This method of propagating mailing list traffic has helped solve the problem of a single message being delivered to a number of people at the same site—-instead, anyone can just subscribe to the group. Also, mailing list maintenance is lowered substantially, since the moderators don't have to be constantly removing and adding users to and from the list. Instead, the people can read and not read the newsgroup at their leisure.
from "Dear Emily Postnews" by Brad Templeton Usenet "Netiquette"
There are many traditions with Usenet, not the least of which is dubbed netiquette—-being polite and considerate of others. If you follow a few basic guidelines, you, and everyone that reads your posts, will be much happier in the long run.
Signatures
At the end of most articles is a small blurb called a person's signature. In Unix this file is named .signature in the person's login directory—-it will vary for other operating systems. It exists to provide information about how to get in touch with the person posting the article, including their email address, phone number, address, or where they're located. Even so, signatures have become the graffiti of computers. People put song lyrics, pictures, philosophical quotes, even advertisements in their ".sigs". (Note, however, that advertising in your signature will more often than not get you flamed until you take it out.)
Four lines will suffice—-more is just extra garbage for Usenet sites to carry along with your article, which is supposed to be the intended focus of the reader. Netiquette dictates limiting oneself to this "quota" of four—-some people make signatures that are ten lines or even more, including elaborate ASCII drawings of their hand-written signature or faces or even the space shuttle. This is not cute, and will bother people to no end.
Similarly, it's not necessary to include your signature—-if you forget to append it to an article, don't worry about it. The article's just as good as it ever would be, and contains everything you should want to say. Don't re-post the article just to include the signature.
Posting Personal Messages
If mail to a person doesn't make it through, avoid posting the message to a newsgroup. Even if the likelihood of that person reading the group is very high, all of the other people reading the articles don't give a whit what you have to say to Jim Morrison. Simply wait for the person to post again and double-check the address, or get in touch with your system administrator and see if it's a problem with local email delivery. It may also turn out that their site is down or is having problems, in which case it's just necessary to wait until things return to normal before contacting Jim.
Posting Mail