Welcome to...

                    A L T . G A L A C T I C - G U I D E

This is the FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) for alt.galactic-guide.
Currently, it's being written by Paul Clegg, more commonly known as
"...Paul", or "cleggp@rpi.edu".  I am (was) the Head Honcho of Heverything,
but people protested, so now I'm not.

I am, however, something of the organizer around here, and have been
considering this little newsgroup as my personal domain...  But that's a
bit selfish and megalomaniacal, so I won't say that.

This newsgroup was created for the sole purpose of allowing uninterrupted
communication between people involved in Project Galactic Guide.  What is
this project, you ask?  Let me tell you...

It all started back in, oh, November of '91, in the alt.fan.douglas-adams
newsgroup.  I said "Hey, why don't we create a REAL guide to the galaxy?"
and everyone else said "Sounds good, let's do it!".  So, with great fervor
we started working on the skeletal structure of Project Galactic Guide,
although at that time, we often called it "The HitchHiker's Guide the Known
Galaxy".  It was originally supposed to be about REAL things (as opposed to
made-up things), but just recently we broke down and decided to incorporate
EVERYTHING.  So, now we'll take humorous entries about fictitious things
(done in the Douglas Adams style, of course), and humorous entries about real
things (also done in the Douglas Adams style, of course).

The current state of affairs, as I see it, is this.  We've basically agreed
on the exact format of the Guide entries, but we're still at some odds as to
how we plan to store and distribute those entries, and how we're going to
manage it all coherently.

The articles that are accepted are stored in chronological order within
archive files, each archive file containing 25 accepted Guide entries.
These are stored on FTP sites to be d/led (that's downloaded) by those who
want them.  Several people, I believe, are working on writing article reader
programs, which will allow the automated perusal of whatever entries you
happen to have copies of at the time.  There is also another program in the
concept stage, which would take the new "packets" of entries and toss them
into the proper files, depending on what kind of reader you have.  See
below for a listing of what Guide programs are available for various
platforms. 

What HAS been decided on is the format of the entries, which is contained
in a message that I occassionally repost now and then, particularly when
someone asks for it.

Some commonly asked questions, and my commonly issued replies:

     Q:  Is there an FTP site where I can download a copy of the Guide?
     A:  Yes.  At the moment, the only "official" anonymous FTP site where
         copies of The Guide! reader software and articles reside is:
         
         Lexical:    vela.acs.oakland.edu
         Numeric:    141.210.10.2
         
         ... in the subdirectory pub/galactic-guide.  Beneath this directory
         are additional subdirectories for each of the particular computer
         programs, and general Hitchhiker's Guide fan stuff.  There is a
         separate FAQ file on the PGG FTP which describes these directories
         and the files they contain.
         
         BEFORE YOU GET ANY FILES, BE SURE TO TYPE: binary
         Nimble-minded folk always complain about corrupt or damaged files,
         and it's usually because they try to receive binary files while
         still in ASCII format.
 
         There is also atlas.physchem.chemie.uni-tuebingen.de, in the
         subdirectory /pub/mirrors/The_Guide.  The numerical address for
         the German FTP site is 134.2.71.63.

     Q:  Is this newsgroup about Adams' "HitchHiker's Guide" Trilogy?
     A:  No, you goof, read the first half of the message.  If you want
         "real" Douglas Adams, try newsgroup alt.fan.douglas-adams.

     Q:  Is there a FAQ for this newsgroup?
     A:  Yes.

     Q:  Can I help out with the Guide?
     A:  Sure thang.  Everyone is invited (in fact, urged) to write articles
         for the project.  We (the editors) urge you to try to follow the
         set format for writing your articles.  Then just email the articles
         to either myself (cleggp@rpi.edu), or to Steve Baker, the second
         editor, (swbaker@vela.acs.oakland.edu).  Our standard process is to
         reply to you that we've received the article, then we edit it, and
         send an edited copy back to you to verify that we haven't screwed up
         any of your article too much.  We reserve the right to "toss out"
         articles that a) don't make sense, b) aren't hoopy enough, and/or
         c) are very irrelevant.

     Q:  What's the deal with copyrights and Douglas Adams' material?
     A:  We don't want you to regurgitate Adams' material.  Not only is this
         very unoriginal, it's also known as plagiarism.  (Unless DNA himself
         decides to write it! :)  Please do NOT copy other people's work or
         ideas.  We don't want the project stopped because we violated some
         silly copyright law!

Well, that's about it, really...  If you have any questions, post them
publicly here on alt.galactic-guide, or if it can't wait, or if it's too
small to waste bandwidth, you can e-mail them to cleggp@rpi.edu, and I'll
get to them probably within 24 hours, if not sooner.

...Paul