    		Frequently Asked Questions
    			about
    		ABBREVIATED STORY CODES IN A.S.S.
    			v 1.7 - Sept 22nd 1996

    Prompted by a couple of requests in the autumn of '95 as to the meaning of
    some of the more esoteric abbreviations, there were a couple of postings
    trying to explain them, including some by myself. This led (surprisingly for
    me) to a lively e-mail discussion with a number of people, all concluding
    that it would be nice if "somebody would help out a little" with a FAQ,
    detailing the what and why of story-codes.

    Since then, not much has happened, so as one who has read a great many
    stories, I've finally taken the plunge myself and decided to try if I might
    do it. Not because I consider myself more qualified than so many others,
    (I've never done anything like this before), but because no-one else has
    started, and I think there are good reasons on all sides to use codes more
    than is frequently done.

    The following has been shamelessly "lifted", edited, elaborated and
    generally worked over from material received from countless contributors,
    too many to list here, but the contributions of "Dik McLellan"
    <DIKMC@oa.cnet.com.tw>, mercutio@expert.cc.purdue.edu (Samuel Laker) and
    Derek Foster have been a great help.

    Constructive criticism and suggestions to improvements received gratefully.
    Flames will be cheerfully (and totally) ignored.

    Story Codes - Why bother?

    The story-codes are a micro-description of the content of a story. They're
    written by the poster on the Subject-line as a courtesy to the readers of
    the newsgroup and are very helpful in deciding whether or not to read a
    particular story. But they also help to ensure that all the people who are
    expected to have an interest in reading that particular story, become aware
    of it and its contents. After all, if the writer/poster wasn't interested in
    reaching as many of his potential readers as possible, then why post it in
    a.s.s. in the first place?

    Unlabeled stories can, (and often will),  go unread due to unsure content -
    particularly by those paying per-minute connect charges and due to the large
    traffic in this group. Frequently there are days with over a hundred
    postings a day. Admittedly, a goodly number of these can be from that sad
    (an highly annoying) phenomenon on the Net; the generally infantile flamers,
    spammers and indiscriminate crossposters that occasionally clutters up the
    groups, but usually there's still such a large volume of stories left, that
    most readers are forced to apply some sort of "selection" on what they have
    time to read.

    Obviously, a reader will pick those stories first that are directly flagged
    with codes for his/her particular interest. Next will probably be stories
    with codes at least related to their interest or interesting titles and at
    the very bottom, the "unspecified" stories.

    The result is, that sometimes very good stories are left largely unread.
    Unread stories means no feed-back, and no feed-back can mean discouraged
    writers, who might eventually stop posting, because they feel they're just
    dumping their stories in a big black hole.

    This would be a pity for all concerned. So even though it is not the general
    topic of this FAQ I'd like to make a little plug on behalf of the
    contributors to a.s.s. If you'd read a story and liked it, drop the writer a
    line telling him/her so. It doesn't have to be a doctoral thesis or a
    Ruduyard Kipling novella. Although most authors don't mind if you also,
    (even if very briefly), mention WHY you liked their story, even a one- or
    two-liner is usually appreciated. You might be surprised at how many writers
    even appreciate negative criticism (if it is CONSTRUCTIVE) since they can
    (and very frequently DO) use it to improve their writing by learning what
    works and what doesn't for their readers. Eventually this makes for better
    stories, which ultimately benefits YOU, the reader. So start using the
    "Reply to:" function, but don't forget: Address them to a.s.s.d. or e-mail
    direct to the poster, but NOT to the a.s.s news-group!

    Enough said about that. As for the codes, there exists a more-or-less
    de-facto (but unofficial) standard today, based on what is most frequently
    used. I have tried to remain faithful to that. There is, however, a
    considerable overlap, especially of the less frequently used codes, which is
    unfortunate, since especially these will tend to confuse due to their
    rarity.

    I have split the codes in 3 sections, each in alphabetical order:
    1: Frequently used
    2: Less frequently used
    3: Overlaps, that I'd suggest were NOT used.
       Use one in sections 1 or 2 instead.

