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Welcome to uk.rec.naturist
This FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) post appears about
once a month to help newcomers. It contains answers to
questions which are asked ABOUT this newsgroup (OK, some of
the questions don't get asked very often, but they should
be!) Some of the post is in the form of question and
answer, some just answers - you can make up the questions
yourself if you wish.
The newsgroup charter is:
Quote++++++++++++++++++++
Charter.
A forum or place for the discussion and exchange of
information & ideas of Naturists & Naturism in the UK and
Europe.
An unmoderated group.
Advertising permitted from any Naturist clubs or
associations. Nothing Else.
------------------Unquote
Like all UK newsgroup charters, this newsgroup's can be
found at <http://www.usenet.org.uk/> - the official Website
for Usenet in the UK. Users of the uk.* hierarchy are
recommended to subscribe to <news:uk.net.news.announce>, a
low traffic group providing info on current group creation
and management.
If you are new to Usenet, you may also find it helpful
to find out about "Netiquette" (follow link from
<http://www.usenet.org.uk/>), and how to "killfile"
material you don't wish to see, such as posts from
someone that you find irritating or a waste of time.
Some newsreader software includes this facility as
standard, or you may need an add-on. See
<http://www.hyphenologist.co.uk/killfile/killfilefaqhtm.htm>
for more information.
If you are now asking "What is/are naturists and naturism?"
then you probably ended up reading this post by accident.
Maybe you were looking for <news:uk.rec.natural-history>?
But don't go away just yet, read on and see whether we
don't have something to offer.
Simple definitions of naturism include: enjoyment of
leisure without clothes, social nudity and non-sexual
public nudity. If you have a look at
<http://www.nuff.org.uk> you'll find a better and fuller
description of what naturism is all about.
That website is authored by NUFF - the Naturist UK FactFile
- a collective of people who got together on this
newsgroup. NUFF provides information about naturism in
general and UK naturist clubs, sites, venues and beaches.
There's so much in the FactFile that NUFF can only post
monthly reports on what has changed!
That's naturism and NUFF defined, what's the point of this
newsgroup?
Stick around for a week or two and just read what people
say. This is known as "lurking". About the only time that
naturists approve of lurking.
But isn't a newsgroup a bit pointless? If naturism is
simply taking off your clothes when appropriate then why do
you need to talk about it on a newsgroup?
Good point. Some of the threads exchange information on
various clubs and beaches, or recommendations for holidays
abroad. But we also get a lot of discussion about things
related to naturism, such as UK law, the attitudes of
friends and family, "what would my boss say?" and so on.
And there's normally a thread running about some aspect of
when and where "taking off your clothes" is and is not
"appropriate"! This includes information about the
attitudes of various local Councils to beach nudity.
So it's just another bunch of anoraks mumbling about
trivia?
That's true, as far as it goes, but you could say the same
about any newsgroup - a set of people with common interests
discussing aspects of those interests.
Sounds like I should get you all to look at something
significant for a change?
A "regular" on the newsgroup, Simon Allen, suggested
that a newsgroup is like a pub. When you go into a pub for
the first time, you'll normally find several groups sitting
or standing in their habitual places, chatting loudly or
softly about their usual preoccupations. If you keep your
ears open you'll probably find one or more of the groups is
talking about something that interests you, and, if you
behave politely, you'll be able to join in the discussion.
But it's bad manners on a newsgroup, as in a pub, simply to
barge in and start telling everyone that they don't know
what they're talking about, that the pub needs a complete
redecoration or that the range of beers on offer is awful.
Introduce yourself, take your time, offer information as
well as accepting it, and you'll get a lot out of the
group. A tradition has developed of offering virtual
refreshment to newcomers ("newbies"), which, as in real
life, generally provides an opportunity for introductory
chit-chat.
OK, so if I serve my probation and nobody tells me to go
away, I can start showing my holiday pictures and so on?
Probation! It's not that bad, honest. And people will
probably tell you to go away at intervals no matter how
well- established you are as a poster. Usenet can be a
fairly abrasive place at times. But people who make a
positive contribution will get support from others, and
there isn't much sympathy for abusive posts on this group.
But PLEASE don't show us your pictures!! At least, don't
POST binaries (image files) here. In common with all UK
groups, such behaviour is off-charter and is likely to
produce complaints to your ISP. What we DO welcome is
posts that tell us about relevant Websites. So put your
photos on a Webpage and invite us in.
