The Fifteen comp.infosystems.www.* Subgroups

Please note: Readers unfamiliar with Usenet newsgroups should read the groups news.announce.newusers and news.newusers.questions before reading or posting to the newsgroups described here.

There are now nineteen comp.infosystems.www.* subgroups. Use the one appropriate to your message. This document contains the charters of all except comp.infosystems.www.announce, the charter of which is longer and is listed separately. Please read the newsgroups before posting questions, as your questions may already be answered in a FAQ!

comp.infosystems.www.* Newsgroups Lines ||| Official Charters ||| Other Web-Related Newsgroups ||| Defunct Newsgroups

comp.infosystems.www.* Newsgroups Lines

Authoring (Formerly "Providers")

comp.infosystems.www.authoring.cgi -- Writing CGI scripts for the Web.
comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html -- Writing HTML for the Web.
comp.infosystems.www.authoring.images -- Using images, imagemaps on the Web.
comp.infosystems.www.authoring.site-design -- Web site design philosophy.
comp.infosystems.www.authoring.stylesheets -- Layout/presentation on the WWW.
comp.infosystems.www.authoring.tools -- Programs to help authoring Websites.
comp.infosystems.www.authoring.misc -- Miscellaneous Web authoring issues.

Web Browsers (Client Software; Formerly "Users")

comp.infosystems.www.browsers.mac -- Web browsers for the Macintosh platform.
comp.infosystems.www.browsers.ms-windows -- Web browsers for MS Windows.
comp.infosystems.www.browsers.x -- Web browsers for the X-Window system.
comp.infosystems.www.browsers.misc -- Web browsers for other platforms.

Web Servers (Formerly "Providers")

comp.infosystems.www.servers.mac -- Web servers for the Macintosh platform.
comp.infosystems.www.servers.ms-windows -- Web servers for MS Windows and NT.
comp.infosystems.www.servers.unix -- Web servers for UNIX platforms.
comp.infosystems.www.servers.misc -- Web servers for other platforms.

Other Newsgroups

comp.infosystems.www.advocacy -- Comments and arguments over the best and worst.
comp.infosystems.www.announce -- World-Wide Web announcements. (Moderated)
comp.infosystems.www.databases -- Web Database Integration.
comp.infosystems.www.misc -- Miscellaneous World Wide Web discussion.

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Official Charters

Authoring (Formerly "Providers")

comp.infosystems.www.authoring.cgi: This newsgroup covers discussion of the development of Common Gateway Interface (CGI) scripts as they relate to Web page authoring. Possible subjects include discussion how to handle the results of forms, how to generate images on the fly, and how to put together other interactive Web offerings.
comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html: This newsgroup covers discussion of HyperText Markup Language (HTML) as it relates to web page authoring. Possible subjects include HTML editors, formatting tricks, and current and proposed HTML standards.
comp.infosystems.www.authoring.images: This newsgroup covers discussion of the creation and editing of images as they relate to web page authoring. Possible subjects include how best to leverage the image-display capabilities of the web and common questions and solutions for putting up imagemaps.
comp.infosystems.www.authoring.misc: This newsgroup covers miscellaneous World-Wide Web authoring issues not covered by the other c.i.w.authoring.* groups. Possible subjects include the use of audio and video, etc.
comp.infosystems.www.authoring.site-design: This newsgroup is intended for discussion of all issues regarding the "design" of Web sites. This includes, but is not limited to, the use of images on Web sites, and incorporating Java applets, scripts or movies, and generating dynamic content.
comp.infosystems.www.authoring.stylesheets: This unmoderated news group is intended for the discussion of Web style sheets. Style sheets can make an author's life much easier. With style sheets, one only needs to specify presentational preferences once, and the style can be applied to an entire site. Not only that, but style sheets also reduce download time when one file contains all the style information.
comp.infosystems.www.authoring.tools: This newsgroup is intended for discussion of tools (programs, scripts, macros, etc.) that can be used for the creation, validation and maintenance of Web sites. Tools like this can be as simple as a macro to add WIDTH and HEIGHT attributes to all images included in a Web document, or as complex as a complete site management tool.

