Here is a draft version of an article that I intend to post periodically (maybe weekly, maybe monthly) in the Quake groups until the cross-posted traffic in alt.games.quake drops down significantly. It explains how and why all Quake players should move to the new rec.games.computer.quake.* groups and stop posting in the old group. Some people will probably object that some parts of this article are biased, but I think that nothing is wrong as long as you keep in mind that the best way to ensure that all Quake players can freely discuss Quake and read each other's articles is to make sure that nobody is lost in the old group.

Please send your comments and suggestions to me by e-mail. I will try to update this article as soon as possible and include the suggestions that I will have received.

How to move to rec.games.computer.quake.*

Revision 0.1, by Raphael Quinet, 1996-04-15

1. Why Quake players should move to rec.games.computer.quake.*

As you probably know, the "official" newsgroups for Quake are now rec.games.computer.quake.announce, r.g.c.q.editing and r.g.c.q.misc, the latter replacing the old Quake group (alt.games.quake). They have a better propagation, which means that more Quake players can read the articles posted in these groups. They also have a better structure, with separate groups for distinct topics (two new groups should be added soon: r.g.c.q.playing and r.g.c.q.servers) and a moderated r.g.c.q.announce group from which everybody can get reliable information. Furthermore, id Software recommends that you use r.g.c.q.misc for posting bug reports about the deathmatch test version of Quake (QTEST1).

If you didn't know all that, I suggest that you read the article titled ``FAQ: replacement of a.g.q by rec.games.computer.quake.*'', which is posted weekly in these groups and is also available for download from the main Quake ftp site:

   ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/pub/idgames2/docs/agqr_faq

Now that the r.g.c.q.* groups are available almost everywhere and most Quake players have moved to these groups, we must ensure that the newcomers are not lost in the old group. Unfortunately, the large number of cross-postings between the new and old group Quake groups make this difficult, because the articles cross-posted from other groups increase the traffic in alt.games.quake and make it appear as a very active group, although lots of Quake players cannot read it.

We should try to reduce the proportion of cross-postings (currently 80%) so that the traffic in the old group drops down; this will also increase the visibility of the FAQs and pointers which are currently lost among the other articles. This will help the newcomers who will see more easily that they should move to the r.g.c.q.* groups. Some Usenet sites do not replace or remove an old group unless its traffic drops down or some local users request the change explicitely, so reducing the cross-postings will also help the users of these sites.

2. What you can do

Here are a few simple things that you can do if you want to help. Usenet is cooperative by nature and the old group will be successfully replaced by the new ones if and only if all readers of these groups contribute. This has worked very well for other newsgroups which have moved from alt.* to another hierarchy and now it's up to you to make sure that it works for the Quake groups too.

• Whenever you post a followup to an article which is cross-posted to alt.games.quake, include a "Followup-To:" line in the header of your article, directing future followups out of the old group. If everybody does that, the long cross-posted threads will quickly move out of a.g.q. The only thing you need to do is to include the same groups on the "Followup-To:" line as in the "Newsgroups:" line, except for alt.games.quake which should always be removed from the list. For example:

      Newsgroups: rec.games.computer.quake.misc,alt.games.quake
      Followup-To: rec.games.computer.quake.misc
  

  Or if the article is cross-posted to other groups:

      Newsgroups: rec.games.computer.quake.misc,alt.games.quake,alt.games.apogee
      Followup-To: rec.games.computer.quake.misc,alt.games.apogee
  

  Note that using the "Followup-To:" line only gives an indication to other people, but they can always change the list of groups if they want to. Moving groups is a cooperative effort and it will only work if the members of the Quake community help and inform each other.
• Inform people about the replacement of a.g.q by the new Quake groups and tell the other readers that they should stop posting in the old group in order to reduce the duplication of resources and make it easier for newcomers to move to the r.g.c.q.* groups.
  You can explain this in the body of your article or combine this with a short note informing readers about where followups to your article should go. Here are two examples:

    [please post followups in r.g.c.q.misc only, because a.g.q is obsolete;
     see ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/pub/idgames2/docs/agqr_faq for more information]
  
    [a.g.q removed from followups because it has been replaced by r.g.c.q.misc]
  

• 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. You could also tell your news admin to disable local posting to alt.games.quake by setting its entry in the active file to ``n''. This will help the other users at your site who do not know that a.g.q has been replaced.
• If necessary, explain to your news administrator (or other people) that there is nothing wrong about simply removing alt.games.quake even if it is not aliased to rec.games.computer.quake.misc (e.g. if your site doesn't use aliases). As long as the three r.g.c.q.* groups exist at your site, nobody will be deprived from the information and discussions about Quake, so the old group can be safely removed.
• If you hear about some site which does not get the r.g.c.q.* groups yet (usually, these sites don't have a.g.q either), tell the users of this site to e-mail their news administrator and request the new Quake groups. It is very likely that any site which does not have the r.g.c.q.* groups by now is a site whose news administrator does not create groups unless some local users request them, so it is important to tell the users of this site to get in touch with their news administrator.
  If you need more information, the official results of the Usenet vote and the charters of the three r.g.c.q.* groups are available in:

    ftp://ftp.uu.net/usenet/news.announce.newgroups/rec/rec.games.computer.quake
  

That's it. Please send your comments to me directly by e-mail. Do not post a followup in the newsgroups, because the discussion about this article would not be really on-topic. Also, I will be able to reply faster if you e-mail me than if I have to wait for your article to appear on my news server.