FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ALT.CLEARING.TECHNOLOGY Version 0.11 10/17/93 Under Construction 1. How can I get access to a.c.t.? 1a. On the internet? 1b. By gopher? 1c. Through my favorite BBS? 1d. By ftp download? 1e. Through online services? 2. What is CLEAR-L? 3. Where are the achives kept? 3a. Where is the uncharter? 3b. Where are the daily records of postings to a.c.t.? 3c. What other information is stored in the archives? 4. What redistribution permissions should I expect for postings made to a.c.t? 5. What about anonymity and anonymous posting? 6. Where do I find field services? 7. Where do I find Standard Scientology Services? 9. If I am a Member In Good Standing with the Church of Scientology, should I really be reading a.c.t.? 10. Why was a.c.t. not created under the 'religion' or 'self- improvment' hierarchies of the alt.* net? 11. Are there any opposing viewpoints represented here? 12. What is ADORE? B. Technical questions. 1. Is there an online glossary of all this mumbo jumbo jargon? 1. What is the Emotional Tone Scale? 2. What is the Awareness Charateristic Chart? 3. What is the Bridge? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ A1. How do I get access to a.c.t.? a.c.t. is a standard usenet newsgroup under the alt heirarchy, therefore anyone who has access to usenet and the alt groups potentially has access to a.c.t. Some sites may not carry a.c.t. by default; some sites may refuse to carry it because of its naming convention or subject matter or personal dislike of me, or any one of many other possible reasons. If your site does get usenet and the alt groups, but does not carry a.c.t., then you should talk directly to your system administrator about including it in his news feed. If he is not getting it from HIS news feed, then you might ask him politely to talk to his upstream site to get them to carry it for him and pass it on to him. A1B. By gopher? a.c.t. is carried by almost 100 percent of the large sites across the world, including England, and Finland. This does not mean however that every small site in the known universe will be carrying it by default, even if they are carrying alt.religion.scientology. The propagation of the alt groups as a whole is only about 48 of all known sites, and a.c.t. is not carried by 100 percent of those who do carry alt. However most sites do have gopher these days, and a.c.t. is universally available to anyone who has gopher access. You will be able to read from the gopher site but not post. To use gopher, simply type gopher. You may find that your own site carries a full usenet feed through gopher even if it doesn't provide it to you via a news reader. Once inside your gopher menu, look for USENET or NEWS/WEATHER or some such thing. Follow the directories in until you reach the usenet news directories. Then look under alt/ for clearing/ and then technology. Some gopher sites hide their usenet offerings very deeply in to the gopher menu system and in very obscure places so as to discourage people from using up resources reading it. At least they can't be charged with not carrying it. I swear I found usenet in one gopher directory after looking for it 5 times over a period of an hour, and then I was never able to find it again! It is quite possible that even if you do find usenet under your own gopher site, that a.c.t may not be there. In this case you will have to use the gopher command to go to a site which does. There are many gopher sites around the United States and the world which carry a.c.t., so you should have no problem finding one and reading it there. The main way to find such a site is to use VERONICA which is usually an option with in your main gopher menu. Veronica is used to search all gopher directories for keywords like USENET NEWS etc. Choose the veronica option from within your main gopher menu and it will prompt you for the search string. Sometimes you may be presented with a list of veronica data base sites. Pick one, it doesn't really matter, they all hold the same thing. Then when prompted for the search string, enter usenet news and hit return. You will get a long list of things that all have those words in them. You want the various entries that look like USENET NEWS/ with nothing else on the line. Choose that line and gopher will move to a full screen of usenet sites at many universities around the world, including many in the United States. Pick any one and follow the signs to see if alt.clearing.technology is there. If not, back up to the usenet list menu and pick another site. The University of Michigan definitely carries a.c.t., but it sometimes is closed to outside use during peak hours. If you know of a good gopher site you can gopher directly to it, bypassing all the nonsense above. gopher gopher.msu.edu will get you to Michigan State University gopher. Pick item 6 for News/Weather, and then the appropriate item for USENET NEWS/. You will find a.c.t. there with a rather long expiration date. A1C. By BBS or Bulletin Board System Many BBS's now have usenet feeds. If your's doesn't you might consider putting the pressure on your sysop to get one, or change BBS's. If your BBS does have a usenet feed, but does not carry a.c.t, a polite note to your sysop should be all that is necessary to get it. A1D. By ftp download. a.c.t. weekly archives are kept at ftp.rahul.net/pub/homer/archives/*.act Please see discussion on Question 3. A2. What is CLEAR-L? CLEAR-L is a one way listserv e-mail gateway to a.c.t. This means that mail sent to CLEAR-L will be posted automatically to a.c.t but not visa versa. Those who are signed up to the CLEAR-L list will also receive postings made to CLEAR-L in their e-mail. CLEAR-L is a strictly limited resource provided by myself and the kind people at the University of Alberta. If you wish to avail yourself of CLEAR-L, you will find complete instructions in the a.c.t UNCHARTER which is stored at the archive site, ftp.rahul.net/pub/homer/faqs/UNCHARTER.MEMO A3. Where are the archives kept? a.c.t archives and related material are kept in directories underneath my home ftp directory, ftp.rahul.net/pub/homer Please read the README file in the home directory as it explains compression and decompression and redistribution rights for the material there. At present the following subdirectories exist. archives/*.act weekly archives of postings to a.c.t. homer/*.* Personal postings from myself leohtc/*.* Leonardo's series from The Heretic faqs/*.* This faq list, plus other faq type postings. The uncharter is kept in the faq directory under, ftp.rahul.net/pub/homer/faqs/UNCHARTER.MEMO There will be more directories as time passes. If you wish to have something stored there which you think is of importance to a.c.t, please send it to me for consideration. It needn't be pro clearing to get into the archives, but it should be quality. Homer