Alt.Sex.Fetish.Diapers FAQ ########################## $Id: asfd.FAQ,v 3.12 2010/11/01 21:53:34 boogles Exp $ Much thanks for the countless people who have contributed so far, and premature thanks for those who will help in the future. Additions, corrections, and modifications to asfd-faq@bbif.org Permission is given to distribute this FAQ in any form in its entirety, as long as it is not for profit (except to cover transmission, mailing, or printing costs). It was produced by the whole community and should be available to the whole community. There is now an HTML version of this FAQ available at "http://www.remotecom.se/users/bk/aby/faq/faq.htm". Special thanks to Baby Kevin for his efforts. [This seems to be off-line at the moment.] ******************************************************************************** Table of Contents ******************************************************************************** 1. General Info 1.1 What is the purpose of this group (as we understand it at this moment)? 1.2 What is Infantilism? 1.3 Does this have anything to do with minors? 1.4 I'm a new baby on the net; how do I get around? 1.5 I'm also incontinent, are there incontinent people here too? 2. More on Infantilism 2.1 What is the DPF? 2.2 What is VBV? 2.3 What is the Midwest Relay? 2.4 Are there any books on infantilism? 2.5 Are there any magazines that deal with this interest? 2.6 Weren't there a few talk show episodes that dealt with Infantilism? 2.7 Are there any movies with passing infantilist content? 2.8 Are these interests "normal?" 2.9 What if I really really want to eliminate these interests? 2.10 I find most disposable diapers available today to be inadequate; what can I do? 3. Online Resources 3.1 What is the BBIF e-mail forum? 3.2 What is the resource list? 3.3 What other on-line resources are there out there? 3.4 Are there any related WWW pages? 3.5 So I'm on Compuserve; how do I get to the adult babies forum? 3.6 I'm on a system that does not have news access; how can I read alt.sex.fetish.diapers? 3.7 I have news, but my news server does not carry alt.sex.fetish.diapers. 3.8 I'm on an on-line service that doesn't have FTP; what can I do? 3.9 I'm a shy baby, but still want to contribute to the newsgroup. What can I do? 3.10 Can I post to alt.sex.fetish.diapers via mail non-anonymously? 3.11 How can I decode graphics files? 3.12 Where can I find graphics files? 4. Netiquette 4.1 What is netiquette? 4.2 Are there any suggested netiquette or decency standards for the newsgroup? 4.3 Why do people keep putting a ~ (tilde) character in the subject line? 4.4 I find all these irrelevant posts on the newsgroup really annoying, what can I do? 4.5 Why did I get flamed when I tried to post a binary picture to the newsgroup? 4.6 Are personal ads allowed? 4.7 "Uhh.. me too! me too!" 4.8 Why isn't there a moderator for alt.sex.fetish.diapers? 5. Spam 5.1 What is spam? 5.2 What can I do about spam? 5.3 What are other ABs trying doing about spam? 5.4 What about my idea for stomping out spam? 6. Tips and Hints 6.1 So, what's this marvelous modified diaper that I keep hearing people talk about? 6.2 Are there adult diaper services, just like there are baby diaper services? 6.3 I've never used a flat cloth diaper before; how do I fold it? ******************************************************************************** Section 1: General Info ******************************************************************************** ***** 1.1 - What is the purpose of this group (as we understand it ***** at this moment)? It is a forum for people with interests in infantilism, diapers, age-play, and related activities. The partners of people with these interests are also welcomed wholeheartedly. Ideally this group could be a valuable support structure for people to get in touch with their feelings and interests, so they don't feel so alienated just because they have an interest that hasn't been covered by previous Usenet groups. Personally I found it very valuable to see that I wasn't alone, and to meet other people who have found ways to cope and still carry on a "normal" life. Hopefully we can develop some on-line resources that people can draw upon to enrich their play, like a list of places to get products and reviews of them -- I believe that this could be particularly useful for people new to the scene -- not to mention the ever-growing archive of stories. ***** 1.2 - What is Infantilism? Infantilism is the derivation of sexual pleasure from acting or being treated like a baby. Infantilists usually enjoy one or more of the following: * Wearing diapers * Using diapers for their intended purposes * Wearing or using adult-sized baby clothes, bibs, pacifiers, baby bottles, etc. * Acting and being treated like a baby (being bottle- or spoon-fed, having diapers changed, etc.) by a lover within the context of a role-playing scene ***** 1.3 - Does this have anything to do with minors? I would like to state from the beginning that infantilism does not involve minors in any way, shape, or form whatsoever. The term 'Infantilism' may suggest to some that minors may be involved. That is just not the case. Any discussion of activities involving minors is completely and totally unacceptable for this news group. We are here to celebrate childhood, not to spoil it and make it a living hell. ***** 1.4 - I'm a new baby on the net; how do I get around? There are many helpful introductions to the net and how to get around the net in news.announce.newusers, news.newusers.questions, and news.answers. Also, your system administrator can