Message-ID: <22930asstr$951239407@assm.asstr-mirror.org> X-Original-Path: not-for-mail From: apuleius@poboxes.com (Apuleius of Madaura) Lines: 1354 X-Original-Message-ID: <38b256e6.8896943@news.labyrinth.net.au> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit NNTP-Posting-Date: 22 Feb 2000 09:27:26 GMT Subject: {ASSM} {FAQ} {ASS} Alt.Sex.Stories.* FAQ v. 2.02 Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2000 12:10:07 -0500 Path: assm.asstr-mirror.org!not-for-mail X-Is-FAQ: yes Approved: Newsgroups: alt.sex.stories.moderated,alt.sex.stories,alt.sex.stories.d Followup-To: alt.sex.stories.d X-Archived-At: X-Moderator-Contact: ASSTR ASSM moderation X-Story-Submission: X-Moderator-ID: dennyw, english The Alt.Sex.Stories.* Hierarchy and Related Groups FAQ by Apuleius (apuleius@poboxes.com) Version 2.02 - February 22, 2000 New in this edition: -------------------- Rec.arts.erotica creation date (for evidence see http://assm.asstr-mirror.org/files/Authors/eli/www/erotica/various/touch.html) Updated ASSTR Search status Added references to Journal of Desire, the ASS Hall of Fame, The ASSD Information page, and new MS Word FAQ This document is a guide to the various erotic text newsgroups available on Usenet. Comments and suggestions regarding this FAQ are welcome; send to apuleius@poboxes.com. The latest version of this FAQ may always be found at http://www.asstr-mirror.org/files/FAQs_and_Information/ass_faq.txt Note that this FAQ is quite long; if you just want an introduction to the basics of reading and posting, please consult Titmouse's "Welcome to the Group - Some basic understandings" at http://x29.deja.com/getdoc.xp?AN=560865163&fmt=text and "Sex Stories - Things You Should Know", originally by Kim, now maintained by Seurat (seurat7@enter.net). It is available at http://www.asstr-mirror.org/files/FAQs_and_Information/Things_You_Should_Know_v3.txt This FAQ is copyright 1998-2000 by Apuleius (apuleius@poboxes.com). It may be copied and distributed freely, provided that the entire text is transmitted unaltered (including this message). Use of this document in any commercial endeavour (for example, members-only websites, CD-ROMs) is prohibited. Contents: --------- 1) Introduction 2) What is the history of erotic stories on Usenet? 3) What are all these groups for? 4) What do the story code abbreviations mean? 5) How do I post a story? 6) Can I repost my story or someone else's? 7) What about copyright? Is this all legal? 8) What alt.sex.stories.d for? 9) What's the deal with reviews? 10) How do I thank an author for their work? 11) How do I post anonymously? 12) How do I deal with all this spam? 13) Where can I find good stories? 14) What other documents are there about these groups? 15) Closing Words Appendix A: Where can I find this story I'm looking for? Appendix B: How do I use Forte Agent's filtering facility? Appendix C: How do I convert a MS Word document to plain text? Section 1: Introduction ----------------------- Welcome to the Alt.Sex.Stories.* hierarchy FAQ. The purpose of this document is to answer commonly asked questions regarding the groups, as well as providing background material and pointers to further resources. I should point out right away that I have *no* special status within the hierarchy - I'm just a normal user who has taken the time to write this guide. Please do *not* email me about anything not directly related to this FAQ - if you have any general questions, please ask in alt.sex.stories.d instead. The information contained herein is not the "law": no-one has the power to enforce the suggestions I make within this FAQ. However, most of what follows are the generally accepted conventions and protocols of the newsgroups. Following them will make the a.s.s. hierarchy a better place for everyone. Apuleius September 1998 Section 2: What is the history of erotic stories on Usenet? ----------------------------------------------------------- Erotic stories on Usenet were originally posted to the venerable alt.sex. Then, rec.arts.erotica was created in March 1990. This was a moderated group, whose characteristic policy in its later years was the insertion by the moderator(s) of an extra header marking each story out of 10 and giving a short comment. R.a.e. tended to focus on the more "literary" material, and the moderator would delete stories considered to be poorly spelt or formatted. These two groups formed the basis of erotic story distribution on the internet until the early 90s. In response to the increased traffic on alt.sex, and the rather restrictive policies of rec.arts.erotica (in particular, the disallowing of reposts), alt.sex.stories and alt.sex.stories.d were created in May-June 1992, as a non-moderated alternative. As with most of Usenet, complete archives of the groups are nonexistent until the establishment of Dejanews in early 1995, but many stories from this time are still extant. Increased traffic on the group led to the creation of the first subgroups, a.s.s.h in December 1994, and a.s.s.g in May 1995. In July 1995, Celeste posted her first Celestial Reviews, beginning a tradition that continues to this day. A readership report from around the same time listed alt.sex.stories as the fourth-most read group on Usenet, with over 8000 messages posted per month, totalling 58MB, and an estimated readership of 220,000 people. In August 1995, Paul Robinson created alt.sex.stories.moderated, but due to his avoidance of moderatorial responsibility and the fact that rec.arts.erotica served much the same purpose, the group was virtually unused until its revival in 1997. The anonymous posting service anon.penet.fi, which many people used to post their stories, ceased operation in September 1996. Many authors, who had relied on this service, stopped posting altogether and are no longer contactable. In 1996-7, the hierarchy began to be seriously affected by spam, in common with much of Usenet. The number of posts to rec.arts.erotica was also declining due to moderatorial problems, and many users felt that a moderated group was needed with a more liberal editorial policy. This problem was solved in January 1997, when Eli-the-Bearded took over the moderation of alt.sex.stories.moderated, and established a WWW archive of all the postings. Eli also created alt.binaries.stories.sex in April of that year. Meanwhile, a.s.s.d began using the {ASSD} convention to indicate genuine posts (as opposed to spam). Rec.arts.erotica has since declined into almost total obscurity. In March 1999, Eli-the-Bearded effectively retired as moderator of alt.sex.stories.moderated due to personal commitments, and the group was empty for several months. In November, it was taken over by the Alt.Sex.Stories Text Repository site (ASSTR), and the group is now moderated by several people using a web-based system. Several other changes have also been implemented by ASSTR (including support for attachments and the X-No-Archive header). The current number of daily readers of a.s.s and related groups is unknown, but the previous FAQ put it at over 50,000, and it is undoubtedly much higher. Since its establishment, writers have constructed a corpus of stories numbering in the tens of thousands. There does seem to have been a genuine increase in the average quality of writing, as well as a growing number of novel-length efforts. Several "stories" are as good as anything you can buy in book form. Although the web has proved a competitor, the a.s.s. hierarchy remains the primary place for distribution of quality erotic literature on the Internet. Readers interested in notable past contributors may consult the unofficial "ASS Hall of Fame" at http://www.asstr-mirror.org/files/Authors/ASSHoF/www/ Section 3: What are all these groups for? ----------------------------------------- The alt.sex.stories.