Re: FAQs: What to do?

.----- On Fri, 26 Mar 1999 13:41:36 GMT, Martin Atkins posted:
|
|OK Everybody.. it's FAQ discussion time again.
|
'------------------------

Things have been discussed. I now feel it is time to clarify a few things
and to bring together the current ideas and suggestions together, which is
the perpose of this post. I will add a few more questions that have come to
light since the thread started, too.
So, what follows is a munge together of all of the opinions I have seen
posted so far.

.------------------------
|The questions now are...
|1. Which ones get posted?
'------------------------
The general concencus (ikky spelling) is that only the '[faq] New to ASCII
Art? Read this!' document by Matthew should be posted to the newsgroup, and
that it should contain addresses of other sites where faq documents are
located. All FAQ document sites should be *identical* in filenames, page
content, everything... so that the faq can say at the start...

Throughout this document, files ending in .txt may be referred to. These can
be found at the following sites:
http://martweb.hypermart.net/aaafaq/ (Seattle, America)
http://voices.vossnet.co.uk/a/atkins/aaafaq/ (Langley, UK)
http://website.lineone.net/~martin.atkins/aaafaq/ (Somewhere, UK)
.... etc

and then the faq can say something like...

see aaaminifaq.txt for a more detailed list of fonts...

(all this is theoretical and these are purely examples)


.------------------------
|2. Who posts them (I'm happy to keep this job)
'------------------------
It seems that I still have this job, although only Donovan has confirmed
this to my knowledge.

.------------------------
|3. How often they are posted
'------------------------
Everyone seems happy with a week, more or less. Suggested times have ranged
from weekly to bi-weekly, but everyone said that weekly was OK.

.------------------------
|4. How the ones that aren't posted will be 'advertised'
'------------------------
These should be referenced in the Main FAQ, along with the list of sites on
which all of these documents are located. (see under question 1 above for
more). This means that all mirror sites will have to have all of the files,
or nothing at all... and have identical filenames.

.------------------------
|5. Who's going to have a copy of these documents on their site.
'------------------------
This really has to wait until we've answered the new questions and agreed on
the above ones.

These 'new questions' basically are...

1. We have a whole lot of documents here. Is it worth keeping the old ones? 

2. Some of the 'current' ones will need rewriting (alt.ascii-art documents
list springs to mind) ... how will this be handled?

3. Are we to have mirrors of all of our agreed documents identically, or
just on a 'whatever owner decides to put up' basis as we have now, with all
of the sites doing it differently.

4. Who will be responsible for maintaining the list of FAQ documents, and
mailing it out to everybody who has a mirror? (I volunteer for this job,
since I already have most of the required stuff set up and ready.)

and of course, again... 
5. Who will have a mirror site?
But this one will have to wait until everything else is decided.

*** Things to bear in mind ***
Some people have systems that are only capable of 8.3 filenames (that is
filenames with eight letters, then a dot, then three more).
Some web hosting sites don't allow you to use subdirectories.
It needs to be as small as possible for fast downloads and minimal web space
usage on people with limited space.

I will post another summary message like this after these new points have
been discussed a little. After that, I think we should have a little time to
humm over the final decisions before they are 'set in stone' as it were.

One point that has arisen is that Matthew Thomas is now taking about mirrors
of just his FAQ document (i think). If this was to happen, it could get a
little complicated. It is my feeling that things should wait until
everything has been finalised, but since Matthew has already started work on
the FAQ version 3, it would be a good idea for all of the people who are
considering mirroring all of the documents to take Matthew's new version for
now, and put it where you would put all of the others, and call it what
everyone else will. I propose aaafaq.txt for this, since that is what I've
been using on my current 'mirror-ish' sites, but that's something else that
needs deciding really.

(Opinions stated in the first part of this message are an amalgamation of
other peoples comments, not mine. However, later on I add my opinions. Use
your common sense to tell the difference! <g>)

Once it's been chewed over a little more with the new questions, I'll post a
final proposal based on everyone's ideas.

More of my Opinions
-------------------
Matthew is currently updating his FAQ to version 3. I think that while we
are revamping the FAQ arrangements we should also revamp the documents
themselves.
I propose that we do these things...