be very helpful in instructing you on how to use facilities like anonymous FTP, news, and e-mail on your local system. Finally, if you already know how to use anonymous FTP, there is a wealth of information about the net on RTFM.MIT.EDU. (or use the URL ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/) A lot of these things can be very specific to your local installation, and other people on this newsgroup may not know how to help you other than to point you to these resources. ***** 1.5 - I'm also incontinent, are there incontinent people here too? There are plenty of people on this newsgroup who are also incontinent for one reason or another. Some have learned to make the best of a bad situation and use this group to have fun, while others just use it as a source of new suppliers. Everyone is welcome. There are also some other resources for people with these problems: Help for Incontinent People P.O. Box 544 Union, South Carolina 29379 The Simon Foundation for Continence P.O. Box 835 Wilmette, Illinois 60091 Tel: 1-800-23-SIMON ******************************************************************************** Section 2: More on Infantilism ******************************************************************************** ***** 2.1 - What is the DPF? DPF stands for Diaper Pail Friends (formerly Diaper Pail Fraternity). They are an organization based in California dedicated to helping infantilists, diaper fetishists, and people with other related interests. They also sell lots of interesting items, hence they are listed in the A.S.F.D source list. There is also a short introduction to the DPF written by Billy lying around on-line somewhere. The DPF is run by Tommy, who has an account on Compuserve. If you wish to write directly to him, his account is 76146,2734 on Compuserve. To send mail to him from Internet send it to 76146.2734@Compuserve.com or babytom@well.com. Diaper Pail Friends (DPF) 38 Miller Ave., Suite 127 Mill Valley, CA 94941 Phone: 415-381-9105 For people with access to Web browsers and an interest in learning more about the club DPF, the new web page is at the URL: http://www.dpf.com/ [The DPF in California is not affiliated with #DPF the IRC channel.] ***** 2.2 - What is VBV? VBV is a Danish organization for infantilists/diaper fetishists. They publish a newsletter in Danish and arrange meetings in Denmark. VBV is run by Nicolai Lang, who you can mail at lai@login.dknet.dk. If you come by Denmark, please feel free to contact him to arrange a visit. E-mail him for his private phone number. Voksne Babyers Verden, Glentehusene 35 2620 Albertslund Denmark Phone +45 / 43 62 81 00 (Tuesday & Thursday 8pm - 11pm CET) Fax +45 / 43 62 81 00 ***** 2.3 - What is the Midwest Relay? The Midwest Relay was a not-for-profit correspondence club for gay/bisexual adult babies living in the US, Canada, or Puerto Rico. Midwest Relay has been discontinued due to lack of participation. (1995-09-01) ***** 2.4 - Are there any books on infantilism? Some works by Dr. John Money make mention of infantilism, like "Lovemaps" and "Venuses Penises." There are also two papers on infantilism available from the DPF. "Men in Love" by Nancy Friday contains a section on diaper and related fetishes and possible explanations. Another useful book is "Psychosexual Infantilism" by Wilheim Stekel. You would probably be able to find it in the psychiatry section of a well-stocked university library. (I haven't found it because my library is singularly awful.) Finally, there is a book worth reading called "Different Loving." It contains a chapter on age play in general, including a section devoted to infantilism. Different Loving also has a web site now, which is listed in the web resources section of this FAQ. Different Loving: An Exploration of the World of Sexual Dominance and Submission_. Brame, Gloria G., William D. Brame, and Jon Jacobs. New York: Villard Books (Random House), 1993, ISBN 0-679-40873-8. There are a few stories that make passing mentions of bed-wetting and other topics that some people here find interesting: Orwell. "Such, Such Were the Joys." "The Well-Tempered Schoolboy" Autobiographical tales of his adventures at boarding school. ***** 2.5 - Are there any magazines that deal with this interest? The resource list also features magazines that might interest the reader. They are in a separate section of the resource list. ***** 2.6 - Weren't there a few talk show episodes that dealt with ***** Infantilism? There were a number of talk show hosts that had episodes dealing with infantilism. I know that both Donahue and Jerry Springer did such shows. All of them are available for purchase from DPF. ***** 2.7 - Are there any movies with passing infantilist content? Here's a short list of movies people have mentioned previously: Auvoir Les Enfants The 12-year-old who is the central figure of the movie is a bed-wetter. He awakens in the dormitory one night surrounded by thirty or forty other beds and realizes he has wet. He tries to clean up his mess and, as I recall, the other boys wake up. At another time he talks about his "problem" with a friend. Mostly, the movie is about children growing up during World War II. The Baby Supposedly about an adult man kept as a baby by his mother. The video is difficult to find, but one place you may be able to find it is Leather Tongue Video (http://www.leathertongue.com). Brimstone and Treacle A story about a teenage girl that is left an incontinent vegetable after an accident. Come Next Spring No further description. The Devil's Playground (Australian film 1976) Reported