used?
=====

The newsgroup comp.ai.neural-nets is intended as a forum for people who want
to use or explore the capabilities of Artificial Neural Networks or
Neural-Network-like structures.

Posts should be in plain-text format, not postscript, html, rtf, TEX, MIME,
or any word-processor format. 

Do not use vcards or other excessively long signatures. 

Please do not post homework or take-home exam questions. Please do not post
a long source-code listing and ask readers to debug it. And note that chain
letters and other get-rich-quick pyramid schemes are illegal in the USA; for
example, see http://www.usps.gov/websites/depart/inspect/chainlet.htm

There should be the following types of articles in this newsgroup:

1. Requests
+++++++++++

   Requests are articles of the form "I am looking for X", where X
   is something public like a book, an article, a piece of software. The
   most important about such a request is to be as specific as possible!

   If multiple different answers can be expected, the person making the
   request should prepare to make a summary of the answers he/she got and
   announce to do so with a phrase like "Please reply by email,
   I'll summarize to the group" at the end of the posting.

   The Subject line of the posting should then be something like 
   "Request: X" 

2. Questions
++++++++++++

   As opposed to requests, questions ask for a larger piece of information
   or a more or less detailed explanation of something. To avoid lots of
   redundant traffic it is important that the poster provides with the
   question all information s/he already has about the subject asked and
   state the actual question as precise and narrow as possible. The poster
   should prepare to make a summary of the answers s/he got and announce to
   do so with a phrase like "Please reply by email, I'll
   summarize to the group" at the end of the posting.

   The Subject line of the posting should be something like "Question:
   this-and-that" or have the form of a question (i.e., end with a
   question mark) 

   Students: please do not ask comp.ai.neural-net readers to do your
   homework or take-home exams for you. 

3. Answers
++++++++++

   These are reactions to questions or requests. If an answer is too
   specific to be of general interest, or if a summary was announced with
   the question or request, the answer should be e-mailed to the poster, not
   posted to the newsgroup. 

   Most news-reader software automatically provides a subject line beginning
   with "Re:" followed by the subject of the article which is being
   followed-up. Note that sometimes longer threads of discussion evolve from
   an answer to a question or request. In this case posters should change
   the subject line suitably as soon as the topic goes too far away from the
   one announced in the original subject line. You can still carry along the
   old subject in parentheses in the form "Re: new subject (was:
   old subject)" 

4. Summaries
++++++++++++

   In all cases of requests or questions the answers for which can be
   assumed to be of some general interest, the poster of the request or
   question shall summarize the answers he/she received. Such a summary
   should be announced in the original posting of the question or request
   with a phrase like "Please answer by email, I'll
   summarize"

   In such a case, people who answer to a question should NOT post their
   answer to the newsgroup but instead mail them to the poster of the
   question who collects and reviews them. After about 5 to 20 days after
   the original posting, its poster should make the summary of answers and
   post it to the newsgroup.

   Some care should be invested into a summary: 
    o simple concatenation of all the answers is not enough: instead,
      redundancies, irrelevancies, verbosities, and errors should be
      filtered out (as well as possible) 
    o the answers should be separated clearly 
    o the contributors of the individual answers should be identifiable
      (unless they requested to remain anonymous [yes, that happens]) 
    o the summary should start with the "quintessence" of the answers, as
      seen by the original poster 
    o A summary should, when posted, clearly be indicated to be one by
      giving it a Subject line starting with "SUMMARY:" 
   Note that a good summary is pure gold for the rest of the newsgroup
   community, so summary work will be most appreciated by all of us. Good
   summaries are more valuable than any moderator ! :-) 

5. Announcements
++++++++++++++++

   Some articles never need any public reaction. These are called
   announcements (for instance for a workshop, conference or the
   availability of some technical report or software system).

   Announcements should be clearly indicated to be such by giving them a
   subject line of the form "Announcement: this-and-that" 

6. Reports
++++++++++

   Sometimes people spontaneously want to report something to the newsgroup.
   This might be special experiences with some software, results of own
   experiments or conceptual work, or especially interesting information
   from somewhere else.

   Reports should be clearly indicated to be such by giving them a subject
   line of the form "Report: this-and-that" 

7. Discussions
++++++++++++++

   An especially valuable possibility of Usenet is of course that of
   discussing a certain topic with hundreds of potential participants. All
   traffic in the newsgroup that can not be subsumed under one of the above
   categories should belong to a discussion.

   If somebody explicitly wants to start a discussion, he/she can do so by
   giving the posting a subject line of the form "Discussion:
   this-and-that"

   It is quite difficult to keep a discussion from drifting into chaos, but,
   unfortunately, as many many other newsgroups show there seems to be no
   secure way to avoid this. On the other hand, comp.ai.neural-nets has not
   had many problems with this effect in the past, so let's just go and
   hope... 

8. Jobs Ads
+++++++++++

   Advertisements for jobs requiring expertise in artificial neural networks
   are appropriate in comp.ai.neural-nets. Job ads should be clearly
   indicated to be such by giving them a subject line of the form "Job:
   this-and-that". It is also useful to include the
   country-state-city abbreviations that are conventional in
   misc.jobs.offered, such as: "Job: US-NY-NYC Neural network
   engineer". If an employer has more than one job opening, all such
   openings should be listed in a single post, not multiple posts. Job ads
   should not be reposted more than once per month.