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Selected World Wide Web & FTP sites
I try to include as many UK sites as I can here (let me know if you want a mention) but
also list more interesting sites abroad.
For those with a Usenet News browser & News-feed, check out the following groups:
Alternatively, if you don't have direct access to Usenet then you can access the News groups through the Web via the services of Dejanews. Here's a more direct link to the UK groups within Dejanews.
Of the groups listed above, the general group ('rastb5') sees the most postings and is up-to-date with the US series. The creator of the show, J. Michael Straczynski (a.k.a. 'jms'), until very recently posted to this group. (And hence for legal reasons this limited the scope of the discussion to avoiding story ideas). However, he's now (generally) withdrawn from that group as a result of flame-wars resulting from certain factions in the group...
As the name suggests, submissions to the moderated newsgroup, rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated (a.k.a. rastb5.moderated), are "moderated" to remove flames, story ideas, etc. As well as creating a nicer environment than the original rastb5 (which still continues), this has also enabled jms to return on a regular "two-way" basis to the newsgroup, although he is planning to scale down his interaction following the end of the main series. George Johnson, B5's co-producer, has also posted to the moderated group, providing further information on the B5 production process and its universe from time to time.
Apparently, (I haven't tried it), you can send posts intended for the moderated newsgroup by e-mail. The mail address to send postings to the group has recently changed - you should now send the posting to b5mod@deepthot.ml.org (not b5mod@deepthot.cary.nc.us). If you simply post to the group in the usual way, messages should also automatically go to the moderation system. The moderators can be contacted at satai@deepthot.cary.nc.us.
Be a bit skeptical of posts apparently from JMS in other forums - as explained by jms recently, he posts to relatively few message boards and JMS impersonators appear on other systems from time to time.
The 'rastb5.info' announcements group is also moderated (by a panel of moderators) and is designed for announcements concerning Babylon5. Some of jms' postings to other systems are reposted here, providing extra information and teasers..
There's an indexed archive of contributions to the rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.info newsgroup that may provide useful information.
The alt.tv.babylon-5 group is still pretty active (though officially obsolete).
The alt.babylon5.uk group is pretty much dead.
The UK group (uk.media.tv.sf.babylon5 - umtsb5) is the best place to
start for those in the UK as discussion is limited to the series up to
the last episode aired here. The UK can be many episodes behind, so US
discussions can spoil UK-up-coming episodes (see the
"When & Where" section).
The umtsb5 group is a generally friendly place to be, giving rise to numerous social events and pranks.
In fact, so much social life has evolved from the primordial slime of, erm, oops, sorry - metaphors getting away from me there. Anyway, so great was the rise in social activity on umtsb5 that a separate umtsb5.social newsgroup was formed to take the extra traffic. So if you're looking for an evening at the pub with like minded Babblers (and this could be anywhere in the UK), start with umtsb5.social, or the associated Babblings Web pages!
Check out the
Frequently Aasked Questions (FAQ) pages
for the UK group, which I have the pleasure of holding..
The umtsb5 group could previously also be received by mailing list. I'm sorry to say that Jay Denebeim who ran the service is withdrawing it due to low subscription numbers - you could try checking with him though.
Finally, if you like statistics, Jeremy Evans (aka Melkor) previously maintained a set of statistics concerning articles posted to the umtsb5 group.. (The month of September 1995 was the final update!)
An alternative history of the umtsb5 group can be seen in the "Auto Spoo" - a list of contributors to umtsb5 in order of their first postings... (Including links to contributors' homepages!). (This replaced the previous Who's Spoo listing - neither are updated any more).
I also hold an archive of the UK B5 e-newsletter, The Babylonian Times . The newsletter is compiled & editted by Mike Broadhurst and is issued about every week or two to a mailing list. It's just returned after a year or so's sabatical.
See the separate page for more info, subscription details and all the back issues.
There's an official B5 mailing list. This is where it gets complicated though. The mailing list is run neither by the Official Fan Club nor by the Official Warner Bros. Web Site alone but is a joint effort by the people who run the Web Site and the people who run the American On-Line (AOL) Official B5 Site.
To subscribe, fill in the form on the official B5 WWW site or send an e-mail to B5ml2@aol.com giving your name and e-mail address.
