SFWA Gateway - Getting Online

This article orginally appeared in the October 2000 SFWA® Forum (#175). ©2000 and 2001, Vera Nazarian and Mary Catelli. Reprinted and adapted with their permission. You are granted permission to print a copy of this article either for your own use or to distribute to a fellow SFWAn in need.

Dear SFWA Computer Newbie or Computer Geek,

Relax. This is a purely informational letter. You may or may not be aware of this, and we are going to remind everyone, that as a member of SFWA you have free access to most of the SFF Net online Community.

What is SFF Net? To put it simply, it is the official online SFWA® hangout, where you can, if you like, talk with your fellow SFWAns, on just about everything, from the latest news in the publishing business, to issues facing SFWA, to asking for research help for your latest story. To put it in more detail, please see http://www.sff.net/.

Now, before some of you run screaming into the night, having never touched a computer in your life (nor particularly wanting to), let me reassure you, I will make this explanation easy.

YOU DON'T NEED TO KNOW ANYTHING.

Honest. I really do mean it when I say this, because all of the instructions are available, and there are friendly jolly, downright amazing people ready and willing to help you. In fact, we will make it so easy for you that you will have no excuse to avoid "going online" (even if you don't know what the heck that even means).

Now, then. The first thing you may say is, "Gee, I don't even have a computer! I still write on a typewriter, or by longhand."

Well, let's resolve this problem.

Where to Get a Computer with Online Access:

Now, let's say you really have never touched a computer in your life, and wouldn't know whether to click a mouse or feed it - hard to believe in this day and age, but it happens to the best of us. That's ok. You can start out by practicing on other people's computers. See sources above.

And you would be surprised how easy it is to find helpful strangers, such as in a library, who can show you the basic ropes - for free. Hey, you might even meet a new friend that way.

After you've learned how to click, how to get around a computer by starting and closing programs, and can open an Internet browser - Woah! I've used the "Internet" word; it's ok, settle down, it's not so bad - such as Netscape or Microsoft Explorer, you are basically ready to participate online.

Open Netscape or Microsoft Explorer, or any other internet browser of your choice.

This is the SFF Net Help Area. I recommend you spend a day here, clicking with your mouse from page to page, just reading up and getting comfortable with what this place is. If you still don't understand 90% of what you read there, relax. You are doing great.

Yup, this is SFWA's own home page! It actually resides on SFF Net's computers, so you are halfway there already.

I recommend you spend another day just clicking around here, reading all the bounty of useful information. I bet you didn't know we had all these goodies hidden away there for you!

Now, it's time to dive into the SFWA private area. A place you can recommend works for the Nebula, read the latest NAR online, read members' fiction, etc. http://www.sfwa.org/gateway/

Just relax with a mug of your favorite drink as you cruise around this place, and read the FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) list, and other things. http://www.sfwa.org/gateway/faq.html

Notice that as a SFWA member, you get a special free membership in SFF Net, which allows you to enter private areas, after you enter your username and password.

If you are a bit more comfortable, and after you have received the username and password for your account, you can go directly to the SFF Net Webnews which is the easiest means to access the newsgroups -- the actual online community where we hang.

You can do this from the public library, from your friend's home computer, from a strange café in Paris -- you name it. And you can do it any time, 24 hours, 7 days a week.

Memorize it! This is your ticket to the fun and games and the talk and gossip, and the latest breaking people news.

Once there, you click on the Login, enter your Username and Password. On the top, you will see:

Click on Subscriptions, then go to the bottom of the list and click on Refresh List of Newsgroups. Then, look around. Each one of these groups listed in the top is a topic or newsgroup devoted to whatever its title suggests. There are public "sff.people" groups devoted to the individual authors or fan members of SFF Net, including many SFWAns.

There are general public discussion areas on publishing, writing, etc, such as sff.publishing.market-reports and sff.publishing.news. These are publically accessible to the whole world. And then there are the private groups, including the private SFWA areas that you can only see after you've logged in. (A newsgroup with "private" in its name, such as sff.private.members.ask-the-expert, is a private group, but not necessarily specific to SFWA.)

Eventually you may want to select those you like and subscribe to them. But for now, just browse.

In short, after you spend a couple of days looking around, you may be surprised to find how much you've been missing.

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