Ask yourself: Is this post about the science of astronomy?  Will many
of the thousands and thousands of readers here, people interested in
the science of astronomy, find it of personal benefit?  Has somebody
else recently posted a similar article?  If your query or comment is
unique and concerns astronomy, post; otherwise, either there is
probably a better newsgroup for your post or your question has already
been answered.

If you will follow this group for a month or so before posting here,
you will greatly reduce the likelihood that you will participate in
making the newsgroup less productive and friendly and then end up
regretting it.  If you are new here, it is likely that any question
you have has already been asked.  If so, its answer is probably in one
of the FAQ files.  Check out the newsgroups news.answers, sci.answers,
and news.announce.newusers, or ask your local help file or
administrator to point you toward the FAQs.  Alternately, it may be in
a Usenet archive such as DejaNews, <URL:http://www.dejanews.com/>.  If
you become really frustrated, pick on one of the more helpful posters
here and send e-mail (not a post) politely asking for some help.
Conversely, if your question is novel and not in a FAQ, readers will
likely be intensely interested in considering it.

Certain topics repeatedly come up and lead to lengthy, loud-mouthed
discussions that never lead anywhere interesting.  Often these topics
have extremely little to do with the science of astronomy.  Experience
also shows that when messages are cross-posted to other groups,
followups very seldom are appropriate in sci.astro.

If you do ask a question, please consider writing up the answer for a
FAQ file.  New entries to the FAQ are always welcome!
 
Moreover, there are a number of common rules for all newsgroups.  If
you are a new Usenaut, please visit the newsgroup
news.announce.newusers for an introduction to the Usenet.