The ABAT FAQ

[[[ Official ABAT Rules and Mini-FAQ (frequently asked question) ]]]

Current ABAT active participants:
Jimbo J (founder of ABAT, uploader) (nanoprobe001@hotmail.com)
Dragstrip Riot (reposter/filler of ABAT)
Tobias Rieper (uploader)

Revision:
(4-29-2001) By Jimbo J
(5-15-2001) By Jimbo J
(5-22-2001) By Jimbo J
Table of Content:
1. Introduction
2. Guideline for posters
3. Guideline for fills/reposts requests
4. Multimedia and File Extraction Help.
5. Frequently asked question


1. Introduction

Welcome to ABAT, fellow Tenchi fans. This is ABAT (alt.binaries.anime.tenchi) a dedicated binary NG for anything Tenchi.
Here is a short history of ABAT.
Also, my sincere thanks goes out to Eugene C for his positive feedback despite endless flaming by so called self-claimed "alt-config gods."

03-09-2001 (Jimbo J post an ABAT proposal to alt.config for discussion)
03-11-2001 (Jimbo J sent a control message to create ABAT)
03-12-2001 (ABAT first added to eurobates.com)
03-22-2001 (ABAT added to @Home)
03-24-2001 (ABAT added to many commercial servers)
??- ??-2001 (ABAT continues to grow)

The original control message that Jimbo J sent can viewed using following link.
ftp://ftp.isc.org/pub/usenet/control/alt/alt.binaries.anime.tenchi.Z
Note: you will see that the control message lacks a charter or description in its body. The main reason is that I wasn't sure how ABAT would evolve. I wanted to ABAT to be flexible in the future.

ABAT Charter:
Alt.binaries.anime.tenchi (ABAT) will be a Usenet newsgroup dedicated an anime series called Tenchi-Muyo and its spin-off series. This tenchi fan NG will serve various needs* of Tenchi fans around the world. Users are welcomed to share things with others as long as they are not inappropriate for this group (it will be discussed in later sections).

*Note: don't ask me define what these "needs." I won't specify them due to legal reasons.

Justification:
There is no binary NG dedicated to Tenchi. Although there is an existing tenchi-related NG alt.anime.tenchi-muyo but it is strictly limited to discussions. Also, other binary anime NGs such as alt.binaries.anime and alt.binaries.multimedia.anime is too broad and involves mostly other anime.

2. Issues concerning ABAT posters
This section will cover various ABAT rules and guidelines for posters. If you have been around binary NGs for a while, these rules might be quiet familiar to you. Although I won't be imposing any of these rules to posters, it is always good ideas to follow them to make your posts enjoyable to ABAT downloaders.

A. Be specific as possible.
It is always good idea to be as specific as much detail possible about your posting so that people can help themselves before asking you lame questions such as "Is this dub or sub ? Are you going to repost?" Before posting anything, make sure your posting contains various details such as multimedia type (e.g. RM, ASF, MPG, AVI, MOV), repost/fill policy, and others details (e.g. SUB/DUB, type of multimedia player needed). More information you specify in your posting, lesser you have to answer.

B. ABAT policy regarding "flooding."
Flooding can impact uploads of other posters since larger posts can push off other postings made by others. First, you might be wondering, what constitute "flooding" at ABAT? Well, any daily posts that exceed 700 MB is flooding. Believe me, 700 MB is plenty of rooms for posting any type of high quality Anime. Also, keep in mind, larger your post, larger your reposts and fills.

C. Inappropriate material
Here at ABAT, inappropriate material is defined as "any thing that are non-anime movies or Hentai or American made animations." It is because these off-topics have their own binary NGs:
- alt.binary.hentai for hentai
- alt.binary.movies for non-anime movies
- alt.multimedia.cartoon for non-Japanese animations.
Also, you might be wondering if ABAT permits postings of Anime other than Tenchi. Answer is yes, as long as it doesn't fall under the category of "inappropriate material."
The main reason why other Anime is permitted is due to the limits of the Tenchi series. Since this is tenchi specific group, the amount of available Tenchi-related stuff to post is limited. To keep this group alive and attract new users, this was only way to achieve that.
Also, cross-posting with ABA and ABMA is allowed. This crossing posting policy might change if it becomes a problem. So, if you are thinking of posting non-Tenchi stuff and not sure whether it is appropriate, just conduct a survey by posting a message to ABAT. ABAT users let you know if you should or should not.

3. Guideline for repost/fill requests.
In binary NGs, incomplete posts are very common and are often imminent, a problem partially contributed by poor propagation among NSPs. There is not much posters can do to improve the message propagation other than reposting missing files. Following is a general rule for posting repost/fill request at ABAT.
First, wait 5-14 hours to allow enough time for possible message that might arrive to your NSP late.
Then, read 00 or *.nfo file and follow the poster's repost/fill direction. If poster has no 00 or nfo or have not specified repost/fill policy. Use following generic request formats.

