Online Stuff

This page is your guide to Better Biking through the Internet. Herewith:

Those new to the Internet could do worse than to read Netiquette Guidelines, a "Request for Comments" (RFC) document (they don't really want your comments; the name RFC is an historical oddity). (Those old to the Internet could do worse than give it a read, too, but what are the chances of that happening?) This document gives good advice about how to behave on mailing lists and newsgroups-- much of it common sense, but the kind of common sense that takes most people a painful process to arrive at. Avoid the pain: read the document.

Mailing Lists

Organized thusly:

Some Background Information on Mailing Lists

Administrivia

Mailing lists come in two basic flavors: those that are automated, and those that are maintained manually. The essential differences are really only important when it comes to administrative requests-- known as "administrivia"-- such as subscription and unsubscription requests.

In the case of a list with automated administration, administrivia is handled by sending messages in a specific format to (usually) an administrative address that differs from the address used for the non-administrative traffic. No human hand need touch nor human eye read your administrivial message for your request to be serviced, a big advantage for the administator-- who may therefore be able to hold down a full-time job-- and a little advantage for the subscriber, who needn't wait until the administrator gets around to servicing the request, after, perhaps, returning from a lengthy vacation. Other advantages accrue, in many cases, by automated processing of bounced messages, which are of little or no interest to subscribers.

In the event of a list maintained by a human being-- an increasingly rare event-- there is also typically a separate address for administrivia, but that stream is fed to some poor slob who is stealing moments from other activities to try to hold the thing together.

At last we come to my agenda in presenting this information: it is considered a breach of etiquette to post administrative requests to the address used for the main traffic on a list, be it maintained by man or machine, because nobody is interested in reading this sort of thing. Since the details of how a list is administered differ from list to list, and since those details are arcane, you are going to forget them between the time you join a list and the time it becomes appropriate to unsubscribe. It is therefore vital that you keep a copy of the introductory message that you receive when you join a list-- there is always such a message-- and struggle to remember where you put it, so you can consult it at unsubscribe time.

You lost the administrivia anyway, despite my warnings? Please, then, consult this document.

Love Them and Hate Them

Mailing lists have both shortcomings and advantages. A downside is that the traffic arrives asynchronously, generally mixed in with whatever other email you may receive. Subscribers who are in the habit of reading their email as it arrives may find themselves disgusted to have interrupted another activity to read about some clown in Nashville that is selling a used derailleur (or unsubscribing because of disgust at too many postings by clowns selling used derailleurs on a list that is supposed to be restricted to messages about used brake pads for sale). And, unlike Usenet, email processing facilities often fail to provide any kind of kill file mechanism to filter out postings with unwanted subjects or authorship.

The big upside is precision of scope: a topic that might not have the subscriber base to justify a Usenet group (is there any such topic left?) may work just fine as a mailing list. And, the level of discourse tends to be higher than on Usenet if for no other reason than because the decision to participate takes a more deliberate action.

In the lists below I've added mailto: links to many of the administrative addresses used to subscribe to the various lists-- that will make it possible, in many cases, to subscribe directly from this page. Please use with discretion.

Local Mailing Lists

There are two local mailing lists for folks interested in local bicycle advocacy: one for Dane County and one for all of the MidWest; both are administered by MajorDomo mailing list software, one running at DaneNet.org and one at the University of Indiana.

bikies

This is a very active discussion-oriented list for people who eat bicycle advocacy for breakfast. For more information, see about bikies

There is also bikemidwest@fuji.physics.indiana.edu, a list that serves bicycle advocates in the entire ten-state Midwest region of the League of American Bicyclists; subscribe by sending a message with the body line

subscribe bikemidwest
to majordomo@fuji.physics.indiana.edu. Traffic on this list is relatively low and usually of high quality. The resources for this list are contributed by Steven Gottlieb.

Kevin Schmitt runs bikerace, a moderated, spam-free list of cycling races, aimed at mainly road racers in Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa, and Minnesota. Enter your email and click on the "Join Group" icon at right to join.