The mailshots are pretty infrequent - every month or two at best.
A mailing list exists for reviewing B5 material (episodes, comics, etc.), run by Shelley Stuart (sls1@cornell.edu). The mailing list address is b5-review-l@cornell.edu. Its an open list that people can post reviews and thoughts on episodes, the arc, the series, etc. However, discussion of these reviews is then generally taken into e-mail outside the list.
The list now has a dedicated Web site to answer all your questions!
Mike Hopkins (MIKE100000@delphi.com) collects votes on a scale of 0-10 for each episode and compiles a league table for the episodes. The results are distributed via the mailing list. I have a WWW version of the results for all the episodes screened to date.
I refer you to Morgan (Morgan@sidhen.demon.co.uk)'s announcement on umtsb5:
Babylon-l is an e-mail discussion group I've set up for serious (and funny) debate about all aspects of the Babylon5 narrative arc. we clearly indicate spoiler space for those who have not see the new episodes (And, in fact, have very little spoiler information flying around at the mo anyway, with no new episodes current). The list is doing really well, and some great discussions are underway. It's not a place for chat, story ideas or general info. Just the actual story of B5, and all ramifications from it! It's and open door policy, but is also a flame free space (as far as we can humanly make it...;). If you'd like to give it a try, and see if it is to your taste, send: info babylon-l to Majordomo@steamradio.com [ed: address update] There is also a digest option, which you can subscribe to by sending: subscribe babylon-l digest to the same address.
This list only discusses seasons 1-3 as it's UK based. If you want to discuss season 4, there's the "Orca" discussion list - e-mail babylon5-request@orca.ucd.ie with a subj: subscribe and blank message body.
Finally, there's a social mailing list, "Cygnus", e-mail cygnus-x1-request@deepthot.cary.nc.us.
You could also take a look at this Web site for an introduction to these mailing lists
Erez Zadok runs a mailing list that collects & sends out B5's creator's (J. Michael Straczynski - JMS) postings to the international newsgroup, 'rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5' and other services such as Compuserve and America On-Line (AOL).
JMS previously didn't generally include the text of the message to which he was replying, for various reasons to do with the way his newsfeed worked. This has improved somewhat since he got a new AOL account with new software. However, the mailing list anyway attempts to match up his messages with the original notes to which they reply.
To subscribe, send an e-mall to the list controller at:
majordomo@majordomo.cs.columbia.educontaining (in the body text) the line:
subscribe b5jms
You can alternatively receive 'digest' messages which buffer messages before
sending them, resulting in fewer but larger files. In the previous
instructions, substitute:
subscribe b5jms-digestin the e-mail body.
The address for queries and problems is b5jms-owner@majordomo.cs.columbia.edu. They also now have a Web site to go with the list.. (doesn't everyone these days!?)
Ranil Sonnadara runs a UK-B5 mailing list, based at the babcom.com server. A large number of B5 mailing lists are run through this site - details can be found on their Web page. This also provides the mechanism for subscribing to the lists.
Internet Relay Chat (IRC)
Quoting directly from the Zocalo e-zine:
From: Brett <brett@nwlink.com>
In response to [ed: snipped for relevancy]:
I heard you were looking for the Babylon 5 IRC channel. The largest,
oldest Internet based chat channel is on EFnet (the largest, oldest chat
network). EFnet IRC channel #Babylon5 has more then 2,000 registered
members and has been in constant operation for nearly four years. New
users are graciously welcomed. Since the channel is accessible globally,
it is rarely quiet. At one hour the Europeans will be dominate, later
it's the Aussies, then the Americans, then the Finns, then... Well, you
get the idea. Fire up your IRC client/program and point it to the
irc.nwlink.com server. Your IRC program will probably accept the command:
/server irc.nwlink.com
then type:
/join #Babylon5
For additional information:
http://www.nwlink.com/~brett/B5irc
If you need any help, don't hesitate to ask. :)
Thanks,
Brett
--
Proprietor, EFnet IRC channel #Babylon5 since 2257
Please note that any views expressed here are my personal views & do not necessarily reflect UCL policy. No claim is made, explicit or implied, about the suitability of any data presented here for any purpose and all rights are reserved by myself or UCL as appropriate.
ie Don't take any data without asking & don't then blame me if it's not what you were after!