Produce a FAQ site in a similar fashion to the one I've been going on about
constantly since this discussion started (sorry 'bout that), then take all
of the old FAQ documents on there and decide if a new document does it's job
for it (eg Scarecrow's ASCII FAQ has been superseded by Matthew Thomas').
We should then retire the old documents and put them on a separate page of
links on the FAQ site (making it clear that they are old and are there for
perposes of archiving only, and that there is more up-to-date info in the
newer documents.)
We should make sure that all of the 'current' documents are given a revamp,
too, and adapted to fit the new arrangements. Where the author of the (hmm
as I was writing this an hour of time mysteriously disappeared... <g>)
document is still around on a.a-a they should do the rewriting, or in the
case of documents such as those of our beloved departed Colin people should
be nominated to produce a better version. In some cases (such as 'WARNING:
Control Codes') these old documents are being incorporated into the main
FAQ, so won't need rewriting as such.

Proposals...
* The ASCII Art FAQ
Let Matthew update this as he is now, but with whatever mirroring
arrangements we decide on reflected in it.

* alt.ascii-art Documents List 
This will be no longer necessary, as the main FAQ and the web site (mirrors)
will contain the information that used to be here.

* Scarecrow's ASCII Art FAQ (old)
This should be retired to the 'old' page.

* Jorn Barger's Technical ASCII Art FAQ (old)
This too.

* WARNING: Control Codes 
Matthew is incorporating this information into v3 of his FAQ, so this can be
retired.

* All you need for ASCII Art: Monospaced Fonts, Text Editors and ASCII
Utils!
I think that this document is still forfilling a useful function and so
should be put on the FAQ sites and linked from the main FAQ. Should be
revamped

* Tutorial: Making a Start in ASCII Art 
This should be retired and superseded by my new tutorial (see below)

* ASCII Art not looking right? Read this! 
Matthew plans to incorporate this into his FAQ, so this should be retired.

* Copyright FAQ 
Pete Casso's Copyright FAQ should be retired and replaced by my much more
concise and short 'ASCII Art and Copyright Laws' (see below).

* How to find ASCII Art 
Joan Stark's 'Read before requesting' below does pretty much what this does,
but much shorter. (retire it)

* Read before requesting ASCII Art 
This might not be much use without it being posted to the newsgroup, so I
think it should become 'finding ASCII art'.

* History of alt.ascii-art 
This document is not really a FAQ or informational document, just a rundown
on what went on last year. Should be retired.

* Guide to 'diddling' 
After some rewriting this could be useful.

* Registry patch to make Outlook Express do ASCII Art properly(ish)
This is just a quick-bosh-fix for Outlook Express to make it use a
monospaced font and post in plain text, so I'm unsure what to do with it.

Above I refer to documents and say 'see below'... here they are.

Tutorial....

    ,-,-,-.       .
    `,| | |   ,-. | , . ,-. ,-.    . . ,-. . . ,-.    ,-. . , , ,-.
      | ; | . ,-| |<  | | | | |    | | | | | | |      | | |/|/  | |
      '   `-' `-^ ' ` ' ' ' `-|    `-| `-' `-^ '      `-' ' '   ' '
                             ,|     /|
                             `'    `-'
               ,.   .---.  ,--. ,-_/ ,-_/        ,.       .
              / |   \___  | `-' '  | '  |       / |   ,-. |-
             /~~|-.     \ |   . .^ | .^ |      /~~|-. |   |
           ,'   `-' `---' `--'  `--' `--'    ,'   `-' '   `'
            A short tutorial on making and posting ASCII Art
                      By Martin Atkins (March 1999)

  This document was based on 'Make a Start in ASCII Art' by Daniel Au

Stop before asking for an ascii picture of a whatever, or ascii for a
logo... wouldn't it be more fun to make your own? Perhaps you could
create a beautiful piece of ASCII Artwork and share it with us all at
alt.ascii-art!
If you would like to learn how to make ascii art, this tutorial should
help you get started.

-._.-> Quick Start
       """""""""""
You don't need a special program to make ASCII Art, you can make it in
any text editor, or another program that allows you to type characters
from the keyboard.

You should, however, make sure that it is producing plain text (no
colours, bold etc) and is set to a monospaced font. A monospaced (or
fixed width) font is one where all of the characters are the same
width.

In a monospaced font, these two lines will be the same length:
MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM|
IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII|
If they aren't, then you aren't using a monospaced font. Experiment
with available fonts until you find one that makes those two lines
match up.

-._.-> Making a picture
       """"""""""""""""

The best way to pick up ascii art is to try it. Find a nice text editor
(most computers will have one, look for Notepad, Edit, Nisus, Ed...)
and load it up.

Just fiddle around a little to get a feel of what shapes each character
makes, and then try to put them together to make a shape:

                   o
                  -|-    ASCII Art Stickman!
                  / \

Try making this stickman do things, like...

    o/               o
   '|   Waving...   -|-  o   or Kicking a ball!
   / \               |'.

