SF-LOVERS Submission Policies
SF-LOVERS has discussed many topics, all of them related in some way to the theme of science fiction or fantasy. The topics range very widely from rewritten stories, SF and fantasy books, SF movies, and SF conventions to reviews of books, movies and television shows. The range of topics is quite wide and anyone is welcome to submit material on these or other topics of interest in this general area.
The Digest has a very large number of readers, and trivial messages are strongly discouraged due to the heavy load SF-LOVERS puts on CPU and disk space. All submissions received are automatically gatewayed into the USEnet newsgroups as well as batched for inclusion in the Digest. All messages that appear in the Digest are edited for spelling, brevity, clarity, and readability. Every attempt is made to preserve the intent, wording and content of the original message.
SF-LOVERS Digest is a copyrighted publication. It may be freely printed, copied or redistributed as long as it is copied in its entirety with all headers, trailers, credits, copyright notices and other identifying information completely intact. All rights to all material published within the Digest remain with the author and may not be used in any other publication without permission of the author. All materials published in the Digest are assumed to automatically have an implied copyright date as given in the "Date" field if no copyright notice is explicitly given.
Although each issue of the Digest is separated into different topics, it is not possible to get only the "Films" digests, or only the "Books" digests, or any other combination. The Digest is a magazine, and like any other magazine you might subscribe to, sometimes the issue is uninteresting and you simply discard it.
When submitting a message to SF-Lovers, please keep in mind the following:
 | Be aware that not everyone has the same screen as you do; Please keep
the length of lines to approximately 72 characters for easier
readability.| Be sure to attribute all quotes from previous messages as carefully
and completely as possible to avoid confusion. Lines quoted from
previous message should have one or more ">"'s prepended to the line.
Each successive ">" indicates one more nested level of quoted message.
Example: |
foo@bar.edu writes:
>bamf@zap.org writes:
>>This is what bamf@zap wrote...
>This is what foo@bar wrote...
Always remember that there is a live human being at the other end of
the wires. In other words, please write your replies with the same
courtesy you would use in talking to someone face-to-face. | Try to recognize humor and irony in postings. Tone of voice does not
carry in ASCII print so humorous intent may not be obvious. More
destructive and vicious arguments have been caused by this one fact of
net existence than any other. It will help if satiric/ironic/humorous
comments are marked with the "smiley face," :-) | When requesting information such as the name of a book or author, it
is considered polite and proper to request all replies to be sent to
you rather than to the list at large. After you have collected the
information, post a summary to the list. | Some people may not have read the book or seen the movie, television
show, play or whatever you are writing about. Any message which
reveals significant details of the plot should be flagged with the
word "SPOILER" in its subject line or in the body of the message.
Please be considerate of others and don't spoil their fun by giving
away key elements of a plot without some warning. Don't ruin the
surprises. | Don't be angry or upset if no one responds to your message. There are
a number of reasons why messages may go unanswered - it may be that
the subject is a personal taste of your own, an obscure work or others
may simply not yet have read the book or seen the movie. Also, it may
be that the subject has recently been heavily discusses just before
you subscribed and no one wishes to continue discussing the topic.
Note that it is probably a good idea to retrieve the last few issues
of the Digest to see what topics have recently been discussed before
sending in your first post. | Do not include large portions of text taken from a book, magazine,
newspaper or other copyrighted source. This is illegal unless you
have written permission from the author and/or the publisher. If you
wish to discuss something that has appeared in a copyrighted work
(such as a newspaper article) summarize the content of the article and
refer to the original article so that others can read it if
interested. (Example: In an article titled "Asimov Speaks" which
appeared in the November 1991 issue of Analog...) | Please choose your use of words carefully when writing. Particularly
avoid the use of profanity. The Digest is read by a large, varied
readership and not everyone reading it may share your moral values.
Remember also, that the person reading the Digest may be a minor. | Please keep your message on a single subject. | Messages of a commercial nature or for personal gain are not
acceptable nor are messages that request or condone activities which
are illegal in the United States.
| |
Remember, I remain the final arbiter of what goes into the Digest and what doesn't. If I believe that your message is offensive, violates local laws or does not meet other such criteria, your message will not be published in the Digest. Due to the large volume of mail I receive, I cannot respond to everyone with reasons why their message does not appear. If you have specific questions, please contact me at the contact address. Please enclose a copy of the message in question so that I can refer back to it.
Each issue of the Digest as well as each individual message has a "Reply-To:" header field which indicates where replies to that message or Digest should be sent. Please be careful to observe this convention and send your messages to the correct address. By following this simple procedure you help facilitate the gatewaying of messages between the Digest and the USEnet newsgroups and make it easier for everyone to follow the discussions. It is also desirable that you edit the "Subject:" header to indicate the actual topic of the message.
The Digest is gatewayed into several different USEnet groups. In order to facilitate traffice between the Digest and the USEnet groups, messages should be sent to the correct address for that topic. Therefore, submissions for the digest are to be sent to one of the addresses from the list given below. Please choose the group that comes closest to the discussion area of your message. Other addresses may become available at a later date.
| Address | Description |
|---|---|
| sf-lovers-written@sflovers.org | Discussions of written SF, and fantasy in books, magazines and other written sources |
| sf-lovers-tv@sflovers.org | Discussions of SF, horror and fantasy on tv |
| sf-lovers-movies@sflovers.org | Discussions of SF, horror and fantasy movies |
| sf-lovers-misc@sflovers.org | Discussions of SF, horror and fantasy that do not fit into the other categories |
Often, when composing messages, people will resort to a number of various conventions in order to get their message across. The use of the "smiley face" is one such example used to indicate a humorous post. There are a number of abbreviations that are often used in messages. While a complete list or abbreviations is probably impossible here is a list of common abbreviations used:
| AFAIK | - | "As Far As I Know" |
| BTW | - | "By the way" |
| FRP | - | "Fantasy Role-Playing" |
| FAQ | - | "Frequently Asked Question" |
| FTL | - | "Faster than light" |
| FWIW | - | "For what it's worth" |
| FYI | - | "For your information" |
| IIRC | - | "If I remember correctly" |
| IMAO | - | "In my arrogant opinion" |
| IMHO | - | "In my humble (honest) opinion" |
| ISBN | - | "International Standard Book Number" |
| POV | - | "Point of view" |
| ROTF | - | "Rolling on the floor" |
| ROFL | - | "Rolling on floor, laughing" |
| RPG | - | "Role playing games" like Dungeons and Dragons |
| YMMV | - | "Your mileage may vary" |
| WRT | - | "with respect to" |
And finally, when in doubt - ask. I am always available at SF-LOVERS-REQUEST@SFLOVERS.ORG. If you have a question as to the appropriateness of a message, what address to send it to, a special request or any other question related to the Digest or the services provided, please don't hesitate to send me mail and ask.
