General Questions

What is the alt.backrubs newsgroup about?

This newsgroup functions primarily as a place for discussion of massage techniques and principles, and issues related to massage including bodywork therapies, e.g. Rolfing. Although you'd be wasting energy by posting messages seeking sexual partners here, there have been some interesting discussions about areas of overlap between massage and sex. See the archive for collections of such postings.

Details about the archive appear in question 5.1.2. Question 5.2 has a list of other network resources, e.g. newsgroups, with related material.

I have a question not answered here. Should I post?

If you think your question is relevant to alt.backrubs (see question 1.1 for a description of what alt.backrubs is about) and is not answered in any of the six parts of this frequently asked questions list then your question may have already have been answered and placed in the archive. The archive contains over 3 Megabytes of postings along with some indexes. Many of the answers in this document have been adapted from postings in the archive, it usually provides more detailed answers to those questions. Many questions that are answered in the archive do not appear here. You'll have to decide for yourself if the archive has the answer to your question but you will usually benefit by exploring it.

If you're not sure where to look for an answer to your question then check out the lists of related network resources in section 5. There is information there about what newsgroups to read, to post to, as well as what essays and lists are available electronically to help answer your health and body related questions. Question 5.2.4 is the most general.

If you do ask a question by posting please remember to request that replies be sent to you by mail so that you can summarize them for the rest of us. Be sure to say something like `please reply by mail, I'll post as summary,' or it is likely that someone will think that you want replies by mail only because you are too lazy to read the group -- I kid you not. When it comes time to post your summary take some time to actually summarize the mail you received. It isn't necessary to specify who gave each answer or to quote them exactly. Do not concatenate all the messages into one posting! By taking the time to make a proper summary you are helping all the present and future readers of alt.backrubs. That group includes the people who took time to write to you. Much more advice about how to best work with the Usenet community can be found in question 1.4.

The archive is the subject of question 5.1.2 (in section 5).

Acronyms

Acronyms peculiar to alt.backrubs:
- CMT = Certified MT (see RMT)
- CTS = Carpal Tunnel Syndrome
- LITA = Look In The alt.backrubs Archive
- MT = Massage Therapist (Massage Technician, in some places)
- RMT = Registered MT (usually abbreviated to MT)
- RSI = Repetitive Stress Injury
- TCM = Traditional Chinese Medicine
- TMJ = dysfunction of the jaw (temporomandibular joint pain-dysfunction syndrome)
Organizations:
- ACCET = USA Accrediting Council for Continuing Education and Training
- ABMP = Associated Bodywork and Massage Professionals
- AMTA = American Massage Therapy Association
- AOBTA = American Oriental Body Therapy Association
- AMR'TA = Alchemical Medicine Research and Teaching Association
- CCA = USA Career College Association Accrediting Commission on Trade and Technical Schools
- COMTAA = USA Commission on Massage Training Accreditation/Approval
- NCETMB = USA National Certification Exam for Therapeutic Massage and Bodywork
- NCBTMB = USA National Certification Board for Therapeutic Massage and Bodywork
Other acronyms and abbreviations you should be familiar with:
- ETLA = Extended TLA, i.e. a four letter acronym
- FAQ = Frequently Asked Question (this is also the traditional acronym for a list of FAQs)
- FAQL = Frequently Asked Question List
- FTP = File Transfer Protocol
- GMT = Greenwich Mean Time
- ISBN = International Standard Book Number
- TLA = Three Letter Acronym
- TM = Trademark
- URL = Universal Resource Locator, a computer network address standard developed in conjunction with the World Wide Web
- USA = United States of America
- WAIS = Wide Area Information Servers (a type of automated index of documents available via the Internet)
- WWW = World Wide Web (a global network of hypermedia documents connected by links implemented using the Internet)
- :-) = An emoticon often used to express humorous intent or happiness, also used to abate a strong statement so as not to offend
- :) = ditto (but less formal)
`Please, sir, I want some more.'
For more definitions see Frequently Asked Questions about Usenet which is regularly posted to news.announce.newusers and news.answers. There is a list of resources to help you understand acronyms at URL http://www.yahoo.com/Reference/Acronyms.

Help! I'm new to this whole Usenet/'net thing

The following two newsgroups contain some excellent introductory postings: news.announce.newusers and news.newusers.questions.

Whoever is providing you with access to Usenet should be able to give you some basic introduction or instruction. This isn't because they are necessarily nice, but because if they don't at least attempt to tell you the basics then they can't blame you when you do something awful. If they haven't offered you any advice or instruction then ask someone responsible for some pointers to useful information. I advise you not to ask another newcomer -- that is a great way to propagate misconceptions.

There are many introductory books about the global Internet and Usenet. If you learn well from books then you might consider buying one or borrowing it from a library. Some books are available for free, others are available for sampling online as an enticement to get you to buy them. For a fuller discussion of such books see a) the misc.books.technical newsgroup, b) the Unofficial Internet Book List at the rtfm.mit.edu FTP site (filename book-list in the directory pub/usenet/news.answers/internet-services). See question 5.2.4 for more information about the rtfm.mit.edu FTP site.

Anonymous Posts

There isn't a lot of tolerance for anonymous posting in alt.backrubs. This intolerance is often expressed by people not following up or responding to anonymous posts. If there is some reason you must post using an anonymous service you will find people more co-operative if you give your real name and e-mail address as well as explaining why you must use the service. In case you must remain anonymous you are advised to mention the reason in your post. There is some discussion of this in the anonymous.posts file in the archive (see question 5.1.2).

What should I do about 'net abuse (spams, scams & ads)?

You've just seen a chain letter, or spam, or an unsolicited and apparently inappropriate advertisement, posted to alt.backrubs. You are enraged. What should you do? First, take a deep breath and exhale slowly; Calm down, this is only Usenet! :) Resolve not to post a message about this to alt.backrubs -- you'll just annoy the rest of us more. Next, read the resources listed here and choose a moral and legal course of action (or inaction) then carry it out.

I don't like to duplicate information that is available in more general frequent postings. Instead, I direct you to the following three documents. This list was current as of 9 October 1995.

Answers to Frequently Asked Questions about Usenet Posted to news.announce.newusers and news.answers by Mark Moraes <netannounce@deshaw.com>.
DRAFT FAQ: Advertising on Usenet: How To Do It, How Not To Do It Posted to news.announce.newusers, news.admin.misc, misc.entrepreneurs, news.admin.net-abuse.misc and news.misc by Joel K. Furr <jfurr@acpub.duke.edu>
Help Prevent SPAM in Our Lifetime http://reality.sgi.com/employees/ghelms/adcomplain.html
Blacklist of Internet Advertisers maintained by Axel Boldt <axel@uni-paderborn.de> http://math-www.uni-paderborn.de/~axel/blacklist.html

If you know what has become of the following short-lived frequent postings please tell me.

news.admin.net-abuse FAQ (1/2) and news.admin.net-abuse FAQ (2/2)

The latest copy I have was posted to news.admin.net-abuse.misc, alt.current-events.net-abuse, alt.answers and news.answers by Scott Southwick <scotty@ancho.ucs.indiana.edu> at 23 Aug 1995 22:36:17 GMT and 23 Aug 1995 22:37:18 GMT (with Message-IDs <41gah1$m19@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu> and <41gaiu$m6s@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu>), respectively.

kjartan@ii.uib.no