to be a false lead. Didn't want to delete it outright, otherwise people would wonder. The Hideaways The child actor (aged maybe nine) runs across a field. Waiting for the shot he has wet his pants. The director put it in either thinking that no one would notice or for the mischief of it. The Loneliest Runner (made for TV movie) Bed-wetting. I hear the plot of the movie isn't very nice, and the mother is quite mean to the child, so, I'd personally skip over this one. You Can't Do That On Television (a TV series) On one particular episode, little Amius and an older boy are talking about babysitters. The older boy says, "It would be easy to babysit a kid like you. At least I wouldn't have to change diapers!" Amius, arguably the cutest ten year old on television at the time, replies, "Well, Er. Uh......" ***** 2.8 - Are these interests "normal?" Infantilism and diaper fetishism fall into a category of phenomena knows as paraphilias. In the view of modern psychotherapists most paraphilias are completely harmless and bring many people great inner happiness. Paraphilias can almost always be made manageable, so that one can carry on a normal life. The greatest source of problems with paraphilias is the guilt that people feel in indulging in their interests. This can be emotionally damaging and can make people very unhappy. To paraphrase John Money, you either have to give up the guilt or give up the paraphilia. The principle of a psychotherapist molding a patient into an ideal person is a very outmoded idea. If you find this happening to you it is often time to find a second opinion. ***** 2.9 - What if I really really want to eliminate these interests? If you do decide that you do not want to wear diapers or be an infantilist, but you do have these urges that you would like to go away, there are ways of helping you to achieve this. This is often a very difficult road, which shouldn't be taken lightly. One thing often to consider is how much of your personality is tied up in these interests. Personally I have noticed that I would be a completely different person if I was not interested in infantilism. Are you willing to become someone completely different to give up these urges? Finally the treatment often involves behavior modification therapy, which can be quite unpleasant. This process can also require the administration of drugs which will temporarily reduce your sex drive to help in the process. An infrequent side effect of this can be the permanent reduction of sex drive. This is my current understanding of the treatment options, which may be just as outdated and Victorian as the view some people have of infantilism in the first place. ***** 2.10 - I find most disposable diapers available today to be ***** inadequate; what can I do? First off, you can try some of the other places in the resource list to see if their diapers are more adequate. Secondly, you can try using diaper boosters, which are little inserts that act just like stuffers. Thirdly, you can try using stuffers by wearing multiple diapers and poking holes in the waterproof layer of the inner diapers. Finally, you can call up your favorite diaper company and tell them that they make woefully inadequate diapers. The only way they are going to make better ones is if people tell them what they make is bad. However, remember the fact that nothing is leak-proof and babies really do need changing often. ******************************************************************************** Section 3: Online Resources ******************************************************************************** ***** 3.1 - What is the BBIF e-mail forum? This is a spam free (meaning no commercial advertisements) forum where ABs can talk about any number of topics. BBIF (Big Babies, Infantilists, and Friends) is open to adult babies, diaper fetishists, and the confused partners of either. It takes place over e-mail, and your postings are e-mailed to all the other subscribers. There are primarily two versions of this list. There is the discussion version and the announcement version. The discussion one can get pretty busy at times, and for those that don't read their e-mail that often, it may be better to move over to the announcements-only one instead. There are also regional lists that are still getting off the ground. One for the Atlanta area and another for the San Francisco Bay area. They aren't very busy as of yet. Lastly, there are also the beginnings of a women-only list, but that is a closed list where subscriptions must be approved by the list facilitator. To join any of these lists, send your year of birth to bbif-request@bbif.org. More info can be found on http://www.bbif.org/ ***** 3.2 - What is the resource list? The resource list is a compilation of companies that sell items that would be of interest to people on this newsgroup. Basically, this is all the places that we know of, so don't ask if we know of any more places. If someone is holding back information, asking again isn't going to help since they probably have their reasons. Note: a number of the companies on the list do not know about infantilists/diaper fetishists, while others do and are quite friendly to us. Separate sections are provided in the resource list for this division of companies, so be careful if you wish to avoid embarrassment. The resource list is available at http://www.bbif.org/ ***** 3.3 - What other on-line resources are there out there? A number of us talk on a regular basis on the IRC channel #DPF. It is a semi-secret channel, and it is invisible to people outside