Now look around where you are now... can you see anything interesting
to make an ascii art of? Computers make very good 'first pictures',
because they are mostly rectangular and so easy to shape. Have a go at
showing your computer in ASCII Art. Try not to produce *exactly* what
you see, but enough detail that the eye assumes the extra detail. This
takes some practice, but once you've mastered it you can make almost
anything!

How about a person? This is a good thing to do next. The best place to
start is not a specific person, but a generic one ... that way you can
concentrate on forming a person-shape without worrying about the exact
details of a person and possibly offending them!

I've gone for a cartoony sort of person, since less details are needed
to produce it. Let's start with the head...


                     /"""""\
                    | (o|o) |
                    |   _\  |
                    | '---' |
                     \_____/          mga
                       | |

See how you see a human face, but know that it's very unlikely you will
ever meet anyone who looks like this? This is what I mean by not
producing exactly what something looks like.

Let's continue the picture...

                     /"""""\
                    | (o|o) |
                    |   _\  |
                    | '---' |
                     \_____/
                    ___| |___
                   /   '-'   \
                  |  .     .  |
                  |  |     |  |
                  |  |     |  |
                   \_|_____|_/
                   /_|     |_\
                    |  .-.  |
                    |  | |  |
                    '._| |_.'
                    /__| |__\    mga


Since it is a cartoon, I didn't worry too much about the proportions.
If this was a serious picture, the legs would be far too short for the
rest if the body, but you get the general idea.

-._.-> Diagonal Lines

Notice on the bottom of the trousers I have used the full stop and
apostrophe characters to produce I greater diagonal line than the slash
offers. This is the basis for producing lines in ascii art. This one
takes some time to master, but here are some lines to show you how to
construct a few 'odd' angles...


    |   |   /      ,'      ,-'     _,-'
    |  .'  /     ,'     ,-'    _,-'
    |  |  /    ,'    ,-'   _,-'          __..--""
    | .' /   ,'   ,-'  _,-'      __..--""
    | | /  ,'  ,-'  ,-'  __..--"" _______________


-._.-> Adding more detail

We can make our picture more interesting by adding some extra details.
Just add anything that makes the picture look more like what it's meant
to be, or looks cool.
I'll just make a minor adjustment...

                     /"""""\
                    | (o|o) |
                    |   _\  |
                    | '---' |
                     \_____/
                    ___| |___
                   /   '-'   \
                  |  .     .  |   What young person would be seen
                  |  |Robik|  |   without his expensive brand-name
                  |  | './ |  |   sweatshirt?
                   \_|_____|_/
                   /_|     |_\
                    |  .-.  |
                    |  | |  |
                    '._| |_.'
                    /__| |__\     mga

-._.-> Background detail

At the moment, our person is standing in a blank void. Why don't we add
some interesting backdrop to the picture?
Since my picture is of a young man, where better to stand him than in
front of a shop in town?
-----------------------------------.---------.----------
      .----------.                 | .-----. ||"""""""""
  .-------.  .------ /"""""\       | |     | ||
  |FOREMEN|  |..-.-.| (o|o) |     _| |     | ||
  |WANTED |  |_.=-.-|   _\  |    / | |     | ||
  '-------'  '----- | '---' |   |""| |     | ||
.------.    .-----.  \_____/    |  | '-.   | ||
|.----.|    |ASCII  ___| |___   |""|   |   | ||_________
||Sulk||    |MONTH /   '-'   \  |  | .-'   | |__________
||Kit ||    ||""| |  .     .  | |""| |     | |__|___|___
_________________ |  |Robik|  | |__| |     | ||___|___|_
================= |  | './ |  | ===| |mga  | |__|___|___
                   \_|_____|_/     | '-----' ||___|___|_
__________________ /_|     |_\ ____|_________|__|___|___
    /               |  .-.  |
                    |  | |  |           /
             /      '._| |_.'                   /
   /                /__| |__\
________________________________________________________
___/_________/________/________/_______/_______/______/_
___|_________|________|________|_______|_______|______|_


And here we have what is a pretty good ascii are picture! With more
tweaking it can be made even better.

-._.-> Finishing it off

You may have noticed that in the example pictures above there are three
letters floating about apparently for no reason... 'mga'.
When you make ascii art, should put your name or initials somewhere on
it to identify it as yours. My initials are mga, which is where the mga
comes from!
Try to find a place where the initials don't spoil the picture, like on
a wall, or a screen...

-._.-> Going public... releasing your picture to alt.ascii-art!