* hierarchy is the primary place for the distribution of erotic stories on Usenet. The three groups in which you will probably spend most time are: alt.sex.stories Stories, discussion, repost requests and much else (basically, anything that someone sees fit to post) alt.sex.stories.moderated Stories and reviews only; anything else is rejected alt.sex.stories.d Discussion about stories, repost requests, general talk and argument Alt.sex.stories is a "free-for-all", heavily targeted by spammers. This freedom is both a strength and a weakness: on the positive side, anything you post will get through, regardless of its appropriateness (or lack thereof) for the group; on the negative side, it can be time consuming to wade through the spam, attachments and flame/trollbait to find what you're looking for. Hence the development of the other two groups, which have quite different functions: a.s.s.moderated is a spam-free group intended specifically for the posting of stories only, and a.s.s.d is a group intended for talking about stories and related topics. It's quite possible to ignore alt.sex.stories entirely and still have a very good idea of the latest stories and developments. The following is a list of groups on Usenet which carry erotic stories. Although Usenet is of course a worldwide network, the basic language of these groups (with one noted exception) is English; this should not discourage the posting of non-English stories and discussion, however. Not all of these groups may be carried on your local news server; for an excellent list of currently available news servers, see http://www.jammed.com/~newzbot/ alt.sex.stories This group is for erotic texts of *any* subject matter. The amount of erotic material may be very small, or it may be the primary focus of the story. It is fair to say that this newsgroup has the largest readership of them all, and is the group most frequently scanned by "casual" readers. In a.s.s. you will also find repost requests, a small amount of discussion, and a large amount of spam from commercial sex-site operators. alt.sex.stories.moderated Once again, erotic texts of any subject matter. The "moderated" indicates that all posts to this newsgroup have to be approved by someone before they appear. Don't let this scare you: the only posts rejected are spam and off-topic material (i.e. anything that is not a story or review); informal comments and questions that are accidentally posted here are redirected to alt.sex.stories.d.For more information, please see the ASSM FAQ at http://assm.asstr-mirror.org/assm/faq.html A web archive of all a.s.s.m. posts can be found at http://assm.asstr-mirror.org/assm/index.html (by month) http://assm.asstr-mirror.org/assm/windex.html (by week) (For information on how to prevent archiving of a post, please see "Where and How to Post" in Section 5). It's important to realise that a.s.s.m. is not a.s.s. with the spam filtered out - it is a group in its own right. The group moderation is performed by a number of volunteers using a web-based accept/reject/redirect system, based at ASSTR (http://www.asstr-mirror.org). alt.sex.stories.bondage alt.sex.stories.cuckold (marital infidelity) alt.sex.stories.gay alt.sex.stories.hetero (heterosexual) alt.sex.stories.incest alt.sex.stories.so (same as cuckold, so = significant other) alt.sex.stories.tg (transgender) Not all these "special interest" groups are carried by all servers. Note that story posters won't necessarily crosspost appropriate stories to these groups, so if you're looking for a particular genre it's a good idea to check a.s.s. and a.s.s.m. as well. Some of these groups are rarely used. alt.sex.stories.gay.moderated This generally has the same procedure as a.s.s.m. It is moderated by Mykkhal (mykkhal@bigfoot.com). An archive of its stories is available at http://www.assgm.com, and information about it can be found at http://my.simplenet.com/assgm/ alt.sex.stories.d Anything about erotic stories which isn't actually a story itself. As such, it will commonly include reviews of stories, discussions about writing in general, and requests for reposts. All posters should follow the {ASSD} convention to indicate non-spam messages. For more information about this and a.s.s.d in general, see Section 8 of this document. Outside the hierarchy: alt.erotic.stories Erotic texts of any nature. This group was established in an attempt to avoid spam by staying out of the alt.sex hierarchy. Although receiving less spam than other groups, it is not immune to such posts, unfortunately. alt.binaries.stories.sex This group is for erotic stories of any nature, which are not posted in normal ASCII format. As such, it can include zip files, HTML documents, and native word processor files. alt.startrek.creative.erotica.moderated >From the cursory glance I had, this appears to be a combination story/discussion group, even including specialised story codes to indicate characters in the eponymous TV series. For more information, see http://home.earthlink.net/~ereshkigal/ rec.arts.erotica This group is very rarely used. Although it still shows up on all news servers, it is unlikely that you will find anything there. For more information, see Section 2 of this document. The current moderator is Michael Handler (handler@sub-rosa.com) Foreign language groups: German language stories are occasionally posted to alt.sex.stories (though the diacriticals for the umlaut etc. can potentially cause problems for default US ASCII configurations). There is, however, a group catering specifically for German stories: z-netz.alt.erotik.geschichten This is a combination story/discussion group, which receives a moderate amount of traffic. It is available on Deja if your news server doesn't carry it (see Appendix A for more information). Unfortunately, I am unaware of groups catering for any other languages (if you are aware of any, please let me know). Usenet II: net.sexuality.stories net.sexuality.stories.discuss For more information about Usenet II, see http://www.usenet2.org. The "czar" for these groups was the former moderator of ASSM, Eli-the-Bearded, but since his retirement their status is unclear. For more information about the groups, see Eli's guidelines at http://www.deja.com/getdoc.xp?AN=386987273&fmt=text Section 4: What do the story code abbreviations mean? ---------------------------------------------- In any general group such as alt.sex.stories, it is helpful for readers to know what they are getting themselves into before they start reading a story. The groups contain stories with descriptions of every sexual activity you could think of (and some you couldn't), and people naturally want to avoid stories that they would be "squicked" by (more on that term later). Conversely, they would like to know when a story has a theme which specially interests them (e.g. romance). To solve this problem, a rather elaborate "coding" system has been developed. Written properly, the codes indicate the participants, the level of consent and any other special modifiers. The only time a story *should* be completely uncoded is when it is "vanilla" - that is, non-kinky male-female sexual activity between consenting adults. Unfortunately, readers cannot assume as much from uncoded stories. Some authors object to this system, feeling that their stories should be read for their literary value, regardless of what kind of sex occurs. It also causes problems where pre-disclosure of a particular sexual activity would "give away" the story. In these situations, an author or reposter should still put "content warning" or something similar in the subject header if the story is not completely "vanilla". Some codes are self-explanatory; the following list describes only those which are commonly used and require explanation. The explanations are partly taken from the most complete references on the subject, currently maintained