Sonador Automated Usenet Service FAQ

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	The Sonador Automated Usenet Service allows you to read and post to Usenet 
newsgroups through email.  This service is perfect for people who are limited
to email usage, such as Juno customers and corporate slaves, or for people who
just don't have time to sift through Usenet with a news reader.  The concept is
simple:  Your favorite groups are searched for keywords, and any matching articles
are emailed to you.  Want to reply to an article?  Replying will automatically
post your reply to that newsgroup.  Best of all, the price is from back in the
pre-history of the internet:  Free.

	The engine behind this service is proprietary software developed by
Sonador.  Keyword searches are accomplished using Perl regular expression pattern 
matching.  Keywords are ORed against message bodies and headers.  Expanded boolean
capabilities and other such fancy functions are planned for future revisions.

	The news server is polled once each day, at around 02:00 Eastern Standard time.  
Currently, the complete run for all accounts takes four to six hours.  If you seem to 
get blocks of emailed posts every couple hours, it could be related to the program 
restarting after an unplanned reboot.  If this happens frequently, there could be a 
grander problem we are unaware of... please let us know.

Is it really free?
	Yes.  It will remain free until the costs outstrip my desire for philanthropy, 
or until it is massively abused.

What newsgroups do you support?
	Some 22,000+.  More than I can read in a weekend.  If you are expecting traffic 
from a group, but the group appears to be empty or non-existent, write to the 
admininstrator address and let me know.  Popular groups such as alt.2600.*, alt.binaries.*, 
soc.culture.*, misc.jobs.* are all here.  A complete and fairly up-to-date list may be
found at http://www.sonador.com/News/list.html

Why the five group limit?
	The five group limit is a function of my quirky programming.  Also, as the service 
grew, I decided that it was a reasonable way to keep CPU usage lower by keeping one account 
from hogging the socket reader.  Get around the limit by creating multiple accounts.

Where are my keywords matched in the post?
	The entire post is compared.  This means everything from the first header line to the last
line the poster typed in.  So, effectively you could match every post with a keyword of
"Newsgroups:".  You may optionally make keyword matches against a single header line.  This is 
a requirement for predominantly binary groups, to keep down on traffic from the news server.

How can I edit my account?
	You can't.  You have two options; send your changes to the administrator account, 
or delete and restore your account yourself.  Option two is highly reccommended, as 
option one may take time (for me to get to it).  To delete your account, send a blank
email to autonews_bot@sonador.com with a subject of "Delete ##############" (your account
number).  Don't worry about sending it wrong, if it doesn't understand, it will tell you
so.

I got a rude email when I tried to authenticate(create) or delete my account ... whyfor?
	You got a canned email that I thought was hilarious at the time, and still find 
funny enough to not delete.  Your email address you set up your account with is not 
the same address you are sending the email from.  It checks (case insensitive), and 
if there is a mismatch, tells you about it.  This keeps your Unkl Lou from sending 
porn to your grandma.

Can I reply to the Usenet emails I get?
	Yes.  Simply replying to the emailed posting will automatically post it to that one
newsgroup.  You cannot cross post through the service.  The only requirement to post
a reply, is to leave the "Newsbot Control Block" line intact.  To reply to the author
of the post, find the author's address at the bottom of the email.  Binary posting is
not supported.  When you post a reply, "NOSPAM" will be automatically inserted into your
email address, to prevent spamming email harvesters from adding you to their list.  You may
not post to newsgroups if you are not a subscriber of this service, or if you are not 
subscribed to the group you are posting to.  If there is a problem with your posting, the
Agent will tell what its specific heartburn is.

Can I get more information and even sign up strictly by email?
	Obviously.

How do I sign up by email?
	Like So:
Send an email to autonews_bot@sonador.com, with the exact subject (without quotes) of 
"Step Two, Account Creation".  In the message body, you must have:
Name: your name
Email: your email

exactly like that.  Then, for each group you want, up to five, follow this recipie:

Newsgroup1: my.newsgroup
Keywords1: first, second, multiple word phrase, third, and so on
Header1: (To, From, Subject, blank)
Max1: 10

The Newsgroups#: line will take one group each line.  The Kewords#: line will take
all the keywords you like, separated by commas.  If you want everything, put the
Keywords#: in, but nothing after it.  The Max#: line represents how many emails you
want per day from this group.  Leave it blank for the default (999).  The Header# line
may be any valid nntp header, and may be left blank.  Including a header line will cause
keyword comparisons to be made only against this header line, and not the message body.
If you are subscribing to a binary group, please include a "Header#: Subject"  line 
(if you don't, I will add it for you), so that the news reader does not download a million
megabytes of mime-encoded stuff, looking for the keyword "hubbahubba".

Send the email, and you will get a reply verifying what you reqested.  Reply to this email,
and you will then be emailed a confirmation notice.  Once you have the confirmation, you
are done.  You should start seeing emails in a day or so from the News Agent.


Any more detailed questions?  Write to the administrator address below...

Contacts:
Feedback form: http://www.sonador.com/News/feedback.html
	A web form for requests or critiques.
Administrator: mailto:autonews_admin@sonador.com 
	The Administrator is more or less a real person.
Account Creation: mailto:autonews_bot@sonador.com
	The Newsbot handles account creation and deletion only, and is very particular about it.
Post replys: mailto:autonews_agent@sonador.com
	The Agent reads newsgroups, sends email to you, and handles your reply posts.
This FAQ: mailto:autonews_info@sonador.com
	The Info address is an autoresponder.
Homepage: http://www.sonador.com/News/