    
Subscribe to Midwest Bike races
Enter your e-mail address:
bikerace archive
An e-group hosted by eGroups.com

WORBA, the Wisconsin Off-Road Bicycling Association, also has a mailing list. Here's the announcement thereof:

This email list was created to facilitate and encourage communication for mountain bicycling enthusiasts and representatives of the Wisconsin Off Road Bicycling Association (WORBA). The purpose of this list is to discuss recreational access issues, responsible riding, ethics, public and private land management, trails development and maintenance, government actions relevant to mountain bicycling, news articles, activities of WORBA and WORBA Chapters, organizing rides, and upcoming events.

The list may also be used for advertising "for profit" events, and buying, selling or trading items. Posts (messages) of this nature are restricted to WORBA Members (or affiliates in the case of events). Subscribers that are not members of WORBA, who make these kinds of posts will be excluded from the list.

The members of the WORBA Board of Directors will frequent this list. We invite all mountain bike enthusiasts to join us.

To subscribe to list@worba.org, send an e-mail message to list-request@worba.org (not to list@worba.org) with no subject and the following line in the message body:

subscribe worba
There will also be a page on the WORBA web site for subscribing.

All Worba general announcements (workdays, trail openings, help wanted, new member benefits, etc.) will be sent out on this list. Invitations to rides and events will be sent out also.

The list is open to everyone for subscription. Only subscribers may post to the list. As noted above, only WORBA members may post items for sale, trade, or wanted to buy. Member bike shops may post events and sales, but please keep it within reason. Please respond to these kinds of posts privately to the original poster.

If debate, discussion, and general traffic are starting to overwhelm the announcements, we will consider a separate announce list.

We hope that this listserve will stimulate conversations, action and friendship throughout (and beyond) Wisconsin.

Scott Frey
Director of Communications
Wisconsin Off Road Bicycling Association
scott@worba.org

Special Topics

(Note: given that this page is getting aged, it is left to the interested reader to determine which of the following lists are still active. Your answers can be sent to the web-master.)

There are about two hundred lists maintained at cycling.org; point your browser there and have a look at that vast selection, which is constantly changing and usually growing. They are now hosted by Topica.

Another collection (much smaller) is hosted at BikeList.org.

Here is a smattering of lists that are maintained, mostly, elsewhere.

alt-transp@uci.edu
2002: this list may not be working ...

"alt-transp@uci.edu is a 'listserv' distribution list for discussion of issues and policies pertaining to alternative and non-motorized transportation. This list is hosted by the University of California, Irvine.

"If you would like to be a part of this distribution list, please send a mail message to listserv@uci.edu containing the following (single) line:

SUBSCRIBE alt-transp YourName

"Any other questions about this list should be directed to the list owner, Bob Noland..."

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/carfree_cities/
online discussion group for entire cites not encumbered with automobiles, or at least the progression thereto.

bicycle@yukon.cren.org

"A wide-ranging discussion of bicycling issues including advocacy, components, racing results, techniques, etc."

To subscribe, send a message with a body line of the form

SUBSCRIBE BICYCLE firstname lastname
to listserv@yukon.cren.org

bikecommute@igc.apc.org

"A discussion of commuting issues and advocacy." Subscribe by sending a message to bikecommute-request@bike2work.sun.com.

bikecurrent@cycling.org

"A discussion of bicycle lighting and electronics."

The mailing list is at cycling.org. To subscribe, send mail to majordomo@cycling.org with the body text

subscribe bikecurrent end

chainguard@cycling.org

Followers of John Forester, developer of the highly-regarded Effective Cycling training methodology, believe that separate facilities for bicyclists are a Bad Idea. We won't go into the rationale for that viewpoint, other than to comment that, in our view, it's quite far from an irrational viewpoint, if not the conventional wisdom these days. They now have their own mailing list. To subscribe, send mail to majordomo@cycling.org with the body text

subscribe chainguard end

hpv@sonoma.edu

The human-powered vehicles list. "A discussion of the use, construction, and maintenance of HPVs and their kin (e.g., hybrid human/electric). Heavily oriented towards recumbents at the moment."

