What is a bboard?

Electronic bulletin boards (bboards) are electronic mailboxes that can be read or posted to by one or more people.  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 to that particular bboard 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. These bboards are always available to the university community for reading and posting messages.

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).  No new bboards can be created in the cmu tree at this time.

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.  These bboards are openly available to the university community for reading and posting messages.

org
Bboards devoted to university departments.

internet
Mailing lists distributed across the Internet and other external networks are presented as bboards here.  No new lists will be created in the internet tree at this time, however Computing Services will continue to maintain existing subscriptions.

Last Updated: 2/3/09