05 What questions and topics are appropriate? (Tolkien Newsgroups)
Description
This article is from the Tolkien Newsgroups FAQ, by Steuard Jensen sbjensen@midway.uchicago.edu with numerous contributions by others.
05 What questions and topics are appropriate? (Tolkien Newsgroups)
Virtually any topic related (even distantly) to Tolkien and his
works is fair game. If you post a purely "factual" question (like "How
many Ringwraiths were there?"), it's a good idea to explain why you're
asking: we periodically see questions from students who hope we will do
their homework for them, and the last thing we want to do is help
people to avoid reading the books!
It is appreciated if articles that have absolutely nothing to do
with Tolkien have subject lines beginning with "OT:" ("Off Topic"). The
Tolkien newsgroups are a sufficiently social community that threads
often do drift away from their initial topics, and while this should
not be discouraged, it is polite to label it when it happens. On the
other hand, off topic discussions that get too intense or go on too
long can interfere with others' enjoyment of the groups, and should be
avoided.
Binary files, such as images or sounds, are NEVER appropriate in a
non-binaries newsgroup. To share a binary file with people in the
Tolkien groups, you have two main options. One is to find an
appropriate newsgroup in the alt.binaries.* hierarchy, post the file
there, and then post a message here telling us where to look. Another
(more common) method is to put the file on the Web and post the URL on
the newsgroups.
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