FAQ for abji

FAQ for alt.binaries.japan.idols
Version 4.0
March 20th, 2013

The FAQ can also be viewed at our webpresence http://abpeaf.com/usenet/abji.htm
You can reach me at abji@operamail.com or ping me at the group.

FAQ means Frequently Asked Questions. Nothing more, nothing less.
It's not a law that will mean punishment when broken. But it is a guideline set up by those who established and run the group to make sure it remains true to its purpose. There's no way to enforce a FAQ anyhow. So it is simple courtesy to respect the FAQ. And that should be of even higher importance. Thank you for understanding.
Plus there are some very helpful hints along the way :-) Under Add 5 Mac users can get some help

1.Q: What is the purpose of this group?
1.A: As the charter says, this is a "newsgroup for the posting of Japanese models, singers and actresses, although women from other Asian countries are also tolerated. Posts can include pictures, audio and video files."
First of all tolerated is a strong word. In fact Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese or Nepalese women are more than welcome :-) I have chosen not to add Asian in the group's name to avoid being attractive to spammers.
This group is about individual idols (though groups like Morning Musume etc. are of course allowed). Do not however dump mixed files of various women in here. Or models without a name. If she has a name which can be googled and provides a result then you know she's on-topic :-)
There are photobooks featuring various idols together. These are of course allowed too, however it should be clear who is being featured. And this is not a group for serious scan collections. There are far better groups for that. No files have to be verified to some csv as they can be gathered all around the net. If they are all the better and should be mentioned if you know. And please do NOT repost unverified scans to groups like a.b.bluebird or a.b.asianscans! These are great groups that I don't want to interfere with.
The definiton of singers and actresses should be clear. Models can range from fully clothed to bikini or even nudes. But see 10.Q!!!

2.Q: What formats and file types can I post?
2.A: Everything from pictures (verified or not) to audio and video files. The latter should however not exceed appx. 120MB. Bigger files should be posted to alt.binaries.japan.aidoru. Erotica belong in a.b.japan.iroppoi or "my" old group alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.asian-female (if you don't know the model's name. In both cases a pointer should be given here. Please do not mention this group (or aidoru) in asian-female though as I don't want to lead spammers here.

4.Q: What should my posts look like?
4.A: When posting pictures your posts MUST include an index even if it is just fills. The name(s) of the idols shhould be mentioned in the subject header or a 0/1 post. Hints for indexing proggies can be found at the bottom under Add 1. As many pics posted here do not carry the original filenames and/or are resized it is the only way to find out if there's something worthwhile to download. That's basically it. Post as much as you want, though the above mentioned size limit for a post should be honored too. Excessive following is against the charter. If you know that you are posting from a scanned collection it would be nice to mention that in a 0/1 file. Not mandatory, but appreciated. It would also be nice if you could post pars files to avoid reposts (see Add4 for the software). Again, appreciated but not mandatory. When posting video files it always helps to post vidcaps too. bsplayer does a good job of creating them (that's right, see Add4). And once again: Not mandatory, but appreciated.. All posts are welcome.

5.Q: Can I request a certain model or ask for an ID?
5.A: Of course you can. Whether someone has what you want is another matter. If you know the name, doing a Google search on your idol's name does wonders. Try it out first (and then the group won't mind you posting the result here :-). After all usenet is give and take and the material posted here does not pose any legal ramifications. If you request, please do so one model at a time. Posters here have lives too.......so I've heard.....

6.Q: What about spam?
6.A: There is a zero tolerence regarding spam which will be dealt with by writing abuse reports in every single case.

7.Q: Can I crosspost to other groups?
7.A: No.

8.Q: Can I zip or rar my picture posts?
8.A: No. Maybe someone needs just one or two pics from your post. Would be unnecessary to download the whole post then. So all posts should be made singlefile pics. For audio or video files splitting or zipping or raring them up is almost a necessity on the other hand.

