yEnc decoder, and we'd
prefer they can access all postings even if you think the target shouldn't
be a real machine. Furthermore, the autobots that handle automatic posting
and processing all expect documents to be in uucode.

	* Document! You don't need to tell us how to turn the computer on,
but please do tell us what we're looking at, and what we can expect when
we run it. We can probably guess the rest. Accuracy helps. :-)

	 A NOTE ON DOCUMENTATION: Some people believe that documentation
consists of a single sentence saying 'this is a program for the (64|128|+4)'.
We can see that already. Documentation is telling us what the program is
supposed to do and what it needs to run, and this information is vital!
Steve Judd writes particularly nice documentation. Look for some of this
previous posts, if your news spool goes back that far (!).
	If you are sending an archive of programs, like a freeware
archive, please describe each program individually and completely as if
you had posted each one separately. A nice paragraph about the archive
itself will probably not suffice. :-)

	* Post your post instead of mailing to us. The reason is not that
we care how the post arrives, but that most modern mailers fiddle around with
files and add metacharacters and 8-bit encoding and the like. Most news
programs don't. Therefore, a post arrives more cleanly in general than does
the mail.
	IF YOU MUST MAIL, PLEASE see the section on 'How to post by Mail'.

	* Above all, remember that your post must be readable by the lowest
common denominator. Usually, that's us.

1.7 Things you should *never* do

	* Crosspost. Never ever crosspost. Announcements about your web site,
whether or not it will resurrect the 64 to millions of waiting fans
worldwide and usher in a new computing paradigm renaissance, are not binary
and therefore not germaine. Announcements about service offerings you may
be providing, or the software opus you're writing, are not binary and
therefore not germaine. (But if you have a demo, why not post that?)
Why am I picking on announcements? Announcements are, bar none, the single
most crossposted crud I can think of. STOP IT.
	Moreover, it s a waste of time for you, because if I don't approve
the post, or any of the other moderators, it won't appear in any of the other
groups you've crossposted to either. And we're not going to strip the c.b.c
group and and repost it for you. It's not our job.
	The problem is now of such an extent that c.b.c no longer accepts
crossposts, even if they *are* on-topic. Sorry. See section 2.1.1.

	* Mass post or autopost. In the past six months or so I have had two
incidences of nearly several hundred megabytes of warez end up in my mailbox
with more on the way, to the point where I had to complain to the offender's
ISP to get them to stop before my server's mail spool got overrun.
 	Not only is this unspeakably rude and impossible to process in a
timely fashion, but it also can cause denial of service problems for
moderators' ISPs and systems. Do NOT load your programs into an autoposter
and let your program blast us on autopilot. Do NOT pack everything into a
gigantic archive and bolus us at 5 gigs a post. If we can't contact you to
turn it off, we *will* make sure you're disconnected one way or another.
Please don't forget there's a human being looking at every post you send,
and that not everyone's hard disk is as big as yours.

	* Use a hopelessly munged address. We're a fairly astute bunch of
guys, and most mail munges are creative enough to be bot-foolers but still
humanly decipherable, and we have no problem with munging per se. (Heck, I
used to regularly munge mine.) However, we have received submissions from
"G{at}RT" (actual from address) that we needed more information on.
Guess what,
bucko? Into the bit bucket. If we can't contact you about your post, we will
reject it.

	* Bite your nails. Don't do it, it's a nasty habit and you look funny
gnawing on them like that.

2. Talking to c.b.c

2.1 How to post

2.1.1 The anti-spam bot

In days gone by, the c.b.c moderator job had become increasingly difficult
because of large amounts of spam to both the group and to the submission
addresses, as well as large and frequently lengthy and repeated crossposts
to groups where things should not be crossposted. This has meant many mod
mailbox overflows and many ruined keyboards bouncing on whatever delete
key is defined.

Seriously, it really has been a problem, and only because of the magnitude
have more drastic options been applied.