To subscribe, send a message that says

SUBSCRIBE HPV your.email.address
to majordomo@zippy.sonoma.edu .

icebike@cycling.org

Discussion of winter riding issues, techniques, and technologies.

To subscribe, send a message to majordomo@cycling.org that says

subscribe icebike
To get the digested (burp!) version, add
set digest

kom@utkvm1.bitnet
"The primary purpose of the King of the Mountains (KOM) Cycling Road Climbs Listserv is to provide a forum for cyclists to share information, ask questions, and network with other cyclists interested in paved road cycling climbs. The KOM Listserv also functions as a mailing list with announcements about updates and additions to the KOM Web Site and news about races and events with paved road climbs throughout the world. It is owned and sponsored by the publisher of the King of the Mountain's Web Cycling Road Climbs Web Site.
labannounce@fuji.physics.indiana.edu

labannounce is open to any bicyclist. This one is not discussion-oriented; rather, it is for broadcasts of information important to bicyclists from the League of American Bicyclists. All the information on this list is also broadcast to labmembers@fuji.physics.indiana.edu, so there is no reason to join both lists. Subscribe by sending a message with the body line

subscribe labannounce
to majordomo@fuji.physics.indiana.edu.

labmembers@fuji.physics.indiana.edu

"labmembers is open to any member of the League of American Bicyclists. The purpose of it is to exchange information on any aspect of bicycling." Subscribe by sending a message with the body line

subscribe labmembers
to majordomo@fuji.physics.indiana.edu.

pednet@europa.com

"PedNet is a mailing list for pedestrian advocates around the world. It covers issues of interest to walkers, pedestrians with disabilities, and urban/transportation planners. In other words, the list will carry information of interest to people working for a friendlier living and traveling environment."

Subscribe by sending a message with body line subscribe pednet to pednet-request@europa.com.

Mailing list archives and other pedestrian-related resources are here.

recumbent@recumbentbarn.com
For recumbent enthusiasts. To joint, send a message to subscribe-recumbent@recumbentbarn.com

tandem@hobbes.ucsd.edu

"A list devoted to tandem bicycling though subject matter often is applicable to bicycling in general."

To subscribe, send a message with a body line of the form

SUB TANDEM firstname lastname
to listserv@hobbes.ucsd.edu.

transp-l@gmu.edu

A high-volume list for discussion of general transportation issues. Subscribe by sending a message with a body line of the form

subscribe trans-l firstname lastname
to listproc@gmu.edu.

club-tread-report@bltg.com
This is a monthly newsletter, available via email or on the web at http://www.bltg.com/ctreport/, that is sponsored by Brauns Online, a shop and mail-order outfit in Kitchener, Ontario. The content is "cycling industry news, product reviews, and tech tips." It's probably easier to read on the web, but subscribing is the way to get the information in a timely fashion. It's free in either event. To subscribe, send email with the body text
subscribe c-tread-report
to listmanager@hookup.net.

Newsgroups

Background

Scott wrote this; comments are welcome. Probably better is a similar document, from Deja News (now owned by Google). And Usenet Readers and Clients is particularly interesting for its section on the history of Usenet.

What it Is

Newsgroups-- also known as Usenet-- are a sort of distributed bulletin board system. Each newsgroup has a hierarchical name, and a "charter"-- its topic. For example, rec.bicycles.soc is a group in the rec (recreational) hierarchy, which covers the topic of social issues related to bicycling. Users of the system-- using software called a newsreader-- connect to a news server and read the messages posted by others, and post their own messages. That's called "reading news."

The system is distributed because messages posted at one news server travel to other news servers over time-- using what's called a "flooding algrorithm"-- becoming available for reading at those sites within a few minutes to a few days.