by Uther Pendragon (anon584c@nyx.net). Anyone looking for a complete listing should consult these documents. There are two, one for authors and one for readers, available at: http://www.nyx.net/~anon584c/code/scfr.txt (for readers) http://www.nyx.net/~anon584c/code/scfa.txt (for authors) Participants: M An adult male (over 18) m Boy - Teenager (not yet 19) b Boy - Pre-teen (age 12 or less) F An adult female (over 18) f Girl - Teenager (not yet 19) g Girl - Pre-teen (age 12 or less) T Adult transgendered male/female t Minor transgendered male/female These occur in any permutation (so "MF" indicates heterosexual adult sex, "mf" indicates heterosexual teenage sex, etc). A "+" indicates two or more of the same sex (e.g. "MF+" means several women with the same man). Additionally, "-solo" appended to any of the above indicates masturbation by that participant (e.g. "F-solo"). Level of Consent: rom Romantic: sex between characters in love con(s) Consensual, non-romantic sexual activity reluc Reluctant: coercion of some kind involved nc Non-consensual sexual activity Other Features: -dom Domination by any participant (e.g. Mdom, Fdom) 1st First time bd(sm) Bondage, discipline, sado-masochism exhib Exhibitionism: sex in public places hist Historical: stories set before c. 1950 hum Humiliation (im)preg Impregnation, sex with pregnant woman inter(r) Interracial inc Incest lac Lactation: (human) milk mc Mind control: hypnotism etc. slow Sexual description does not commence immediately sm Sadomasochism story Story has a well-developed plot (not neccessarily sex-related) tg Transgender voy Voyeurism ws Water sports (golden showers) Although this list may seem intimidating for the "vanilla" reader, a great many stories, and possibly the majority, would just be coded MF cons and/or rom. Section 5: How do I post a story? --------------------------------- If you want a post or repost a story, there are a few conventions which have been established to make reading easier for everyone. Following them will ensure that the story is appreciated by the widest possible readership. As a quick guide, stories should: * be in plain ASCII text only * use around 72 characters per line * be posted to alt.sex.stories.moderated as a first choice * be no more than 200K per section * have a Subject line which describes the author, title and content More detailed explanations of these guidelines follow. There is a FAQ on the subject by Uther Pendragon still under construction at http://www.nyx.net/~anon584c/post/faq.htm Conversion and Formatting Considerations Word Processors are most useful for spell checking and formatting, but their native file formats are not a good idea for posting to a.s.s and its related groups. Stories should be posted in plain ASCII text *only* (that is, no zip or HTML files), and should include no extended characters (e.g. "smart quotes" or accent marks), because, after passing through many different servers, it's most unlikely that they will emerge intact on the reader's news server. If you must post in a non-ASCII format, use alt.binaries.stories.erotic. Most word processors provide an option to save as "Plain Text" or similar. For specific instructions for one of the most popular, please see Appendix C "Formatting Details for Word". However, is *is* possible to send an attachment to alt.sex.stories.moderated, provided that the attached file is plain text only (it will be automatically decoded). Attachments of any other kind will be rejected. The line length should be set to no more than 80 characters; 72 and 75 are the most common standards. The following should be avoided: double spaced lines, justified alignment (where the text fills the line completely from left to right), and tabs. The interpretation of tabs varies between different systems, so please use the equivalent number of normal spaces instead. Where and How to Post Alt.Sex.Stories.Moderated is probably the first group to consider; people are much more likely to see your story here since there's no spam. The system will automatically cross-post your story to alt.sex.stories, so there's no need to manually add this yourself. In addition to normal posting methods, a.s.s.m. submissions can be emailed to ckought69@hotmail.com. Even though the group is moderated, there is no need to have a Subject line such as "Please add this to a.s.s.m", as is seen occasionally. Just post as you normally would. Stories posted to a.s.s.m. *must* have a valid return address, or else they will be rejected. You should be aware that any story sent to a.s.s.m. in addition to other groups *will not appear* on those other groups until the story is cleared by a.s.s.m. This leads to occasional problems when a.s.s.m is temporarily down. It is possible, of course, to ignore a.s.s.m and post directly to alt.sex.stories. A.s.s. has the advantage of being more widely read, but it is full of spam. You should also set the "Followup-To:" header to "alt.sex.stories.d"; that way, people commenting on your story can just hit reply and automatically post to the right group (in a.s.s.m., this is done automatically). If you don't want your post archived anywhere (e.g. on the ASSM web archive or Deja), make sure your post has an "X-No-Archive: yes" header, so these services will ignore it. This applies equally to all groups. In addition to the above, you should consider cross-posting to one of the "special interest" groups if your story is appropriate, and also to alt.erotic.stories. Alt.Binaries.Stories.Erotic should only be used if you have a really good reason, e.g. your story takes advantage of HTML formatting. Posts to a.s.s.m.g can be emailed to moderated.stories@bigfoot.com. To make sure people notice your story, especially if you're a new author, you might want to post a "Spotlight" in a.s.s.d. For more information, see Section 8: ASSD. Part Division If your story is over 60K in size, consider dividing it up into sections, preferably at chapter or part divisions. Many stories will be divided at more frequent intervals, due to the rules imposed by individual ISPs or the limitations of newsreading software. In general, however, it's a good idea to keep divisions to a minimum. No-one likes searching for missing story sections in a spam-filled group like a.s.s. Alt.sex.stories.moderated posts will be divided into smaller sections if they are more than 300K. Post Structure The first thing to consider is the format of your Subject line. Readers browsing the groups will use this to decide whether or not to read a story, so it's a good idea to make it as informative as possible. It should contain the following information: the title of the story, the author, the appropriate codes (unless you object to the idea), and the chapter or part number (if applicable). There are many ways of presenting all this; the suggested standard is: {ASS} Title x/y {Author} (codes) e.g. {ASS} Fun with Mary [1/2] {John} (MF con) The {ASS} indicates this is a non-spam post to the alt.sex.stories hierarchy. Note also that {ASSM} will automatically be added to the subject line of alt.sex.stories.moderated posts if not already present. For more information on making a subject line, see Titmouse's FAQ on the subject at http://www.asstr-mirror.org/files/Authors/ASSFAQs/www/sslfaq.html Regardless of how the information is presented, the most common feature omitted from the subject line is the author's name; posters are strongly advised to include this detail for the benefit of readers browsing the group. Make sure the author's name, email address and story title are stated at the start of the story. If this is a section of a multi-part story, you should indicate as much at the end of the message body (e.g. "End of Part 1. Continued in Part 2..."). Some authors will restate the story title and authorship again at the end of the post, as an extra defence