the channel, so it is possible to retain some anonymity from outsiders. For help on how to use IRC or compile it on your system, send mail to dpf-irc-help@bbif.vaporware.org. (#DPF on IRC has no affiliation with the DPF in California.) There is a second public channel on IRC's EFNet called #diapers. It has much more of an open environment where people from all over IRC can and do wander in and out. There is an adult baby forum on Compuserve; there are details below. Some babies have found that bananas can provide the same feel of a messy diaper, without all the mess and odor. There is a FAQ developing on this topic, and it can be found at http://www.cris.com/~mckebp/diaper/bananafaq.htm There are some stories on FTP.SPC.EDU in the PENDOR directory that might be of interest to those in this group, although I haven't read many. "Attendant" tells me that none of the files here have any diaper-related or infantilist-related content, so I guess it's a dud. ***** 3.4 - Are there any related WWW pages? Live Pages ########## http://www.dpf.com/ (was http://www.cris.com/~pail/) (was http://jack-vance.mit.edu/~norelco/DPFmain.html) A page describing the DPF club, approved by Tommy (founder of DPF). http://www.bbif.org/ (was http://ractarion.vaporware.org/~bbif/) (was http://aby.kachina.net:8001/bbif/) Big Babies, Infantilists, and Friends information page. There's info on the BBIF e-mail forum here. http://login.dknet.dk/~lai/ babylai has a new page of links and a few pictures of himself. http://www.frontiernet.net/~gordo/ (was http://www.atlas.co.uk/pancake/pampers/) (was http://www.rit.edu/~grbeme/) Gordo has some nice resources on his home page. Some pictures and more. http://www.cris.com/~spacebb/protect/firstpage.shtml "Space Baby Bob" was kind enough to provide us with another web service. This one requires a user name of "abyuser" and a password of "babybottle". Some browsers may not support this basic authentication feature. http://understanding.infantilism.org/ Bittergrey's Den. http://diaper.home.ml.org/ (was http://www.cris.com/~mckebp/diaper) Blue Baby's Diaper Bag. Also includes a state by state listing of ABs. http://www.users.cts.com/crash/b/bytemine/abdl.html Wetville forum and Bytemine info. http://www.geocities.com/Yosemite/5946/diaplink.htm Arnold's Diaper Pics Page http://www2.bham.net/theabz/ais/index.htm (was http://www.bham.net/users/theabz/myweb/special.htm) (was http://www.bham.net/users/thedtc/index.htm) (was http://www.bham.net/users/thedtc/abzplace.htm) (was http://home.aol.com/theabz) (was http://home.aol.com/Dander9786) AIS: Adult Incontinence Supply. Formerly the Adult Baby Zone (ABZ) (Mikey.Allison@the-matrix.com for more info) http://www.bham.net/users/abland ABZ FTP on the Web for those without FTP. http://members.aol.com:/swissdiap/ ftp://members.aol.com/Windeln27/CHDIAP-Pictures/ http://www.aid.co.uk/ab_area/pics/chdiap/ (seems to be down) Some pictures and stuff by Martin Stettler http://www.netcom.com/~Eric-M/AB.html Now Baby Eric's playpen. http://members.gnn.com/pampersboy/abpefd.htm The ABZ's selected archive of pictures. http://www.spots.ab.ca/~unicorn AB and furry (anthropomorphism) page. http://gloria-brame.com/diflove.htm Gloria Brame's Different Loving site. (related to her book on sexual variations) http://members.aol.com/wipuverl/html/index.html http://home.sprynet.com/sprynet/anichols/playpen.htm http://homepage.eznet.net/~patches/ http://www.frontiernet.com/~patches/home.shtm Patches Place. Watersports and AB resources. http://winternet.com/~wombat/unlv.html More watersports related. http://aardvark.apana.org.au/~pauley2/ Australian Nappy Pins Club. http://www.aby.com/babytony/ (was http://www.goodnet.com/~db98050/baby.html) BabyTony's site. Lots of stories. http://www.whyweb.com/personal/jlegitt/diaper/index.htm Pictures site. http://ab_area.aid.co.uk/index.htm The Adult Baby International Club - UK http://www.mygale.org/11/abc/ Association Baby Cocooning - French AB Club http://www.ozemail.com.au/~abxpub/index2.htm pictures. http://www.geocities.com/westhollywood/7984 (was: http://www.mygale.org/03/babyflo) BabyFlo's page. http://www.aby.com/ Aby.com http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/4097/diapindx.html Written in Chinese. http://www.viva-vegas.com/prv/ Fozzie's Page http://www.primenet.com/~dcrosby/deeker.htm Deeker's Diaper Page -- stories http://www.geocities.com/WestHollywood/Heights/2404 Larrbear's Playground http://members.aol.com/Dal02/diaper.html Baby Dal's Page http://www.geocities.com/WestHollywood/1848 Mommy's Darling Sissy Page -- sissy pics http://www.geocities.com/WestHollywood/7371/ Pauley's Page http://users.aol.com/footedpjs Footed PJs http://www.geocities.com/WestHollywood/Heights/6571 Lots of AB Stories http://users.aol.com/diapernh/story Home Improvement -- A Diaper Story http://members.bianca.com/nabin/shacklet?BabyD Bianca's Smut Shack: The Nursery http://www.geocities.com/WestHollywood/8132/ Huggieboy's Home Page http://www.auntbecki.com/ Aunt Becki's Nursery School WWW Graveyard ############# These are dead links, but we keep them around so people know to delete them from their bookmarks. http://www.algonet.se/~lindholm/bk/ It has been shut down permanently though. I just didn't want to delete this reference outright, because it's better that everybody knows its gone. That way there isn't a rumor that it still exists for several months to come. http://www.atlas.co.uk/pancake/ab.htm (seems to be down) "Joshy" is trying to set up the Adult Baby International Club. http://www.virtualscape.com/nursery Baby