Web Browsers (Client Software; Formerly "Users")

comp.infosystems.www.browsers.mac: This newsgroup covers discussion of World-Wide Web browsers for the Macintosh platform. Possible subjects include configuration questions/solutions, external viewers (helper applications), and bug reports.
comp.infosystems.www.browsers.ms-windows: This newsgroup covers discussion of World-Wide Web browsers for the MS Windows and NT platforms. Possible subjects include configuration questions/solutions, external viewers (helper applications), and bug reports.
comp.infosystems.www.browsers.x: This newsgroup covers discussion of World-Wide Web browsers for the X-Window system. Possible subjects include configuration questions/solutions, external viewers (helper applications), and bug reports.
comp.infosystems.www.browsers.misc: This newsgroup covers discussion of World-Wide Web browsers for all other platforms. Possible subjects include configuration questions/solutions, external viewers (helper applications), and bug reports. Platforms included are Amiga, DOS (*not* Windows), VMS, and Unix text-mode.

Web Servers (Formerly "Providers")

comp.infosystems.www.servers.mac: This newsgroup covers discussion of World-Wide Web servers for the Macintosh (MacOS) platform. Possible subjects include configuration questions/solutions, security issues, directory structure, and bug reports.
comp.infosystems.www.servers.ms-windows: This newsgroup covers discussion of World-Wide Web servers for the MS Windows and NT platforms. Possible subjects include configuration questions/solutions, security issues, directory structure, and bug reports.
comp.infosystems.www.servers.unix: This newsgroup covers discussion of World-Wide Web servers for Unix platforms. Possible subjects include configuration questions/solutions, security issues, directory structure, and bug reports.
comp.infosystems.www.servers.misc: This newsgroup covers discussion of World-Wide Web servers for other platforms, such as Amiga, VMS, and others. Possible subjects include configuration questions/solutions, security issues, directory structure, and bug reports.

Other Newsgroups

comp.infosystems.www.advocacy: This newsgroup is for comments, arguments, debates, and discussions about which Web browsers, servers, external viewer programs, and other software is better or worse than any other. Posts should not be crossposted to this group and to any other Web group. However, this group is a good place to direct follow-ups if a thread in another Web group begins to take on a "this program is better than that one" flavor.
Possible subjects include:
"The web is better than print"; "Netscape is better than anything else"; "CERN httpd kicks butt"; etc.
comp.infosystems.www.announce: Charter is located elsewhere.
comp.infosystems.www.databases: For the discussion of web database systems. The theme is open to the discussion of all database/integration systems as opposed to being exclusive to one vendor product.
This medium is offered for those with an interest in integrating existing databases as well as those developing new web database systems. Welcome discussions include those of specific web database systems, integration strategies and techniques and database administration where emphasis is on web databases.
Commercial advertisements are not acceptable. Binary postings are not acceptable.
comp.infosystems.www.misc: comp.infosystems.www.misc (unmoderated) provides a forum for general discussion of WWW (World Wide Web)- related topics that are NOT covered by the other newsgroups in the hierarchy. This will likely include discussions of the Web's future, politicking regarding changes in the structure and protocols of the web that affect both clients and servers, et cetera.

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Other Web-Related Newsgroups

There are several other newsgroups related to the Web, some of which have limited distribution. This is not a complete list:

alt.culture.www
alt.hypertext
alt.www.hotjava
comp.lang.java.advocacy
comp.lang.java.announce
comp.lang.java.api
comp.lang.java.programmer
comp.lang.java.security
comp.lang.java.setup
comp.lang.java.tech
comp.lang.java.misc
comp.lang.javascript
comp.lang.vrml
comp.text.sgml

Check your Internet access provider's list of local newsgroups; there may be a local group available for discussing topics of local interest.

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Defunct Web Newsgroups

The old newsgroups comp.infosystems.www.users (replaced by comp.infosystems.www.browsers.misc) and comp.infosystems.www.providers (replaced by comp.infosystems.www.authoring.misc) will be removed on 26 July 1995. Please do not post to them.

comp.infosystems.www was officially removed in August, 1994. If your site still carries it, ask your sysadmin to remove it.

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