against unscrupulous reposters (see the next section). Section 6: Can I repost my story, or someone else's? ---------------------------------------------------- Reposting simply refers to the practice of submitting stories to the hierarchy which have already appeared there at some time in the past. Due to the extensive archiving of services like Deja, the need for this practice is limited. It is recommended that a story should only be reposted if it is six months or more since its previous publication. An exception can be made if the story recently received a favourable review, and the reviewer failed to provide a link to the story on one of the archiving services. Authors are, of course, welcome to bring attention to their stories at any time through the use of "spotlights" (see Section 8). The use of archives instead of reposts has two advantages: they help reduce traffic on the newsgroups, and potential copyright problems are lessened. However, they have one major disadvantage: excellent stories from the past are "hidden away", and newcomers to the groups are limited to whatever is being currently written. Reposters, therefore, have the primary function of keeping stories "alive" after their authors have ceased posting them. Readers should not just let reposters do all the work for them: exploration of archives such as http://www.asstr-mirror.org and http://www.deja.com (especially using the "Power Search" facility) is strongly encouraged. Sometimes, you will turn up "hidden gems" that thoroughly deserve to be reposted. Be wary, however, when reposting stories that are not your own. A few authors wish to retain *complete* distribution control over their story (that is, only they themselves can repost it). An author will usually make this quite clear in his/her introductory remarks, and these wishes should be respected. This admonition applies equally to anyone planning to make a story accessible via a WWW archive. It is vital for authors to make clear exactly what their distribution policy is. The most common distribution policy in the groups states that copyright is retained by the author, but the story may be distributed by anyone as long as no text is changed, the details of authorship are retained, and the process of distribution makes no money for the distributor. Not surprisingly, very few people take kindly to the idea of someone making money from a story which its author made available for free. Note that this effectively rules out use of a story on commercial sites or CD-ROMs. If a story makes no mention of a distribution policy, you should contact the author and ask him/her whether you can repost or archive it. If the author's email address is missing or invalid, make every attempt to discover their current contact details. If contacting the author is still not possible, it is considered acceptable in some quarters to distribute the story, following the guidelines given above. Note that this possibly constitutes copyright infringement, and several people would strongly oppose this practice (see Section 7). It is impossible to reach a consensus on this point; it is up to individual reposters to decide for themselves. There are quite a few stories circulating with unknown or attributed authorship, including some of exceptional quality. This situation is partly due to unscrupulous reposters who deliberately remove indications of authorship and copyright from authors' texts. It is also due to authors who fail to state their authorship in the body of the message (as opposed to the Subject line). Authors should *always* restate their name and email address before the start of the story (and possibly at its end) to help guard against their authorship being "detached" when someone else reposts it. So, if you want to repost a story not written by yourself, please follow these guidelines: * Make sure the author has given permission to repost it, if at all possible. * Indicate that this is a repost, and the story is not by yourself. * If you are taking the story from an original post by the author, preserve all the original headers and authorial comments. Section 7: What about copyright? Is this all legal? --------------------------------------------------- "R.a.e, [and by extension, a.s.s.] by its very nature of being part of Usenet, is a cesspool with respect to copyright law. Since the mere act of posting to Usenet causes thousands of copies of the article to be made, there must be an implicit granting of duplication rights with each post if Usenet is at all legal under the Berne Convention. How far those implicit rights extend is the deep murky filth of the cesspool." - Eli the Bearded Firstly, anyone interested in the issue of copyright on Usenet should read Brad Templeton's "10 Big Myths About Copyright Explained" at http://www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html. This establishes the important point that an author has a copyright on anything they post to Usenet, regardless of whether he/she actually states this. It follows that an author could have legal remedies if someone makes an unauthorized repost, or includes their story on a website or CD-ROM (such distribution is not "fair use"). Many authors don't mind people reposting their stories, and will state as much at the start of the story. Some authors don't want their stories reposted at all, and there is indeed the possibility of legal action if someone does so. So, caveat missor: it is the reposter's responsibility to ensure that the original author granted general distribution rights. If no statement was made on this matter, the reposter can assume the _de facto_ "duplication allowed for non-commercial use" principle, but does so at his/her own risk. In October 1998, the U.S. Congress passed a bill providing new safeguards on electronic copyright. Any person found to have removed or altered an author's legitimate "copyright management information" (i.e. indications of authorship, title and copying restrictions) will be liable in civil action. In addition, if the perpetrator is found to have done this for commercial gain (e.g. a pay site operator) the act becomes a criminal offence, punishable by up to a $500,000 fine and/or five years jail. For the text of the bill, see ftp://ftp.loc.gov/pub/thomas/c105/h2281.ih.txt. This obviously has great implications for reposters and commercial story sites. A quite separate but equally problematic issue is the very legality of the stories themselves. In Singapore, for example, ISPs are forbidden from distributing contents which "are pornographic or otherwise obscene", "promote permissiveness or promiscuity", "depict or promote gross exploitation of...nudity [or] sex," and many more. Even in countries with relatively liberal censorship laws, stories which depict illegal activities could be subject to the same restrictions. All readers and contributors should be aware of the legal ramifications in their jurisdictions of possessing and distributing such material. A useful resource in this respect is the Electronic Frontier Foundation at http://www.eff.org. Section 8: What's alt.sex.stories.d for? ---------------------------------------- One of the surest signs that the a.s.s. hierarchy supports a "community" is to be found in a.s.s.d. The "d" stands for discussion - that is, anything related to erotic stories which isn't actually a story itself. This is the place to announce new stories, ask for reposts, discuss the process of writing, and post reviews (and reviews of reviews :-). Surprisingly, very few of the threads focus on specific stories, and frequently discussion will move off on a tangent to issues of a more general nature. The number of active participants is quite small, but there are many occasional contributors, and almost certainly a high proportion of lurkers. The readers of a.s.s.d, however, are a