ATTN: (name of poster) Please repost (missing files).

Or

REQ: (Anime title) (missing files) TIA.


Also, there are examples of what NOT TO DO when requesting.

Vertical spamming: Repeating same messages over again to catch people's attention. It annoys heck of out of people. This will worsen your chance of getting your fills/repost requests fulfilled.
Example:
++++++ PLEASE REPOST XYZ EP 20, INCOMPLETE ON MY SERVER ++++++
++++++ PLEASE REPOST XYZ EP 20, INCOMPLETE ON MY SERVER ++++++
++++++ PLEASE REPOST XYZ EP 20, INCOMPLETE ON MY SERVER ++++++

Excessive capitalization: Use of all capitalized letter to catch people's attention. Check out this link how people view all cap messages. (http://www.winternet.com/~mikelr/flame33.html)
Example:
HEY! I AM MISSING ABC R28 POST IT AS SOON AS POSSIBLE!!

Excessive use of profanity: ABAT is inappropriate place for such disgusting use of English language. I have zero tolerance for such behavior.
Example:
Where is my file bitch. You f*cking dimwit, your post sucks! Suck my ****!

4. Multimedia and File Extraction Help

4.1. Most of Anime files posted in Anime NGs are commonly compressed in three formats: rar, ace, and zip.
You need appropriate file decompressors and players to view multimedia files you have downloaded off Usenet.

File compression formats you may encounter:

A. Rar, r00, r01 ..... s01 (Most common, used by most NG posters including myself)
-Download winrar and use it to extract it (http://www.rarsoft.com/download.htm)

B. Zip (Not that common now days but some posters still use it)
-Download winrar and use it since it support Zip too.

C. Ace, c00, c001... ( Rare, but you may encounter once in a while)
-Download winace and use it to extract it. (http://www.winace.com/start.html)

D. 001, 002, 003 .... ( Not commonly used by Anime NGs but common in other binary NGs)
Unlike other formats, this one is bit tricky.
-First, try to extract file with winrar. If that fails, it is uncompressed hjsplitted files.
-Download hjsplit and put the file together.

Now, when you extracted necessary media files. Now you can view these media files.
Popular media formats used in Anime NGs are .rm, .asf, .mpg, .dat, and .avi.

Player for handling rm, ram :
Realplayer. Download at http://www.real.com.
rt and smil are RealText subtitles used by RealPlayer.

Player for handling .asf, .avi, and .mpg:
MS Media Player. Download at http://www.microsoft.com
·asf and wmv formats: compressed stream video/audio formats supported by MS
·avi: Might require additional codec to play files correctly.

Many Anime movies are posted in DivX format which requires DivX codec. (http://divx.ctw.cc)
Also, increasing number posts are encoded in DivXVKI which requires additional codec.

·mpg, mpeg: Good quality but size is huge compared to DivX.
·dat: Another mpg format: open it MS Media Player.

VCD and SVCD: Burn them with Nero. Then Check out www.vcdhelp.com and download VCD and SVCD player to play them.

5. Frequently asked question (FAQ)

Q: What is ABAT ?
A: It's abbreviation of alt.binaries.anime.tenchi

Q: I don't have much tenchi stuff to post, can I post other non-Tenchi Anime such as Ranma ½ ?
A: Yes, as long as it is not Hentai or non-Anime movies or American animations (e.g. ones made by Disney).

Q: I have been plonked by someone. What is plonk ?
A: "Plonk" is a term used when the reader will begin to ignore your posting and filter out your future posts by adding your name to their kill-lists. This occurs when you didn't follow general etiquette or did excessive capitalization or did vertical Spamming.

Q: I have seen messages that end with TIA ? Who is TIA ?
A: TIA stands for thanks in advance. It is general show of appreciation when you request something from someone.

Q: There is another Tenchi-related group, alt.anime.tenchi-muyo. What are the differences between two NGs? Can you post stuff there too?
A: Alt.binaries.tenchi-muyo (AAT) is a discussion only group where only text messages are permitted while ABAT is a binary NG where both text and binary posts are permitted. Use AAT if you are interested in engaging serious Tenchi related discussions but NEVER REQUEST tenchi eps and movies at AAT. If you do, you will get flamed pretty bad which AAT regulars do it regularly when they see these types requests.

The latest revision as plain text: abatfaq.txt
Any questions about this? Then contact Jimbo J in ABAT...

Back to the anime activities

E-Mail? Try this: t.rieper@gmx.net