Panda's web site. If you find any other resources, please tell us. ***** 3.5 - So I'm on Compuserve; how do I get to the adult babies ***** forum? The adult baby group on Compuserve is a warm, supportive one and well worth the Compuserve rates. To join in the group do the following. Type "go hsx" and read the following screens. Follow the instructions. You are not allowed to access the group immediately as a courtesy to the other members. You will be required to read a specific file which can be accessed by going into library 0 and typing "r closed.txt." Then you must send a private message to the sys-op explaining why you want access. Please do not be afraid to do this, the sys-ops of the group just want to make sure your just not playing around. The group is warm and wonderful with messages and files for download. The Diaper Pail Friends are a part of the group so its a good place to be. ***** 3.6 - I'm on a system that does not have news access; how can I ***** read alt.sex.fetish.diapers? You can use our news -> e-mail gateway. Basically this takes each news posting and sends it to you as an individual e-mail message. This can flood your mailbox if you don't clean it out often. There is also a filtered version that will filter out 99% of the spam, and that will flood users less. When you want to reply to a posting, you should use either an anonymous posting service or one of the non-anonymous posting services. The gateway is one-way only and will not forward any of your responses back to the newsgroup. If you would like to sign up for this service, send mail to asfd-redist-request@bbif.vaporware.org. Please no requests from anonymous re-mailers, since the operators of those re-mailers have enough headaches keeping their machines running than having someone route a newsgroup through them. The operator of this service doesn't give out the addresses of it's users, but doesn't make an effort over the usual Unix security to protect them either. ***** 3.7 - I have news, but my news server does not carry ***** alt.sex.fetish.diapers. You can do one of three things: 1. Use the news -> e-mail gateway as mentioned above. 2. Send mail to your news administrator requesting that they carry alt.sex.fetish.diapers. 3. Use an alternate NNTP server. Changing NNTP servers is a software specific function, consult your news client's documentation. Here is a list of alternate NNTP servers. [This list was compiled by Matthew Ghio (ghio@myriad.pc.cc.cmu.edu), who is not affiliated with this newsgroup. Originally taken from http://www.cs.cmu.edu:8001/afs/cs.cmu.edu/user/kcf/www/censor/misc/NNTP-servers.html ] Posting is allowed unless otherwise noted. ccnews.nctu.edu.tw (no posting) ccvax.ucd.ie debbie.cc.nctu.edu.tw (no posting) kernighan.cs.umass.edu louie.udel.edu lsi.lsil.com myriad.pc.cc.cmu.edu news.c2.org news.cis.nctu.edu.tw news.csie.nctu.edu.tw news.demon.co.uk (no posting - use mail2news) news.nsysu.edu.tw (no posting) news.tyrell.net news.uni-hohenheim.de (no posting) news.uni-stuttgart.de (no posting) news.usafa.af.mil newsserver.rrzn.uni-hannover.de nntp.club.cc.cmu.edu (no posting) nntp.gmd.de (no alt, no posting) oaklabs01.apl.com shakti.ncst.ernet.in (no alt, no posting) tpone.telepac.pt I highly recommend the second option because it: reduces load on the gateway, keeps the alternate news servers from shutting down due to excess load, and also gives our news group a wider distribution which will attract people just like us that may not know we are out here. ***** 3.8 - I'm on an on-line service that doesn't have FTP; what can ***** I do? There is a service that I don't know much about called FTPmail. Just send mail to ftpmail@decwrl.dec.com with the message body and subject of help. Hopefully that will be enough to get you started. ***** 3.9 - I'm a shy baby, but still want to contribute to ***** the newsgroup. What can I do? There are many of us out there who have something to say, but for one reason or another would like to keep their anonymity. There are a number of services out there to assist you. There is a popular one that you can get information about by sending mail to help@anon.penet.fi. [anon.penet.fi has closed down. If anyone knows of an adequate substitute, we'd appreciate the information.] If there are any other anonymous posting services people know of, I'd be more than happy to hear about it. ***** 3.10 - Can I post to alt.sex.fetish.diapers via mail ***** non-anonymously? Sure. Just send e-mail with your post to to one of the following addresses and it will be posted automatically. alt.sex.fetish.diapers@demon.co.uk alt.sex.fetish.diapers@news.demon.co.uk alt.sex.fetish.diapers@bull.com alt.sex.fetish.diapers@cass.ma02.bull.com alt.sex.fetish.diapers@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca alt.sex.fetish.diapers@charm.