small subset of the total a.s.s. readership. A few commonly used terms may require explanation. A "stroke" story is one which does not aspire to be a work of "literature" - its purpose is sexual arousal only. A "genre" writer is someone who concentrates on writing about an unusual sexual behaviour, as opposed to "vanilla" writers who concentrate on stories of the standard adult male-female consensual variety. There is much discussion about whether these distinctions should exist. To be "squicked" by a story or genre means one is repulsed by those activities, and doesn't find them sexually arousing at all. If you begin a thread on a.s.s.d, *always* prefix your subject line with "{ASSD}", e.g. "{ASSD} Literary vs. Stroke". This convention is used to indicate a genuine post (as opposed to spam), and it has been very effective. Spammers, being terminally stupid people, haven't worked it out yet :-) Some readers will filter out posts that don't use this convention, so make sure you use it. Note, however, that there's no need to rearrange your newsreader's suggested header for replies; for example "Re: {ASSD} Literary vs. Stroke" is correct, while "{ASSD} Re: Literary vs. Stroke" is not. If you discover a genuine post that is not using this convention, please email the post's author and let them know about it. Sometimes you may see a message with a Subject header including the word "Spot" or "Spotlight". This convention, originally suggested by Malinov indicates that the message is designed to bring attention to a particular story which is currently available somewhere on the internet. The Spotlight may be written by the story's author, or by a reader wishing to give their quick opinion of the story, as opposed to a more formal, in-depth "review". Spotlights should always include a link to the story under discussion, such as its Message ID (if it is currently available), or a URL where it is archived (such as the ASSM archive and Deja). Frequently discussed topics in ASSD include: reviews and reviewers, the distinction between erotica and pornography, Internet copyright, the responsibilities of authors to their readers, "stroke" vs. "literary" stories, and the amount of thanks (or lack thereof) that authors receive for their work. Titmouse's "Welcome to the Group" (see the beginning of this FAQ for the address) covers ASSD procedures in some detail. For an interesting account of the ASSD regulars, see the "Demographics" thread of May 1999 - http://x37.deja.com/viewthread.xp?AN=474334670 and John A.'s collation of the results at http://x45.deja.com/viewthread.xp?AN=476208747 Details of some current contributors may also be found at http://home6.inet.tele.dk/atin/ Section 9: What's the deal with reviews? ---------------------------------------- Undoubtedly, no other subject has caused more disagreement, and indeed anger within the erotic stories community than the subject of reviews and reviewing techniques. New readers may wonder what the problem is, so I will present an overview of the issues involved, followed by an introduction to well-known reviewers. Unlike movie and book reviews, where the creator of the work is in a sense "shielded" from the review by his or her reputation and marketing, public story reviews take place in a world where everyone is equal. Equally unlike movie and book reviews, the creator of the work receives absolutely no remuneration for their efforts, apart from praise (and criticism) from the community. In such an atmosphere, there is the danger of authors interpreting all negative comments as a personal slight, and the impression that reviewers are passing judgement from "on high". Almost without exception, reviewers have tended to focus upon the "literary" aspects of the story, such as the plot, character development and grammatical details. This conflicts with the primary function of a great many stories, generally termed "stroke", whose function is purely to arouse. For these stories, it has been suggested that "literary" quality is basically irrelevant, and the real measure of quality is how "hot" the story is. There is disagreement as to how far the standards of one can be applied to the other. The most contentious issue of all is whether reviewers should review stories which contain content that they are "squicked" by. Debate generally focuses upon whether the reviewer has the "right" to review the story in the first place, and whether the reviewer's rating of the story should be affected by the "squick" content. Some would argue that the only people "qualified" to write a review are those with a special interest in whatever unusual behaviour is being described, as they are the ones for whom the story is intended. Others would argue that standards of writing are the same, regardless of genre, which makes any story a legitimate subject, regardless of the reviewer's "squicks". The centre of the argument rests with the "personal appeal" of the story to the reviewer. Particular praise and opprobrium has been reserved for the ratings system of Celeste, which used a three-part rating of technical quality, plot and character, and "appeal to reviewer". This method has been criticised as supposedly blurring the distinction between the essentially "neutral" categories of technical and plot quality, and the highly personal and subjective "personal appeal". There is debate also as to what the function of a review should be - a description of currently available stories, so readers can choose ones which look interesting, or a literary critique with ratings. All reviews fulfil both these aspects to some degree (though with varying emphasis), and it has been argued that these supposedly conflicting functions should be kept entirely separate. All these concerns are not so much a problem as they might seem. Most authors are happy to receive praise and constructive criticisms about their stories. Most authors also try to write stories that are both well-written and "hot" at the same time. Most reviewers tend to focus on stories which they are not "squicked" by. All the same, if an author does not want a story publicly reviewed, this should be made clear in the introductory remarks, and these wishes should be respected by a prospective reviewer. If there are no remarks in the introduction regarding reviews, this is considered to be permission to review the story. For one experienced reviewer's guidelines on reviewing, see http://members.aol.com/ladycyrrh/Other/rules.html. There have been three reviewers who have established a sizeable repertory of "organised" reviews - that is, a group of reviews including editorial commentary and some sort of ratings system, released together as an "issue". There are many instances of people starting such endeavours, and then going quiet after a few issues. The following reviewers have established reputations, mainly because they have been able to release their reviews, on something like a regular basis, for a long time. They hold no "official" status within the groups at all. Celeste (celeste801@aol.com) began reviewing stories in July 1995, ancient history in Internet terms. Since then, there have been over 300 issues of the "Celestial Reviews", and it is still going strong. She also compiles lists of the best stories reviewed each month and year, administers a proofreading service, and occasionally organises special competitions (such as the annual award for the best Christmas story). For more information about Celeste, see her FAQ, posted periodically to the relevant groups and also available at http://www.asstr-mirror.org/files/FAQs_and_Information/Celestial_FAQ_3.0.txt >From Issue 65, she has used a three-part ratings system, giving a mark out of ten for technical quality, plot and character development, and appeal to the reviewer. Guest reviewers (who may use a different ratings