    All applicable keywords could (and should) be used to describe the story,
    regardless of the level of their inclusion. It would be a politeness though,
    if the code for the essential theme in the story appears as one of the
    first.

    I would also like to encourage the use of the standard for Subject headers.

    For the reasons explained below, I'd like to suggest the following format,
    which is slightly different that the previously used:

    	Archive;'Title'{Author}[ codes ](number!number)

    with the <Author> and Archive: and [ codes ] portions optional, but
    encouraged. (Note the extra spaces between the codes and the square
    brackets. And note that all the brackets SHOULD be included). For instance,

    	      'My first time'(1!1)

    or	      TG ARCHIVES;'The thing'[ tv mff ](1!3)

    or	      MNA;'Sarah'{Joe schmoe}[ mc mf ](1!1)

    This would allow a person to killfile the author by killfiling the text
    /<Joe schmoe>/, or to killfile this particular story title by killfiling the
    text /"Sarah"/, or killfile all mind control stories by killfiling the text
    / mc / (note the spaces around either side, which only kill it if it appears
    as a complete word.)

    Note that killfiling the story title /"Sarah"/ can be done without
    killfiling authors whose name happens to be Sarah, and vice versa because of
    the use of the limiters ()""[]{}. This was not possible with the previously
    recommended format.

    One of the advantages of having a "correct" subject line format for articles
    posted to this group is that at some future date, this group could be
    automatically moderated (by a perl script or other program) to discard all
    posted articles which do not have a subject line in the correct format.
    This would definitely cut down on the spamming and unrelated conversations
    that appear in this group.  When the program discarded a posting, it could
    send back a message which included a mini-FAQ explaining why the posting
    were refused. Such a program could also automatically discard uudecoded
    postings, etc.

    Finally it would be nice if the stories were posted as plain ASCII-files.
    Please do not encrypt or compress them in any way. Do not tar, gz or zip
    them! Do not uuencode them! Do not BinHex them! Unmentioned compression or
    encryption schemes should definitely not be used either. HTML and MIME are
    likewise undesirable. Use plain text, formatted to 72, 75, or at most 80
    columns. Do not use files saved in formats other than plain text. No
    MS-Word, no ClarisWorks, not Adobe Acrobat.

    There are Service Providers out there which, for reasons best known to
    themselves, (and very few others), refuses to handle larger postings. A
    posting of for instance a 2900-line story is rejected, while the same story,
    split in 3 separate postings of 1000 lines each (including extra headers and
    such), is perfectly acceptable. To avoid such problems it is generally a
    good idea to keep posts under approximately 1500 lines, but do not break
    posts into many, many pieces, since parts are easily (and frequently!) lost
    during network transfers.

    	******   The CODES   ******

    1: Frequently used:

    M		An adult male (over 18)
    m		A young male (male not yet 18 years old)
    b		Boy (age 12 or less)
    F		An adult female (over 18)
    f		A young female (female not yet 18 years old)
    g		Girl (age 12 or less)
    MF		Heterosexual adult sex
    mf		Young heterosexual sex
    FF		Homosexual female sex
    MM		Homosexual adult male sex
    ff		Homosexual, young female sex
    mm		Homosexual, young male sex
    Mf or Fm		Permutations of this are an adult having sex w/ a
    				minor
    MMF or FFM	Permutations of this are several adults having sex at
    				once
    _dom			Domination by member of sex/age "_"

    (In permutations, it helps further if you put the "initiator" first, that is
    [Mf inc teen 1st] would be an adult male seducing his teen-aged relative and
    taking her virginity, while [fM inc teen 1st] would be the girl seducing her
    father/brother/uncle.)

    I would like to advocate/suggest the following replacements to facilitate
    saving entire filenames WITH storycodes for Win95-users (and archivers):
    ^	instead of 	/	signifying dominance, i.e. F^m for Female dominating
    male
    ~	instead of	/	signifying "with", i.e. M~dog for male with dog.