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu alt.sex.fetish.diapers@comlab.ox.ac.uk alt.sex.fetish.diapers@nic.funet.fi alt.sex.fetish.diapers@cs.dal.ca alt.sex.fetish.diapers@ug.cs.dal.ca alt.sex.fetish.diapers@paris.ics.uci.edu (removes headers) ***** 3.11 - How can I decode graphics files? Most graphics files posted to Usenet are "uuencoded" and require a program to decode it back to it's original format. (Although MIME compliant postings and news-readers are gaining in popularity.) You can learn all about this and more by getting the binaries FAQ via FTP from RTFM.mit.edu in "/pub/usenet-by-group/alt.binaries.pictures.d/". It is quite comprehensive and up-to-date. When posting to alt.sex.fetish.diapers with questions on how to use graphics viewers you must also realize that this is a non-technically oriented group and we may not know the answer to the question. One of the best places to try is alt.binaries.pictures.d (They are the pros). Also, when asking a technical question make sure to be specific about the technical details, since there are literally 1000's of different platforms/news-readers/viewers/on-line services. ***** 3.12 - Where can I find graphics files? On Usenet the best place to check is alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.fetish.diapers. (Often called ABPEFD, for those of us who like to save keystrokes.) Another place to check is alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.fetish. Experience has shown that begging on ASFD for pictures doesn't work well. All you end up getting is 100 more "me too"s from other people with no pictures. ******************************************************************************** Section 4: Netiquette ******************************************************************************** ***** 4.1 - What is netiquette? It's an overly pretentious section that I wished would never be written where I'm supposed to tell everyone how to act. Then we have big debates on every microscopic issue. Maybe I can avoid all that and just provide a few suggestions as to how things have been in the past that will hopefully make things run smoother for the newcomer. Once you've been around the block a few times, you'll know how to bend the "rules" and not step on any toes while doing it. (or have a hard enough shell not to care) ***** 4.2 - Are there any suggested netiquette or decency standards ***** for the newsgroup? As usual, there aren't any *rules* on the net and one is allowed to do what ever they want within the laws of their respective country. However, there are also a few guidelines that one should keep in mind if one wishes to win the respect of their peers. If you are making a posting advertisement for your favorite BBS or adult service, please inform us all of how it related to diapers or infantilism. You'd be surprised how many people forget to do this, then they just get flamed for posting irrelevant drivel when they do have something valuable to offer. Other than that, I doubt that there is anything diaper related that is "out of bounds" for this group. There will always be things that turn off other people in the group, but may serve the specific needs of a select few. So, happy posting! ***** 4.3 - Why do people keep putting a ~ (tilde) character in the ***** subject line? There has been a surge of irrelevant posts to our newsgroup as of late. Mostly they consist of phone sex advertisements, other advertisements, cross-posted flame-wars, etc. In any case, this all proves to be very annoying. We decided that anyone that seriously reads the group is a reasonable person and we'd like to hear what they have to say over all that other noise. So, if you put a ~ in the beginning of your subject line, we'll all know that your posting is relevant to this group. As dcrosby@primenet.com said, TILDE = To Indicate Legitimate Diaper Entries. (That was too cute to pass up.) It's important to note that many readers of the newsgroup also have their news clients automatically ignore postings that do not follow this convention. ***** 4.4 - I find all these irrelevant posts on the newsgroup really ***** annoying, what can I do? Well, you'll hear a lot of suggestions of what to do, but I will toss in a few things NOT to do. 1. Do not post a followup complaining about the previous post. If you thought the first post was nonsense, your retort will be just as bad. Use private e-mail instead. 2. Do not intentionally flood the mailbox of the offending poster. Chances are that their account has been quickly abandoned and they have moved elsewhere. The only person you'll end up annoying is a poor overworked sysadmin. 3. "Don't be excessively annoying and don't be easily annoyed." If you feel the need to flame a poster via e-mail, I've personally found that quite often the post was an honest mistake or that a person left their terminal unguarded in a university computer lab. Use some restraint. 4. Don't waste your time with people "trolling" for flames. Their goal is often to just stir up a controversy and then watch it boil. They get some pathological pleasure watching a newsgroup totally flooded with flaming posts. 5. Get a news client with kill files. Most modern news clients have them. Judicious use of kill files will eliminate 90% of the articles you don't want to see and will save you a lot of time. ***** 4.5 - Why did I get flamed when I tried to post a binary picture ***** to the newsgroup? Basically the problem is that many Internet service providers can't support full news feeds. These providers are unable to keep up with the 400MB/day+ of traffic that a full news feed produces and are forced to cut out some groups. The easiest way to reduce news traffic on a server is to block the alt.binaries.