system) have been a regular feature since Issue 193. It has become quite common practice to cite a review as follows: "10-10-10 CR241", meaning that the story was reviewed in Celestial Reviews 241, and received top marks in all categories. A complete archive of the reviews (including some Top Stories lists) is available at http://www.asstr-mirror.org/files/Collections/Celestial_Reviews/ Issues 1-154, including the Top Stories List for each month, are archived at http://assm.asstr-mirror.org/erotica/review while Issues 155-287 (some incorrectly indexed), also including the Top Stories lists, and reviews by others, are at http://assm.asstr-mirror.org/erotica/reviews.html There was also an archive of most issues, with links to most of the actual stories, at http://www.gilglin.com/celeste. This is presently unavailable due to site overloading, and it is unclear whether it will return. Lady Cyrrh (ladycyrrh@aol.com) began writing the "Annex" Reviews in May 1997. Her professed intention was to review the kind of stories which Celeste avoided, which means her reviews generally concentrate on the less "vanilla" material. She uses a simple ratings scale of A+ to D-, causing less controversy than Celeste's more elaborate system. Unfortunately, due to injury she has had to reduce the frequency of her reviews. A complete archive of all her reviews, plus a FAQ and much other useful material, is online at her website: http://members.aol.com/ladycyrrh. Lee Vine (leevine@pair.com) began the organised "Rogue Reviews" in May 1998, although he had posted individual reviews prior to this. A collection of new reviews is released at least once a month; the selection of stories is eclectic and does not emphasize any particular genre. Lee has won acclaim for the highly organised structure of the reviews and his no-nonsense style. All the reviews are archived at: http://www92.pair.com/leevine/rogue-reviews/00/index.html Section 10: How do I thank an author for their work? ---------------------------------------------------- The development of the internet has allowed the fast and inexpensive distribution of erotic literature. Yet this very accessibility obscures one very important point: for every story ever created, there has been an author. Someone has sat down at their computer and devoted some of their time and effort to creating that story. Some authors will spend months, or even years, working on a story, thinking about its characters, developing its plot, revising and proofreading. They will then post it, for free. When you read a story you like, email the author and thank them. It is no good thinking to yourself "wow, what a great story" if the person to whom this matters most does not hear it. Emailing an author serves two important purposes: it tells the author that their work is being read and appreciated, and it encourages them to write more stories. It would also be polite, of course, for the author to acknowledge the letter. Don't think that "someone else will thank them anyway": in many cases, the sad fact is that an author will receive *no* feedback whatsoever about their work. Many good authors have quit over the years, citing lack of support from readers as their main reason for doing so. Thanking the author can be rewarding for readers, too. You may just receive a short response thanking you for your comments; some readers, however, have engaged in extended correspondences with authors about their stories and characters. Writing is hard work. Although we are all guilty of freeloading sometimes, the least an author can expect in payment for their hard work is the knowledge that their stories are being read and enjoyed, all around the world. Section 11: How do I post anonymously? -------------------------------------- Due to the nature of many stories posted to the hierarchy (especially in light of the issues outlined in Section 7), most people who participate will conceal their identity in some way. There are many different ways of doing this, with varying degrees of security. I have no intention of covering this vast topic in any degree of detail; I am just going to outline some methods of anonymous posting. One way to post anonymously is to establish a "virtual" email account which redirects all its mail to your real email address. That way, you can post and send email using the virtual address, while concealing your identity from the recipients. An example of this service is http://www.netforward.com (although unfortunately it is not allowing any new users). Another way is to use one of the burgeoning "free email" accounts, in conjunction with a mail2news address or a public posting service (such as Deja). For a list of many providers, see http://www.emailaddresses.com. Note that these services are not designed to be safe anonymizers, and only provide a very basic level of security. If you don't require replies to your post, consider using an anonymous remailer such as Replay posting service (http://www.zedz.com/remailer). This will send your post to a newsgroup, but remove all indications of where it was posted from, and set the Reply-to header to "nobody@replay.com", an invalid address. Note that this will not work with alt.sex.stories.moderated as it requires a valid return address. One service that seems to be quite popular is nym.alias.net, at http://www.publius.net/n.a.n.html. This is an anonymous remailer service (you get an address like yourname@nym.alias.net), used in conjunction with mail2news, and it is very secure. It does, however, require a knowledge of the encryption program PGP and/or client software such as Private Idaho. For more information about this, see http://www.dnai.com/~wussery/pgp.html. Finally, a few services offer anonymous email and Usenet posting at a cost. See http://www.anonmail.net, http://www.nymserver.com and http://www.mailanon.com for examples. HushMail (http://www.hushmail.com) is a free, advertiser-supported version of these. Section 12: How do I deal with all this spam? --------------------------------------------- So far, this FAQ has overlooked the reality of browsing an unmoderated and unfiltered newsgroup within the alt.sex.stories hierarchy. Typically, most messages will not be stories at all; they will be spam of the "VIRGIN SLUT CHEERLEADER WANTS YOUR COCK!!!" variety :-) It is possible, however, to eliminate most if not all of this spam. The easiest way to avoid spam is to simply use the group which eliminates it totally: alt.sex.stories.moderated. As stated before, a.s.s.m. should be the group of choice for both writers and readers unless they have a good reason not to utilise it. When browsing unmoderated groups, there are two general methods to avoid the spam. The first is to use a news server which has software (such as Spam Hippo) to filter out the spam before the posts reach the reader. Services such as Newsguy (http://www.newsguy.com) offer this service; they are, however, not free. If you don't mind the advertising, Deja (http://www.dejanews.com) is a free WWW-based alternative which generally does a good job of removing spam. The second method involves using a newsreader on the reader's local computer to filter out the spam. Not all news programs provide this feature; programs that do include the shareware Gravity (http://www.microplanet.com), and the commercial Forte Agent (http://www.forteinc.com/agent). Generally, you configure the program to delete posts based on words that do (or don't) appear in the Subject lines. For example, in alt.sex.stories.d, you can tell the program to remove any messages that don't have "{ASSD}" in them, since they are almost certainly spam. For the other groups (e.g. alt.sex.stories), the program could remove posts which include common spam words, such as "pics", "slut", etc. It is difficult to give specific details because of the great variety in program