Once you are happy with your picture, and have added your initials, you
can post it to alt.ascii-art. Paste it into your newsreader's message
composition window. Check that it is plain text (no colours or styles)
and in a monospaced font before posting.
You might want to mention that this is your first pic when you post it.

Check back to alt.ascii-art a few days later, and you may find that
some people have responded to your picture. They may have written a
'Cool pic!' type message, in which case you did it right! Do some more!
The other possibility is that someone is offering a suggestion for
improvement. This will come in one of two forms:
* Diddling
     'Diddling' is when someone takes your picture, and changes it a
   little. You shouldn't take offense at this (unless your pic has been
   made offensive of course), just take heed to the suggestions and
   bear them in mind for your future pictures.
* Textual Suggestion
      Someone may make a suggestion like 'try to smooth out the corners
   with a full stop', or 'try using a | instead of a : for vertical
   lines'. These are just friendly suggestions, which you may choose to
   bear in mind when you create future pictures.

Whether everyone loves your pic, or they offer suggestions, you should
still continue to produce more pics. Remember practice makes, if not
perfect, at least pretty good!

-._.-> Learning from others

The best way to learn is by example. Take a look at the ascii art in
alt.ascii-art. Note how different artists have used certain characters
to produce different shapes.
You can try some of the techniques used by other artists, and will
probably develop your own 'style' of ascii art. You can see differences
between how each artists create ascii art, some are subtle while others
are blatently obvious. Just practice and you'll get there!

-._.-> In conclusion

Anyone can create ASCII Art with a little perseverance. If you find
yourself bitten by the ASCII Art bug, please post your pictures to
alt.ascii-art - we'd love to see them!

============

and now the copyright one...

        ,.   .---.  ,--. ,-_/ ,-_/        ,.       .               .
       / |   \___  | `-' '  | '  |       / |   ,-. |-    ,-. ,-. ,-|
      /~~|-.     \ |   . .^ | .^ |      /~~|-. |   |     ,-| | | | |
    ,'   `-' `---' `--'  `--' `--'    ,'   `-' '   `'    `-^ ' ' `-^
         ,--.                       .   .      ,
        | `-' ,-. ,-. . . ,-. . ,-. |-. |-     )   ,-. . , , ,-.
        |   . | | | | | | |   | | | | | |     /    ,-| |/|/  `-.
        `--'  `-' |-' `-| '   ' `-| ' ' `'    `--' `-^ ' '   `-'
                  |    /|        ,|
                  '   `-'        `'              By Martin Atkins


This document describes how copyright laws affect ASCII Art.

Facts about ASCII Art copyright:
* ASCII Art is copyrighted.
* Just because ASCII Art is posted to the Internet, doesn't make it
  public domain.
* Fair Use allows you to quote ascii pictures when replying to messages
  to comment on them.
* An ascii picture based on a logo, other ascii picture, photo, diagram
  etc is a copyright infringement, but that is rarely inforced.
* While ASCII Art has no commercial value, it is still a violation to
  distribute it without permission.

However, on alt.ascii-art these are usually the case:
* Most ascii artists don't mind you copying their art and distributing
  it, so long as the initials/name are left intact.
* Deriving your work from other pictures (diddling) is usually accepted
  gratefully.
* Creating ascii pictures from tv programs, logos, photos etc is
  usually ok by the copyright holders (but do check if in doubt!)

Notice the *usually* - Creators of pics are allowed to protect them and
the creators of things that you do an ascii picture of are perfectly
within their rights to sue you.
This document was written with the aid of the 'Copyright Myths FAQ: 10
big myths about copyright explained' which is at:
http://www.clari.net/brad/copymyths.html


*** End very, very, very long post! ***

-Martin
                  ______   ----.
                .'      '-'   (D'.    .---------------------------------.
              -"""""--.-'         '-. |         _______     |===========|
           .-'      -'  .'/         / ||\/| /\ |_)|  | |\ | |mart.atkins|
        .-'        '..-'.''.       =  ||  |/--\| \| _|_| \| |    @      |
       /             '-'    '.___.'   |    ___ ___     __   |bigfoot.com|
      /                          \    |  /\ ||/ | |\ |(_    |===========|
      |     ..             .      |   | /--\||\_|_| \|__)   |Reply ROT13|
    _ |    /  '.          |       |   |---------------------------------|
   / '|   '     \         |      /    |#####.""""""""""""""""""""".#####|
  (   \          |         '.   '     |#####| HAPPY EASTER TO ALL |#####|
   \_/ '..       |          .'.  '    |#####'_____________________'#####|
          '    '' '''"\----'   \  \__ '---------------------------------'
           '__________/  mga    '____\\

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