* groups. Binary pictures take up a significantly larger amount of disk space than text. These administrators are also always on the lookout for de facto binaries groups to cut too. People in this situation represent about a 1/3 of our readers. If this group were to become so busy that many news administrators recognized it as a group with large amounts of binary pictures, we would lose 1/3 of our readers. That would be a shame. Why can't everyone afford a full news feed? Some people are in parts of the world where high bandwidth connections are prohibitively expensive. Others can't afford the $30K (US$) and 10GB disk space that are pretty much required to run a news server these days. All in all, it's the responsibility of the poster to comply. Even though the occasional picture may not hurt anything, it encourages others to do the same and pushes us closer to that line. It's quite easy to post to alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.fetish.diapers and leave a pointer to that post in this group. You can post as much as you like in alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.fetish and alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.fetish.diapers. You don't have access to these two pictures groups? That is probably because your news server and news administrator can't keep up with binary picture traffic and need to cut them out. If you started posting to alt.sex.fetish.diapers instead, you would most likely be in that 1/3 who would quickly lose access to even that group. My recommendation is to ask your Internet service provider to carry the groups or to move to another Internet service provider. If you are paying them money, maybe it's time to spend it on someone who will give you better service. ***** 4.6 - Are personal ads allowed? They sure are! (However, you may have more luck with a web page of personal ads like Blue Baby's at http://www.cris.com/~mckebp/state.htm) A common mistake that many people usually make is to immediately post a personal ad looking for their ideal partner. These ads usually aren't very eloquent, and aren't very likely to elicit any replies. "Desperate" is not a quality most people look for in a friends and lovers. If you are set on meeting your soul mate in this newsgroup I would at least like to advocate patience. If you participate in the group, people will get to know you much better than any ad. Make friends with lots of people, especially platonic friends since they can introduce you to others. Lastly, males will have the most difficult time looking for females. There are females who read this newsgroup. Most of them learn to maintain a low-profile so that they can avoid unwanted attention from the hordes of horny net geeks. Your pleas for companionship will probably fall upon deaf ears. It takes time and patience to build up trust. ***** 4.7 - "Uhh.. me too! me too!" Any posting that looks like the above is a certain way to get ignored. If you are looking for stories and pictures you'll have to be patient. If you make friends with people on the group they are more likely to share what stories and pictures they have with you. There are plenty around, so there is no shortage. No one wants to share with someone that's impolite. Authors of stories are almost always more than happy to repost their creations, if you ask nicely. Just remember that they are busy people too. ***** 4.8 - Why isn't there a moderator for alt.sex.fetish.diapers? The moderator of a newsgroup would be exposed to civil and criminal liability in many legal jurisdictions. In the U.S. they would be taking editorial responsibility for all the postings that they approve. The means they have to screen for copyright violations, libel, legally-defined obscene material, etc. Moderating is tough work even on dull forums. I bet any moderator would quit the first time their name ended up in the mass media anyway. ******************************************************************************** Section 5: Spam ******************************************************************************** ***** 5.1 - What is spam? "Spam" is the common term for all those phone sex and "get rich quick" postings you will see in newsgroups and get via e-mail. They are posted by individuals trying to make a profit, and they don't really care that they are annoying many people in the process. A few do respond, and that makes it worth their while. ***** 5.2 - What can I do about spam? 1. Don't listen to them and don't give them your money. Frequently spammers are hired by the owner of a web site to try to drive traffic to that web site. The spammer gets paid by how much traffic they generate for that web site. For goodness sakes, don't visit the site and put more money in the spammer's pocket, and don't buy products from folks who hire spammers. 2. Consider using a news client that supports filtering. Filtering out postings that don't follow our tilde convention (see above) will make your Usenet reading experience much more enjoyable. Some folks even maintain more comprehensive lists of spammers, so that you can filter them out more effectively. I understand that FreeAgent supports filtering. Emacs GNUS also has very flexible filtering, but is a little difficult to use for most casual readers. 3. Install NoCem yourself or get your news admin to install it. (http://www.cm.org) NoCem is an anti-spamming protocol that can be used by your news client and your ISP's news server. It looks for notices which will tell your news client/server which articles contain spam. This will work well for ASFD and any other newsgroups. 4. Have ASFD postings filtered and sent to you via e-mail instead. Send mail to asfd-redist-request@bbif.vaporware.org, to subscribe. 5. Use web based chat services or e-mail lists. See "http://ractarion.vaporware.org/~bbif" for an example of each of those services. 