design; see Appendix B "Filtering in Forte Agent" for detailed instructions on how to achieve this with one of the most popular newsreaders. Spammers typically find valid email addresses by "harvesting" them from newsgroups. For information about "spam-blocking" your email address, see http://members.aol.com/emailfaq/mungfaq.txt. For more information about spam and how to fight it, see http://www.cauce.org (The Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email) http://spam.abuse.net/spam (Fight Spam on the Internet) http://www.cybernothing.org/faqs/net-abuse-faq.html (The Net Abuse FAQ) Section 13: Where can I find good stories? ------------------------------------------ In the face of so many thousands of stories, new readers are inevitably faced with the question "where do I start?". There are several documents available which provide lists of stories, categorised by author and title. One is compiled by Ray N. Velez (ii361@cleveland.freenet.edu), and provides the title, author, genre and a numerical rating for over 2000 stories. It is available at http://www.asstr-mirror.org/files/FAQs_and_Information/Story_List.txt Annex B of Ole Joe's Guide lists hundreds of stories, by author: http://www.asstr-mirror.org/files/FAQs_and_Information/Ole_Joes_Guide_v15.txt Celeste compiled lists of the Top 100 stories reviewed each year: * 1995 edition - http://assm.asstr-mirror.org/erotica/review/celes95t.txt * 1996 edition - http://assm.asstr-mirror.org/erotica/review/celes96t.txt * 1997 edition - http://assm.asstr-mirror.org/Year98/7120.txt (There are no 1998/9 lists) An excellent resource has been compiled by Bitbard, in the form of links to almost all of the stories in Celeste's monthly Top 20 lists. These are available at http://www.storiesonline.net/Pages/Celest.html The above site also includes links to the Top 100 Stories of 1995, compiled by the present author. Alt.sex.stories.d is also a good place to check for announcements and discussion of good stories. If you have trouble locating a story, you can request a repost in a.s.s.d; however, the vast majority of stories are freely available from one of the major archives. For instructions on finding a particular story, see Appendix A. Section 14: What other documents are there about these groups? -------------------------------------------------------------- There are a number of excellent documents which provide additional information about various aspects of a.s.s. The latest text versions (if there are any) are always available from http://www.asstr-mirror.org/faqs.html and additional links are listed below for HTML versions, or if the document has a quasi-"official" location. The Journal of Desire, edited by Mark Aster (myfrthal@aol.com) http://members.aol.com/myfrthal/JoD An erotic webzine, published three to four times a year, it aims to be "an occasional journal of erotic writing, criticism, and commentary". The contributors are usually well-known figures in the a.s.s. community, and the content tends toward the "literary" side of things. The a.s.s.* Free Story FAQ, by Anne747 (fs-faq@annejet.pair.com) This is an honourable attempt to drive out the spammers and pay-sites, by providing a list of free, "author-friendly" websites which are related in some way to the a.s.s. hierarchy. The official location is: http://annejet.pair.com/fsfaq/ The Guide to a.s.s, by Ole Joe (ole.joe@poboxes.com, olejoe@alt.net) An amazing achievement, this is an "encyclopedia" of story authors, plus a very comprehensive list of stories. It is essential reading for anyone new to the groups, and indispensable as a reference for those creating story collections of their own. The current version (v.15) is likely to be the last, unfortunately. Codes in a.s.s. Stories, by Uther Pendragon (anon584c@nyx.net) There are in fact two documents with this title, one designed for authors and reposters, and one for readers. Both explain the meaning of the story codes which commonly appear in the Subject header (see Section 4 of this FAQ). Both documents are posted periodically to the newsgroups and are also available from the site listed above. The Alt.Sex.Stories.Moderated FAQ, by Eli-the-Bearded (eli@netusa.net), updated by Rey del Sexo (assm-ckought69@hotmail.com) Explains how to post to this newsgroup, with important information about acceptable content and common problems. First-time posters to a.s.s.m. are encouraged to read this document first. It is available from: http://assm.asstr-mirror.org/assm/faq.html The Celestial FAQ, by Celeste (celeste801@aol.com) Information about the hierarchy's longest running series of reviews, and their author. It explains her motivations, rating system, and provides a list of authors and links. Other documents by Celeste include: Celestial Grammar, Advanced Celestial Grammar, the story "Virtuous Reality" and the List of Credulous Assumptions (see CR 175). Sex Stories: What You Should Know, by Kim and Seurat A short guide to the basics of reading and posting, this document filled the need for a descriptive document about the alt.sex.stories hierarchy from the cessation of the previous FAQ to the establishment of the present one. The document is currently maintained by Seurat (seurat7@enter.net). Stories List, by Ray N. Velez A list of over 2460 stories, arranged by title and (in a separate document) by author. Each entry lists the title, author and genre, and gives a numerical rating out of 1000. A very wide range of stories is listed, and later editions include a list of story websites. Torn Shapes of Desire, by Mary Anne Mohanraj Not an electronic document, but rather a real book containing stories previously published on alt.sex.stories by the author. Published by Intangible Asset Manufacturing, 1997, ISBN 1885876033. I have no commercial connection with this book at all. A second volume, to be called "Maiden Voyage: New Writers in Erotica", containing stories by many different authors, is reportedly in the works. Hot Off the Net, edited by Russ Kick Another book collecting ASS/M stories by many different writers. From one of the contributors, Bronwen: "Hot Off the Net" is edited by Russ Kick, and published by Black Books (ISBN 892723-00-X). It can be bought by credit card over the 'phone or fax. It costs $14.00 (Canada $20). It's distributed by AK, Alamo Square, Bookazine, Desert Moon, Last Gasp, Left Bank, Occulture...The URL is http://www.mindpollen.com/hotn/" Section 15: Closing Words ------------------------- I felt it was appropriate to add some personal thoughts to this FAQ, as they are relevant to the more philosophical issues surrounding these newsgroups. The sum total of ASS/M stories provides a reflection of virtually every human behaviour, from the most depraved cruelty to the most loving kindness. It is sexuality at its most diverse. There are stories that have made me utterly disgusted that anyone would write such a thing, and there are stories that have (once or twice) brought me to tears at their perfection. All this lies within the imagination of authors. One cannot assume that an author would personally endorse the activities contained in his/her story. This is virtually a non-issue for a "vanilla" story, but some stories, those including adult-minor sex being obvious examples, are fraught with difficulty. Attitudes to these stories range from total distaste to total permissiveness. For my part, I tend towards the former opinion, but I am willing to acknowledge the widely differing tastes of readers. "If you don't like a story, don't read it". The issue of those with vulnerable personalities being encouraged to do in real life what they read in stories is one so emotive and complex that I will not discuss it here. What I will mention is the fact that people under the age of 18 may have access to these newsgroups. The hierarchy is intended for mature