On August 1, 2005, this policy went into effect (which is also given in the
mini-FAQ). To successfully submit a formal submission or a question through
the request address, your post or E-mail:

 - MUST HAVE: either the words 'commodore' or 'comp.binaries.cbm',
   spelled correctly, in upper/lower case, in either your MESSAGE BODY,
   MESSAGE SUBJECT, or both. No other headers will qualify. Odds are
   your message contains these key terms already! If it doesn't, it
   will be silently DELETED.

** Simply having comp.binaries.cbm in the Newsgroups: header is not enough! **

 - MUST -NOT- HAVE: newsgroups *other* than comp.binaries.cbm in the
   Newsgroups: header, if one exists. If you crosspost, it will be
   silently DELETED. (If you do not have a Newsgroups: header, then
   the first rule applies.)

I'm sorry about the onerousness of the requirements, but they are a needed
measure to keep c.b.c running smoothly, and most legitimate submissions
should not be affected by this policy. Please note that messages that are
trapped by the anti-spam filter do not reach the moderator, so we will not
see them if your post fails any of these conditions.

2.1.2 How to post by newsreader (MOST preferred)

Simply point your newsreader to comp.binaries.cbm and post your document.
You should refer to your newsreader for the appropriate documentation. Make
sure it is uuencoded -- raw binaries never make it, and yEnc or MIME may be
eaten by our pre-processing bots.

What will happen is that your post will be sent by UUnet to the moderators,
who will then review it. This method is most preferred because mailreaders
screw around with mail they send, particularly MIME-enabled mailers. Most
newsreaders don't. See above for the rest of the process.

Please remember that your posts are pre-filtered! Read section 2.1.1.

2.1.3 How to post by mail

While we don't really encourage this, people do have trouble posting through
Usenet, especially if your only access is through Google Groups or the like.
If you really can't post by news, send your document to:

comp-binaries-cbm(at)floodgap.com

which is a mail alias maintained by Cameron Kaiser. If you use a
MIME-enabled mailer, DO NOT UUENCODE IT BECAUSE THE MAILER EATS IT! In this
case, and this case only, SEND IT AS AN ATTACHMENT. If the mailer is not
MIME-enabled, like mailx or many Elm versions, send uuencoded files as
usual.

| Even if you subscribe to Spiro's mailing list (1.1.4), you can't submit
| through it as posts do not enter the c.b.c moderation stream (and the
| list is configured to block posts except from administrators anyway). Use
| the submission address above instead.

As a point of clarity, if you intend to send your program as an attachment,
do NOT uuencode the program and send the *uucode* as the attachment. SEND
THE BINARY ITSELF! Also, try to give the attachment a semi-descriptive name.
We often strip out attachments in one big bunch, and a whole lot of similar
looking files makes it tough to match files with posts.

CompuServe seems to be problematic with uuencoded attachments. If you can
use 'NewMail', please do so. If you can't, please alert the moderators in
the message body that you're using CompuServe OldMail and we will try to
rescue the post. (Thanks to John Iannetta.)

Please remember that your posts are pre-filtered! Read section 2.1.1.

2.2 Contacts

As mentioned, it is better to mail the moderators collectively. Posting
will have the same effect as mailing, but it's better to mail because we
can differentiate between the two.

The alias

cbc-request+at+floodgap.com

will send to all members of the moderation team, including me.

If you wish to contact me personally regarding the FAQ or the large check
you'll send me or the attractive, unmarried sister you have, send mail to

ckaiser{at}floodgap.com

and I promise to ignore it for as long as I can, unless I really like your
sister or the check is good.

John Iannetta has promised me an attractive sister, but I think someone at
| Federal Express routed the crate to the Sultan of Brunei. Spiro Trikaliotis
| has not sent me one yet.

2.3 Troubleshooting

2.3.1 'My post was approved, but it hasn't appeared yet'

If you know that we approved your post, there are several reasons why it
hasn't appeared yet. The only reason under our control is that we simply
haven't injected it into the Usenet stream yet.

Normally, we post things as soon as we approve them, just to get them out of
our hair, so most of the time these reasons below apply. In such cases,
there's no one you can blame, unless you have contacts at WorldCom. Usenet
is a very haphazard mish



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