What is a bboard?

Electronic bulletin boards (bboards) are similar to regular (non-electronic) bulletin boards in that they are places where people can post and read messages. Any kind of written interaction can take place on a bulletin board, but most bulletin boards have customary ways that people interact on them. It is a good idea to read a few discussions on the bboard to get an idea of what is customary before you begin posting. On Cyrus, each bboard has a name that describes something about the bboard.

Explanation of Bboard trees

Bboards are organized in a tree structure where each "tree" represents a bboard purpose. Following are descriptions of the top-level bulletin boards available on Cyrus

official
Restricted posting bboards that contain official information from various places (e.g., official.cmu-news, official.computing-news).

academic
Bboards for courses.

assocs
Top-level node for user-created sub-nodes pertaining to various associations, formal and informal, at Carnegie Mellon. Those organizations recognized by Student Senate may also request a bboard in the cmu.student tree.

cmu
This is the top level node for campus-wide usenet groups, like cmu.misc.market, including bboards imported from the School of Computer Science (cs). Bboards under the cmu level may be distributed to other systems on campus under a special protocol (e.g., to CS, SEI, the Computer Club, PSC).

graffiti
Uncensored scribbling. Pretty much, anything-goes here. Users are encouraged to choose the graffiti tree rather than assocs or hobbies when they wish to start bboards for random, recreational scribbling. Bboards whose names target individuals for ridicule or offense will, at the individual's request, be removed.

org
Bboards devoted to university departments.

internet
Mailing lists distributed across the Internet and other external networks are presented as bboards here. Users are encouraged to read mailing lists as bboards under this top-level bboard instead of directly subscribing to the lists. This eases the load on our mail servers and on you. (The mail servers only receive one copy of the mailing list messages rather than copies to multiple users; and, you have access to read the messages without cluttering your Inbox. )

netnews
Newsgroups obtained from the netnews mechanism. Most of these discussion forums are distributed worldwide.

Last Updated: 4/11/07