So, no binaries. Any other things I should know?
Well, normal Usenet "netiquette" applies. See the UK
Usenet Website at
<http://www.usenet.org.uk/usenet-information.html>
if you are unsure of the guidelines. Note that as
well as the prohibition on binaries, coding such
as MIME, UU and HTML are discouraged, since many
readers have software which can't cope with these systems.
Not only that, HTML posts in particular tend to be
"bloated", using up lots of bandwidth which annoys people
who pay good money for their telephone connection. For the
same bandwidth-conservation reason, please try not to quote
all of a post to which you are replying - just the key bits
that relate directly to your follow up.
<http://www.usenet.org.uk/ukpost.html> gives details on
configuring your newsreader to make it easy to post in
friendly ways.
The most important "extra" for this newsgroup relates to
the Charter prohibition on most advertising. Please don't
place personal ads - they cause a lot of annoyance.
<news:uk.adverts.personals> provides for most contact ads,
and there are other specialist newsgroups, such as
<news:uk.rec.photo.adverts>, where anyone after nude models
might get a more useful response than from this group.
It's become customary for new posters to introduce
themselves in their first post ("delurk"). Just brief
details of who they are, the area they live, where they go
for naturism, the URL of a homepage, etc. Entirely
voluntary, but it seems to help with keeping things
friendly and positive. Some regulars have provided potted
biographies on the NUFF website - additions are welcome.
Follow the NUFF "front page" link to "Who's Who".
Right. I've lurked for a week, and no-one has mentioned
Tanbum beach, which is my favourite. Am I allowed to ask
why not?
Of course. But you might find that only last month we had
an enormous discussion about it, and this has just expired
from your news server. We recommend that you check Google's
Usenet search engine - the "advanced" version at
<http://groups.google.com/advanced_group_search?hl=en> is
probably best for searching urn - to see what information
is already available.
We also hope that, as NUFF is regularly updated from
contributions to this newsgroup and from emails to the
collators, most people can get all the basic information
they need without having to ask for it. Saves bandwidth
again, and means the regular know-alls don't get fed up
posting the same answers every few weeks.
Is bandwidth the reason for this alphabet soup of
abbreviations and acronyms?
Using acronyms saves typing, IYSWIM (if you see what I
mean). There's also a SMALL saving in bandwidth, but YMMV
(your mileage may vary). Check out
<http://www.mindspring.com/~frites/abbr.txt> for a
listing of the commonest Usenet acronyms.
On urn (uk.rec.naturist) you'll find references to CO
(clothes-optional), GOKO (get one's kit off) and CCBN (the
Central Council for British Naturism). You'll also see OT
and RNEO.
And they mean "Ogling Totty" and "Real Naturists Enjoy
Obfuscation"?
Err, no, but they could! Like the talk in Simon Allen's
pub, threads can drift, or people can decide that although
they shouldn't, they simply HAVE to tell the world about
something that isn't strictly to do with naturism. In such
cases it's good manners to start the subject line with the
"off-topic" flag "OT". The opposite situation gave rise to
"rec.nude eyes only" - "RNEO".
<news:rec.nude> is the global equivalent of
uk.rec.naturist. It is dominated by American posters, and
many of them are there because of the word "nude" in the
newsgroup title. Assuming that nudity=>sex, people
searching for porn often use "nude" as one of their
keywords, finding rec.nude very quickly. uk.rec.naturist
was set up partly to provide a haven from such garbage, and
there's a lot less of it here than on rec.nude. RNEO
threads SHOULD be garbage-free. Every so often, a rec.nude
thread gets cross-posted to uk.rec.naturist, or vice-versa,
and we each get a chance to see what the others are like.
Of course, naturism isn't confined to UK and America.
Other naturist newsgroups include aus.culture.naturist
(Australia), free.naturism.wales (Wales - surprisingly!),
nl.naturisme (The Netherlands) and es.rec.naturismo
(Spain). Enjoy!
Last updated 2003 March 13 - killfile info amended
Compiled for the users of uk.rec.naturist and based on
material posted to that group. NOT currently posted to or
registered with news.answers or any other newsgroup or
Website. Opinions expressed or implied are those of the
author except where stated otherwise. Facts can change -
don't believe everything you read on Usenet.
Copyright assigned to NUFF - all rights reserved.
Any substantial quoting of this copyright material must
be acknowledged.
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