting in a.g.q, you are increasing the traffic and making it more difficult to remove the group. The traffic is decreasing, but very slowly. If you stop posting there, the traffic will drop down quickly and it will be easier for you and others to convince your news administrators that a.g.q should be replaced. If you are replying to an article which is cross-posted, make sure that you remove alt.games.quake from the list of followups.
• If your site doesn't carry any alt.* groups or has removed a.g.q and you want to support the move to the r.g.c.q.* groups, reply to the people who encourage others to stay in the old group and tell them (politely) that by doing so they are preventing you from accessing the information that is posted there. They cannot force you to switch to another provider if a better alternative is already available.

8) What other related groups exist?

• alt.games.upcoming-3d, for those who liked the atmosphere of the old alt.games.quake, with the rumours and speculation about Quake. Since the release of the test version of Quake, this kind of discussion is less frequent. However, other 3D games are under development or in project, and it can be fun to compare them or speculate about them in alt.games.upcoming-3d.
• alt.binaries.games.quake, for posting files which are related to Quake (new levels, patches, editors, etc.). This is not a discussion group, so you should only post binaries there. Discussion should take place in the other groups (use r.g.c.q.misc or r.g.c.q.editing, as appropriate).

... and remember: Quake is a game. Just a game ...