9.Q: What about yEnc or encryption?
9.A: yEnc is fine (see below in Add 2 for information). Encryption isn't. We have no secrets here :-)

10.Q: Can I post nude or pornographic images =:-O ?
10.A: Nude postings are only allowed for an occasional breast or bare bottom, but alt.binaries.japan.iroppoi is the designated group for nude postings (and alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.asian-female for non-descript models). Pornographic images and videos are prohibited in this group and should go to iroppoi in any case. IMPORTANT: No underage nudity is allowed! None whatsoever! If in doubt about a model's age, don't post.

11.Q: Is there an age limit for the models?
11A.: Yes. Models over 70 should go to alt.binaries.erotic.senior-citizens... Seriously though when it comes to young girls the decision has to remain with the poster. This group was intended for the posting of adult women. That said, no one will mind a Berrzys Koubou video (though not too many please...) and photobooks of minors should not be of an erotic nature. I know it is sometimes difficult to find out about a model's age, and a 13yo Asian girl can be very mature. As a guideline I would prefer nonude photobooks containing bikini shots etc. to be 15yo and upwards. If in doubt post a sample and see what the group thinks. RicX has created a fine group for younger (nonude!) models: alt.binaries.japan.fashion.j-class. As for nude pictures see 10.Q.

12.Q: What about the posting of software?
13.A: When requested such posting is allowed when it is software related to usenet or binary files (such as posters, newsreaders, verifying, dupechecking, video players, codecs and such). They should however not exceed about 10MB (Windows XP or Photoshop belong in the warez groups) and should not be cracked versions or contain patches, cracks or serial numbers. There are places to get these. But this group should not contain illegal binaries.

13.Q: Are there other groups like this?
13.A: None like this of course :-) That's why I created it. There are however very worthy and friendly groups with their own unique identity:
alt.binaries.pictures.bluebird and alt.binaries.pictures.bluebird.reposts (the most important and successful groups for verified scan collections)
alt.binaries.pictures.racequeens and alt.binaries.multimedia.racequeens (AlicE's groups about the motor racing hotties)
alt.binaries.sounds.jpop (a very fine group where you will also find video posts)
alt.binaries.multimedia.erotica.asian (there you will find....yeah well you know)
And of course
alt.binaries.japan.aidoru (the bigger videos group)
alt.binaries.japan.iroppoi (the erotica group)
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.asian-female (my baby, the predecessor to this one and now the group for nude models with no name :-)

14.Q: Anything else?
14.A: Oh yes. This group doesn't take itself too seriously. And neither should you. It should be a fun group. So be nice to each other and share the ladies you are fond of. This is not a matter of life and death. I have seen so much crap on usenet lately and I am sick and tired of it.

Oh, and feel free if you think it worthwhile or important to add something to this FAQ.

Mandalay
-------------------------------------------
Owner, Tenant and Janitor of
alt.binaries.japan.idols
alt.binaries.japan.aidoru
alt.binaries.japan.iroppoi
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.asian-female

Honk, if you like idols :-)

Add 1
Indexing
The simplest way is Irfanview which is freeware (http://www.irfanview.com). And a damn good pic and vid viewing proggie too.
Be sure you have the latest version of irfanview... as Irfan is constantly working on improvements... then, to make an index, open a folder of files that you wish to index. Open the first file, then on Irfanviews main menu, Click File> Thumbnails.... the whole folder will appear in a new Irfanview window as thumbs (with or without a directory tree... you can choose if you want to see the tree or not) Then in the Thumbnail Window, Click Options to change the size of the thumbs etc... Irfanview wil present all thumnails in one window.. Click Options>Select All> Save selected Thumbnails as an Image. Voila
ThumbsPlus is a more advanced (and bigger) program. You'll find the URL in any searchengine I'm sure.