    1st         	First time
    anal		Anal sex
    bd	       	Bondage and Discipline
    best		Bestiality. Sex with an animal (see also zoo)
    cons		Consensual Sexual Activity
    exhi	 		Exhibitionism
    goth		Gothic (dark) setting
    group*		More than 3 people having sex
    hist			Has a historical theme
    inc	       	Incest
    interr		Interracial
    mast		Masturbation
    mc		 	Mind control
    nc			Non-consensual Sexual Activity
    oral*		Oral sex
    orgy*		Large-group sex. When group isn't good enough.
    ped			Pedophilia. Participants age 12 or below.
    rape		Brutal nc, and victim should NOT enjoy it!
    real			Supposedly true
    reluc		Reluctant (First no, no, but later yes,yess,yesss!!)
    rom			Romantic
    sm			Sado-Masochism (inflicting pain)
    span		Spanking, Mild S/M
    teen		Young teen-agers. Participants age 13-17
    tg			Transgendered (Transsexual)
    voy			Voyeurism
    ws			Water Sports (aka golden showers, that is: people who like
    			getting pissed on (as opposed to pissed off 8-).
    zoo			Zoophilia. Caring and consensual relationships
    			between humans and animals. (See also best)

    *   should only be used if it's a major theme in the story since it is
    standard in most stories

    2: Less frequently used:

    bear		Hairy male. Usually gay. (Grizzly Adams)
    BC			(with interr) Black Couple
    BF			(with interr) Black Female
    bi			Bisexuality of one or more characters.
    bibl			Bible. Has a religious theme
    BM   		(with interr) Black Male
    breast*		Abnormally large breasts
    cbt			Cock & ball torture
    cd			Cross-dressing (Transvestite)
    coll			College-theme
    copr		Coprophilia (Fun with feces)
    dream		Sexual activity during a dream, day or sleep.
    enem		Enemas
    fat			Involves fat people
    feet			Foot or shoe fetish-story
    fist			Fisting
    furry		Athropomorphized animals
    giant		Abnormally large (tall) persons
    hair			Hair fetish
    hs			High School-theme
    humo		Humor. Funny
    inf			Infantilism
    job			Place-of-work theme
    lac			Lactation. Playing with milk.
    nec			Necrophilia. Sex with a dead person
    no sex		Off topic
    pett			Heavy petting
    preg		Pregnant. Sex with or making someone.
    rough		Consensual, not always sm.
    sad			For "just" inflicting pain. Can be used with 'nc' or 'cons'.
    safe		Safe sex
    scat		Scatology: Involving feces.
    ScFi		Science fiction setting
    size			Overdeveloped body-parts
    slow		Where the sex doesn't occur in the first part of multipart story
    snuff		Killing
    tort			Torture. Severe non-consentual spilling of blood-'n-guts
    toys			Generally, adult toys
    twink		gay male: Young and hairless-type (Tom Cruise)
    va			Verbal abuse. (Abusive and "dirty" language)
    veg			Vegetable. Sex with food.
    violent		Violent, not always sm
    WM		(with interr) White Male
    WF			(with interr) White Female
    WC			(with interr) White Couple

    3: Overlaps - Alternative suggested:

    bond		Bondage 				bd
    disc			discipline  				span
    ds			domination/submission	_dom
    gay			Male homosexual		MM
    humi		Humiliation				Fdom/Mdom
    hyp			Hypnotism				mc
    les			Lesbian					FF
    sod			sodomy (anal)			anal
    tv			Transvestitism			cd
    yng			Characters are young	ped or teen
    virg			Story involves virgins		1st

    Comments, suggestions etc. welcome, but please, NOT in a.s.s. which should
    be reserved for stories, not discussions. E-mail me direct, or post it in
    a.s.d.  8-)

    Yours

    Dr. Bob - Denmark
    drbob@datashopper.dk

    ---------------------------------------------------------------------

    4.  Zoophilia - Bestiality Specific  added by Stasya  Jan 17, 1996

    dog		male dog
    bitch		female dog
    wolf		male wolf
    w-bitch	female wolf
    mare		female horse or pony
    stal		male horse or pony
    boar		male pig
    sow		female pig
    cow		female bovine
    bull		male bovine

    fur-		prefix to use in front of any of the normal terms to indicate a furry creature

    Please, send me your suggestions for any I haven't listed.  I could use
    the help!

    Email Stasya

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