Jester Poster FAQ
| Why are my posts not showing up? |
|
First, wait, some servers take a long time before your posts will show up. Don't post to moderated groups. These groups are watched by human eyes and any posts not befitting of their groups will be eliminated. Be careful cross-posting or posting too many groups, some servers will see this as spamming. Choose your groups wisely for a target audience. You may need to add a pause between posts to keep the server from deciding your posts are spam. Cross-posting to too many groups (more than 3) can be considered spam by some servers. If your posts are determined to be spam they may get canceled by a cancel-bot prior to them showing up. You may even get into some trouble by spamming newsgroups, by the news server or even your ISP. Some servers use the Breibart Index to determine if a message is spam. Rotating the content of your message every 20 groups may be necessary to prevent being cancelled |
| What is a 'Cancel-Bot'? |
|
The cancel-bots are software sentries looking for multiple posts with the same content within a specified amount of time. They also look for multiple posts from the same reply to address. To get around this Jester Poster has included the ability to add random characters to end of the message and/or subject. These cancel-bots use the Breibart Index to determine if a message is spam. |
| What is 'Cross Posting'? |
| Cross posting is simultaneously posting to multiple newsgroups with a single message. This can be an efficient way to post to multiple newsgroups. However this can also be considered spamming. Although Jester Poster allows you to cross post to multiple groups, it is advised that you post to only one at a time. |
| Where can I find free newsgroups to post to? |
|
Unfortunately there is no such thing as a free lunch. Although these are free servers there may not be a good selection of groups or as wide of an audience as you are looking for.
If your ISP does not provide you with a news server it is suggested that you subscribe to a service for as little as $6.
http://freenews.maxbaud.net http://www.newsserverguide.de http://www.newzbot.com/ http://dir.lycos.com/Computers/Usenet/Public_News_Servers http://www.findolin.de http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Studios/9594/public.htm http://www.wnabb.freeserve.co.uk |
| Entering a newsgroup server (NNTP Server Name) |
|
The server you enter in this field will be connected to and posted to. You can use a server name such as news.here.edu or an I.P. address xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx Contact your ISP for your free news server that should be offered. However, if you intend to spam with this program, which you shouldn't, you would be wise to use an alternative server so as not to get kicked off your current ISP. |
| Downloading newsgroups from newsgroup server |
| Once you have connected to a news server you can click on "Select/Modify Servers". This will open the news server dialog box, which will allow you to download the newsgroups available on the server. Simply click on "Download Groups", this will begin downloading the "postable" groups from the server. If the group is not postable, it is not added to the list! This list of groups will be stored in a text file so that you do not have to download the groups every time you connect to this server or every time you run Jester. |
| Sorting the postable newsgroups |
| Once you have downloaded the groups you can click on "Select Groups". This will open the newsgroups dialog box, which will allow you to select the newsgroups that you wish to post to. You are able to sortthe postable newsgroups by typing ina filter word such as"test", then press "Sort by Filter". This will eliminate any groups that do not have the word test in the name somewhere. To reset the filter, simply remove any text in the filter box and press "Sort by Filter". This will restore the original list of postable groups |
| Selecting groups to post to |
| Once you have sorted the postable list if needed, you can click on one of the newsgroups that you would like to post to. Then press the "->" key to add them to your selected list. You can also remove a selected group by pressing "<-". Once you have selected all the groups you wish to post to click the "Ok" button and you will be returned to the main Jester page. It is wise to occasionally re-download your newsgroups, then click on verify to insure the groups still exist. |
| How do I rotate my subject |
| You must create a text file that will contain the multiple subjects that you would like rotated. Each line of the text file will be one subject. Once jester has used all the subjects in your subject file it will start over from the beginning. You can use Windows Notepad or other text editor to create the text file. The text file does not need a .txt extension, but it does default to it. |
| How do I rotate my message |
| You must create multiple message files that will contain your messages. Using Jester you will select each file that you wish to rotate through. Once Jester has used all the messages it will start over again from the first selected. You can use Windows Notepad or other text editor to create the text file. The text file does not need a .txt extension, but it does default to it. |
| What do the verify buttons do |
| These buttons are found in the "Modify Newsgroups" and "Attachments" menus. These buttons allow you to verify that the newsgroup or attachment still exist. Before using the button under newsgroups you must first download a "fresh" list of newsgroups, then press verify. Jester will then compare your selected groups to your downloaded groups to ensure the groups still exist. |