6. Support our efforts to create a new moderated newsgroup (below). ***** 5.3 - What are other ABs trying doing about spam? Our best hope for a long term solution is a moderated newsgroup. It won't be a strictly moderated newsgroup, like some. The main purpose of this moderation is to have a computerized filter ensure that no spam articles make it onto the newsgroup. This requires a long-term technical and political effort by a handful of ABs. Without support, this idea will never come to fruition. We need hardware to run the moderation software on, we need people to keep it running smoothly, and we need people to help convince the news admin community at large that this is a legitimate newsgroup they should carry. There are too many aspects of this project to enumerate here. However, you can view the current status of everything on the BBIF HyperNews Forum under the topic of "Moderated AB Newsgroup Project". You can get to this by starting at "http://ractarion.vaporware.org/~bbif/" and registering for the BBIF HyperNews Forum. ***** 5.4 - What about my idea for stomping out spam? I believe moderated newsgroup is the best long-term solution. However, there are always a number of other suggestions floating around that people have that aren't as attractive: 1. Create a new newsgroup outside of alt.sex for diaper discussion. -- Unfortunately there is a lot of spam everywhere. You may not see some of it because it gets cancelled too fast in your favorite newsgroup. If your ISP has a very fast news server, you shouldn't see very much in ASFD either. In any case, the problem isn't just avoiding the spam, because it is everywhere. It is a matter of blocking it before it ever makes it to our newsgroup. 2. Why not use an unused newsgroup? -- This is a particularly bad idea, because it makes the diaper discussion almost impossible to find for newbies. Frequently a newsgroup appears unused because it is blocked by a majority of news servers, so it may not be available anywhere else. Additionally, any legitimate readers of that newsgroup may be upset by our encroachment on their territory, something of which news admins don't look favorably upon. 3. What about a private news server or web page forum? -- According to readership statistics, ASFD had a readership of 20,000 readers in July 1995. That is a lot of people and is a little too much traffic to carry on donated server space, since I assume that most people don't want to use a service they have to pay extra for. ******************************************************************************** Section 6: Tips and Hints ******************************************************************************** ***** 6.1 - So, what's this marvelous modified diaper that I keep ***** hearing people talk about? Well, someone who goes by the nickname of "Toddler" on IRC has a modified diaper "recipe" that is unsurpassed in my book. They are extremely bulky, but hold in just about anything in my opinion. Recipe for Toddler's Wonder Diapers (compliments of Toddler): You need Ultra Attends Plus adult diapers and Scott Promise Pads, Overnight Weight. Also a hot melt glue gun, a razor knife, a pair of scissors, and a roll of Contact paper. Cut the Contact paper across its width into 4-inch-wide strips. The Contact paper is, btw, available in a number of attractive prints as well as plain white for wimps :) Apply the contact paper to the front of the Attends as a taping panel. This will prevent the all-too-common Attends "Tape Popping" (truly an annoying phenomenon). Set the "empaneled" Attends to one side. With the scissors strip away most of the excess material in the crotch of a Scott Promise pad. Then, with the razor knife, cut a rectangular panel out of the back of the pad, being careful not to disturb the fill excessively. Fold the rear wings of the pad into a V shape to allow the pad to fit nicely inside the Attends, and glue the wings down. Open the Attends up and lay the Promise pad, soft side up, inside the diaper. Fold back the front of the pad and glue around the remaining waterproof backing and affix it to the front of the attends. Do the same with the middle and the back. The point is to create a complete waterproof seal around the glued perimeter; this makes the resulting combination more effective. At this point you are done. It works with both Medium and Large Attends, and might work with the Small Attends although you would probably have to use a smaller pad to make it fit right. ***** 6.2 - Are there adult diaper services, just like there are baby ***** diaper services? There sure are! Many places that offer baby diapers also have adult sizes. So, if you call around a little you can pay to have clean cloth diapers delivered to your home. Now, isn't that convenience? (Especially if you don't have to change them yourself.) ***** 6.3 - I've never used a flat cloth diaper before; how do I fold ***** it? Assuming that you have a flat pre-fold type of diaper, the usual way of folding them would be to fold the first 1/3 of the diaper over the center panel and then fold that 1/3 back over itself. Do the same with the other side. It should look like this. --------\ /-------- /---------/ \---------\ View looking at the top of \--------------------------------/ the diaper from the ends You can also insert one or more baby sized pre-folds in the center to make them more absorbent and thicker. To me this makes them even more babyish. After they are folded this way, just lie down on them and pull the front up over your tummy and gently pull the corners from the front and back together and pin them comfortably at the waist. Be sure to put on a good pair of protective pants and enjoy wetting in your new diapers just like a Baby! (compliments of ericm@panix.com) ############################################################################## end of FAQ *fnord*