How Big it Is

There are millions of Usenet users around the world. There are hundreds of thousands of news servers. Tens (hundreds?) of thousands of messages are generated each day. There are (tens of?) thousands of newsgroups. There are tens of megabytes of new news-- every day.

At each site, only a subset of those newsgroups are available, though, because some newsgroups are local in nature. For example. ba.bicycles is a newsgroup for San Francisco Bay Area readers that is devoted to the topic of bicycles and bicycles. News servers outside the Bay Area typically won't offer that newsgroup, or others in the ba hierarchy.

Because there are thousands of newsgroups, users subscribe to only a subset of the newsgroups available at their news server-- typically a few or a few tens of groups. The traffic in each group ranges from a few messages a month to a few hundred messages a day (!).

Each news server, newsgroup, and user has a name, and each message is submitted to the system at a particular time. These are combined to give each message a global message name that is unique across the entire Usenet system. For example, 52ubk6$98v1@shaar.nnc.edu is an article in the newsgroup rec.bicycles.misc. In addition, each message has a unique local identity-- for example, message number 65983 in newsgroup rec.bicycles.misc at host news.cs.washington.edu-- that's a local name for 52ubk6$98v1@shaar.nnc.edu.

The global message names are used to prevent the same message from arriving more than once at a particular news server. The local message names are used to prevent the same message from being presented as new to your newsreader.

How to Get It

The details of how users select which groups to read, how they read them, and how they post new messages (or reply to old ones) depends upon which newsreader software they use. One thing they all have in common, however, is the use of a per-user file that describes which newsgroups that user has subscribed to, and which messages within that newsgroup they have already read.

Chances are good that the WWW browser that you are using to read this article provides a news reading capability. You will have to configure it first, though, by telling it which news server to use-- that might be the same machine that provides your internet service, or it might be a different machine provided by your Internet Service Provider, or it might be one of the many news servers that will provide a "newsfeed" to any user at all.

How Not to Get It

A sad truth is that the level of discourse on Usenet is quite low on most groups, bicycling groups no exception. It can be frustrating to have to page through hundreds of useless or offensive postings. Kill files to the rescue.

At its simplest, a kill file is a file listing subjects and authors that are not of interest to the user. The newsreader will therefore never present them. That can be a real timesaver-- some silly threads (subjects) can last for hundreds of posts, getting uglier with each reply. Also, some prolific posters rarely or never have a useful thing to say-- just eliminating the posts from a few sociopaths can reduce the bulk-- and increase the quality-- of a newsgroup quite substantially.

Unfortunately, not all newsreaders support kill files-- for example, I know of no WWW browser that does.

Where Does It All End?

With tens of megabytes of new "traffic" every day, news servers cannot keep every message ever received "on line" indefinitely. Typically, messages "expire"-- are deleted from the news server-- after a few days or a week in "the news spool." That means that users don't get a chance to scan all the traffic in the newsgroups to which they subscribe unless they read news often enough to beat that deadline-- or visit DejaNews-- a commercial Internet service that keeps all news ever posted online all the time. They provide a nifty search engine front end to help you find it, too.

For example, I asked DejaNews to generate a "profile" for me by providing the email address from which I (rarely) post Usenet articles-- it returned a list of the about one dozen I've posted to half a dozen newsgroups, and clicking on those links took me right to the articles-- some of which I now deeply regret having written, of course...

Bicycling Newsgroups

Here is a list of newsgroups that are widely available that have topics related to bicycling:

rec.bicycles.marketplace
Bicycles and parts for sale or wanted.
rec.bicycles.misc
Whatever bicycle-related postings don't fit elsewhere.
rec.bicycles.off-road
Mountain biking.
rec.bicycles.racing
Bicycle racing.
rec.bicycles.rides
Tour reports and disucssions.
rec.bicycles.soc
Social aspects of bicycling. Bicycle transportation advocacy.
rec.bicycles.tech
Technical discussions of bicycles.
More groups listed from google
Go to the Bicycling Community Page.   ? ? ? About the BCP mail the webmaster