[posted and emailed]

"Mable Fable" > wrote in message
...

> OK I'm truly sorry, I'm new, trying to learn, & LOVE
> TO BAKE. It looks like your saying I'm supposed to
> include the pervious post. Sorry about HTML, it is in
> my sig, turned it off this time. Multiple posts; I added
> this because it had nothing to do with turkey, but the
> pumpkin cookie issue was mentioned in the turkey post.
> What is Usenet? Is it for computers & not webbers? If
> so why does this group come up on my list? I honestly
> wasn't trying to criticize, just trying to share a different
> point of view. What if she was getting started? When
> she asked for opinions, wasn't she looking for try it &
> let me know? Some of the replies were much like this
> one. I didn't make any accusations or call names,
> Hypocritical, drama queen, I guess if the shoe fits wear
> it. Don't worry I won't be coming back. Mable

Oh good grief. Of course you're welcome -- Usenet is a great and
wonderful thing, although it requires a thick skin and *lurking* in a
group to get a sense of the personalities in it is a *very* good thing
before you post -- Besides, coming into a group and criticizing right
out of the gate is a sure way to get people riled up (consider how
you'd feel if you invited someone you didn't know very well into your
home and s/he started criticizing your choice of furniture, art,
etc.).

And most of the problem isn't *you*, it's the fact that WebTV turns
its customers out into the greater world of Usenet without educating
them as to the difference between WebTV's own safe and rather insular
groups and Usenet, which is, at times, loosely controlled chaos. Some
groups are better than others -- rec.food.baking, for example, has
little in the way of trollery (or at least from what I see on my
server, news.individual.net); rec.food.cooking, however -- and
unfortunately -- is overrun at the moment with quite a bit of
nastiness (this is where I can with ringing affirmation say that
killfiles are your friend). Other groups have different
personalities.

Since you're admittedly not so 'net-savvy, here are a few links to get
you started (and don't feel you have to read and absorb everything at
once -- it's a *lot* of information):

http://www.ibiblio.org/usenet-i/usenet-help.html -- Usenet
Help --comprehensive
http://www.netmeister.org/news/learn2quote.html -- How to quote
correctly on Usenet (how and why) -- also comprehensive

Unfortunately, the best link to help WebTV customers transition to the
wider world of Usenet is no longer valid (if anyone actually saved the
text from http://www.watchingyou.com/webtv.html I'd love to have a
copy of it), but the above should get you started.

-jacqui