Add 2
You can't see any pics, just a lot of scrambled text?
Then you are probably using Outhouse Excess as a newsreader.
To make a long story short it is necessary to encode binary files (like pictures or videos or software) and then have it de-encoded by your newsreader in order to send those files at all as usenet was originally conceived for text messages only. There have been a number of encoding schemes in the past (base64, UUE and now yEnc). The advantage of yEnc is that it makes the data smaller in size, meaning faster up-and downloads. yEnc is open source and free and our good friends at Microsoft, not being able to make any profit out of it, refuse to make OE yEnc-compatible.
http://www.yenc.org/ has a page on OE

Freeware Newsreaders:
Aside from Agent (www.forteinc.com)
XNews is a very good freeware newsreader (http://xnews.newsguy.com/)

Remember one thing: The poster goes to a lot of trouble collecting, assembling, indexing and posting stuff. The least YOU can do is getting the necessary software to collect the goodies. After all, you don't ride a bicycle on the highway, do you?
If you have any difficulties with anything don't hesitate to ask!

Add 3
A valuable link on usenet is also http://www.newsreaders.com/

Add 4
Some helpful tools you will need in usenet:
1) hjsplit
You sometimes will come across files with endings like .001, .002 etc.
These are split files. They have been split to make an up- and download more managable. You can combine these files with a little freeware proggie that can be found at http://www.freebyte.com/hjsplit/

2) QuickPar and SmartPar
You sometimes come across files with endings like .par2 (or. .p01, .p02 etc.)
Especially mediocre servers can lose posts (or parts of them). With QuickPar (or the earlier version SmartPar - both freeware) you can reconstruct missing or corrupt files.
Quick Par can be found at http://www.quickpar.org.uk/. SmartPar at http://download.freenet.de/archiv_s/smartpar_4117.html
A good tutorial can be found at http://www.binaries4all.com/quickpar/

3) WinRar
You sometimes come across files with endings like .rar (or .r01, r.02 etc.)
These are files that have been packed (a bit like zip only with more options) with WinRar. WinRar is not freeware but you can get a trial version at http://www.rarlab.com/. A free source for rar files can be found at http://sourceforge.net/projects/sevenzip.

4) VideoLan
There are a lot of good players but this is a handsome little freeware that can handle almost everything. You can find it at http://www.videolan.org/

5) Media Player Classic
The most used media player around. Part of the K-lite codec, it can also be downloaded here: http://mpc-hc.org/

Add 5

This section is for the Mac users (thx Arragon :-)

Recommend Newsreader: Unison from Panic (http://panic.com/unison/)
It is possible that Microsoftｮ Entourageｮ (which is Outlook for Mac)
has the same problems like OE (but I don't think so).

To create vidcaps under OS X you can use the VLC media player
(http://www.videolan.org/vlc/) with the hotkey Option-Command-S.

As a file joiner you can use MacHasha (http://www.julifos.com/soft/machacha/index.html)

For par files there is MacPar deLuxe (http://gp.home.xs4all.nl/Site/MacPAR_deLuxe.html)
- to use MacPar with MacHasha goto to Preferences > Processing > Concat > Modify > Open with...
- to stop the nagscreens click on Donation > I alraidy paid!

Regarding Winrar, at http://www.rarlab.com/ you can download the rar command line
program (not free). SimplyRAR
(http://simplyrar.en.softonic.com/mac) intends to
become a GUI for rar, but is not yet complete.
HowTo create a split archive with commandline rar: open OS X's Terminal
and enter
rar a -ep -v102400k -m5 "The RAR file.rar" "File to compress"
to create an archive with 100mb volume size and best compression. Hint:
Drag files from Finder to Terminal

Add 6
On a personal note I would like to thank some peeps who have supported the groups with posts, advice and enthusiasm:
(in alphabetical order) AlicE, annatar, Arragon, braver, Clark Kent, Dinky, General Guderian, Ghadzuux, Marco Polo, minachan, MinoriFan, None Given, PaperSleuth, Pig Vomit, RicX, Techie and VM.
I love you guys :-)