adults, obviously. Whether it would be harmful for minors to access some or all of the stories in ASS/M, and whether an author bears any kind of "responsibility" for their work, are issues for individual contributors to decide. The world in which ASS/M characters live, is, for the most part, one without sexually transmitted diseases, accidental pregnancy, or the social _mores_ and inhibitions which we take for granted in real life. This of course forms a large part of its appeal. It behoves us to remember, however, that these stories are only constructs of someone's imagination. I truly believe that the hierarchy contains some of the best writing available on the internet today. I hope that this FAQ has assisted in its promotion and appreciation. Appendix A: Where can I find this story I'm looking for? -------------------------------------------------------- There are several huge online archives available which provide access to thousands of stories. It is likely that at least one of these archives has the story you're looking for. Deja (http://www.deja.com) Deja (formerly Dejanews) is the most important archive of Usenet, with records dating back to early 1995. Early in 1999, the company embarked on an aggressive campaign to reorient itself as a repository of "ratings" on various "products", provided by its users. Thankfully, it has continued to provide its Usenet archive services. It is recommended that you use the alternative search dialog at http://www.exit109.com/files/Authors/j/wwweremy/news/deja.html to minimize the advertising and invitations to rate tennis rackets and haircare accessories. Wijit's Deja FAQ at http://www.asstr-mirror.org/files/FAQs_and_Information/Deja_FAQ.txt is the main source of information on how to search Deja for erotic stories. Similar services are Remarq (http://www.remarq.com) and Talkway (http://www.talkway.com), although their archives are much smaller and less intuitive to operate. The Alt.Sex.Stories Text Repository (http://www.asstr-mirror.org/search.html) The ASSTR search engine is an immensely useful feature of the website. It indexes the full text of the ASSM and rec.arts.erotica archives, the hosted authors' websites, and the various collections. It also supports searching for phrases and the use of operators (plus and minus signs). Given the comprehensive nature of ASSTR's archives, a very high proportion of past a.s.s.* stories can be found using this engine. Alt.Sex.Stories.d If you can't find the story in any of the above archives, you can post a request in a.s.s.d for someone to repost it. This is especially useful if you can't remember the title or author of the story, but can describe the plot or characters involved. Metacrawler (http://www.metacrawler.com) As a last resort, you can try searching the web. It's possible that someone has established an archive somewhere including the story you're looking for. Appendix B: How do I use Forte Agent's filtering facility? ---------------------------------------------------------- This section is offered as an example of how to implement newsreader-based filtering. I am explaining Agent's system because it seems to be one of the most widely used news programs (these instructions are for Agent 1.5 and higher; earlier versions may differ slightly). To establish a news filter in Agent, go to Window -> Open Usenet Filters. Click the leftmost button on the toolbar (Add Kill Filter). Now you have to tell Agent what articles to delete; a sample filter expression for spam is: (=%{[^a-z]+}|{[0-9]+[0-9]+[0-9]+[0-9]+[0-9]+$}|www|http|htm*|{xxx}|{jpg}| pic*|pix|gay*|site*|cum)&!subject:({\{[a-z]|\([a-z]|\[[a-z]}|RP|Re |stor*) This tells Agent to filter out messages containing entirely capital letters, messages with numbers at the end of the subject line, and messages containing probable references to websites and pictures. However, the message will remain if it contains strong indications that it is a story. To filter out spam in alt.sex.stories.d (using a separate kill filter), a very effective expression is: not subject: assd This tells Agent to delete any article whose subject line doesn't contain the text "assd" (the a.s.s.d community uses this convention to indicate genuine posts; see Section 8 of this document). Once the filter has been defined, click the "Delete" radio button in the "Kill action" section of the dialog box. In the "Scope" section, choose either "Global" or a specific group to which the filter will apply, and click "OK" to close the dialog box. Agent will now filter posts each time it retrieves new headers from the news server. The above example is only a very limited demonstration of Agent's filtering capability. For details about creating more complex expressions, see Help -> How to use Agent -> How to create message filters. Appendix C: How do I convert a MS Word document to plain text? -------------------------------------------------------------- Note: this section is supplemented (and to some extent, superseded) by Titmouse's "Converting MS Word Documents to Text for Posting" at http://www.asstr-mirror.org/files/FAQs_and_Information/Converting_Word_Docs_to_Text_2-1.txt It should be consulted in conjunction with this account. In this section I explain one possible (albeit complicated) way of converting a Word document to a plain text file, suitable for posting to Usenet. Word isn't really designed for converting documents to plain text, but it is possible with a bit of manipulation to achieve this. Firstly, you must change the default font to Courier: go to Format -> Font, click Courier in the font list, click Default... and then click Yes. More advanced users might wish to create a specific template for writing stories with this option. Next, click Edit -> Select all (or press Ctrl+A), and change the font to Courier, 10 point. If you find the line length is too long (more than 80 characters), adjust the left and/or right margins so that the white portion of the ruler measures 18 centimetres (or just over 7 inches). Don't confuse the margins with the indents; you can tell that you're changing the margins when the mouse pointer changes to the resize cursor. The rightmost characters in your document should now be at column 72 or similar. To save the document in the correct format, go to File -> Save As... and pull down the "Save as type" menu. Choose "MS-DOS Text with Line Breaks" (not "Text Only with Line Breaks", as this uses the extended ASCII character set). If your document has unusual formatting (tables, text columns etc.) use "MS-DOS Text with Layout" instead (note that this converter has to be manually selected in the Office/Word Setup program). Name the file and click "Save". You can now (finally) import this file in your news reader and post it (in Agent, go to File -> Insert Text File). Note that Word will not preserve any paragraph indentations when it converts the file, so it's best to use the ASS/M convention of a single blank line to indicate paragraphs when writing. Acknowledgements ---------------- I would like to thank all those who have offered comments and advice on the content of this FAQ, especially See-El, Uther Pendragon, Mat Twassel and Rey del Sexo. I would especially like to thank the authors of alt.sex.stories, without whom, after all, this FAQ would never have existed. The End The Alt.Sex.Stories.* FAQ, v.2.02 by Apuleius (apuleius@poboxes.com) 22/2/00 -- Pursuant to the Berne Convention, this work is copyright with all rights reserved by its author unless explicitly indicated. +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | alt.sex.stories.moderated ----- send stories to: | | FAQ: Moderator: | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |Archive: Hosted by Alt.Sex.Stories Text Repository | |, an entity supported entirely by donations. | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+