11 When should I "cross-post" to multiple newsgroups? (Tolkien Newsgroups)
Description
This article is from the Tolkien Newsgroups FAQ, by Steuard Jensen sbjensen@midway.uchicago.edu with numerous contributions by others.
11 When should I "cross-post" to multiple newsgroups? (Tolkien Newsgroups)
Generally, you should post an article to the single most appropriate
group: a question about _The Hobbit_ is more appropriate on
rec.arts.books.tolkien than on rec.arts.books. However, there are cases
when several groups are appropriate: a discussion of the influence of
Tolkien's faith on his writings could be interesting to readers of both
soc.religion.christian.roman-catholic and rec.arts.books.tolkien.
(Cases in which more than two or three groups are truly appropriate are
extremely rare!)
In such cases, it is almost always better to "cross-post" the
article to multiple groups than to post separately to each. To do
this, list all of the relevant groups together on the "Newsgroups:"
line, separated by commas but _no_ spaces (many posts here list
"Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien,rec.arts.books.tolkien"). Cross-posting
has several advantages, the most important being that responses to a
cross-posted article are also cross-posted. That ensures that everyone
involved in the discussion sees every reply.
Some internet service providers (notably AOL) misguidedly forbid
cross-posting, probably because _inappropriate_ cross-posting is very
bad netiquette and is often used to "spam" many groups at once. If you
have this problem, it may be better to choose just one "best" group for
your post than to post separate copies to multiple groups.
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