Joanne Guest FAQ   >   Part 3

 

Part 3 - Jo on the Net

 

 

Does Jo use the Internet at all?

Yes, she does. She is rumoured to have an AOL account, but I don't know the account number or anything like that. (Honest!)

And yes, she has seen at least one or two of the websites devoted to her. In one interview (for Sky TV) she expressed shock at some of the pictures that have appeared online, but in other interviews she has had some really positive things to say about the unofficial fan sites. Still, that's a woman's prerogative, I guess... :-)

 


 

Has Jo got a fan club online?

The closest thing is the sexclub.co.uk site run by the publishers of Mens World. See the Commercial Sites page for more details.

The snail-mail version of the Private Members Club is still running, but there is no longer an online equivalent.

 


  

What else is available online?

I'll be covering Usenet, IRC and websites in more detail below, but I'll start with the "unofficial" fan clubs.

 

Yahoo

There are several Yahoo groups devoted to our Jo, so Jooglers now have somewhere online to hang out. I have been told these are the ones that are the most active:

The following groups should also be worth a visit:

The following groups also exist, but don't seem to be all that active:

You will of course have to register with Yahoo before you can use any of the above groups.

 

MSN

In September 2003, MSN announced they were closing all their free chat areas. I have therefore removed all mention of msn.co.uk from this section of the FAQ.

 

E-mail

This is best reserved for filling the occasional gaps in your collection, rather than the wholesale amassing of pictures.

Another helpful hint from Maxwell Smut:

"Emails stating 'Send me *all* your Jo Guest pics!!!' will be summarily deleted by even the most reasonable Jo fan. Polite, realistic (in terms of file numbers) requests work best."

 


 

What's "a.b.p.j-g"? Is it on Usenet?

The alt.binaries.pictures.joanne-guest newsgroup (its name gets shortened to "a.b.p.j-g" in this document and elsewhere) is one of the more well-frequented fan newsgroups on Usenet. All sorts of Jo-related stuff gets posted to it including pics, video clips, sound samples and texts of her interviews.

Traffic on the newsgroup varies dramatically: the average is 25-30 messages a day, but it can go several days with only 1 or 2 messages a day, then there'll be a sudden flood of over 100 messages. This is due mainly to some serious Jooglers prodigiously posting a plethora of her page3 pictures (amongst other stuff such as video clips, but I didn't want to spoil the alliteration).

To set the record straight: I don't "own" the newsgroup (I merely maintain the FAQ), nor did I have anything to do with its creation (it was created by Maxwell Smut in February 1997).

The a.b.p.j-g Mini-FAQ contains information specific to the newsgroup, including its charter.

If you are having difficulties decoding the postings in the newsgroup, have a look at the hints in Appendix 3 of this FAQ.

If you are having trouble seeing all the postings in the newsgroup:

Be warned that the service can be rather limited from the free sites: for example, you may have trouble with the multi-part postings.

 

Confused by some of the terms used? Check the glossary.

 


 

Are there any DO's and DON'Ts concerning posting to the newsgroup?

The rules don't really extend much beyond what is considered good netiquette (e.g. take flaming to email, make sure your attributions are correct when replying to someone's post, etc). The extra guidelines follow:

What can you post?

If posting binaries:

What other restrictions are there?

 

Copyright

Remember that ALL photographs of Jo are copyright [1]. The copyright holder (usually the photographer, or the publisher of the magazine) still "owns" the picture, even when you have paid money for a copy of it.

If you want to distribute copies of a picture (e.g. by posting it to Usenet) you should seek the approval of the copyright holder in advance. Copyright holders can - and in many cases do - bring legal action against people who post their pictures to Usenet without permission. Do you want to take that risk?

 

[1] Actually, all photographs of any sort taken in the last 60-odd years are copyright, but you probably didn't want to know that :-)

 


 

What about IRC channels?

Now that DALnet is no longer available, the IRC channel previously hosted there has moved.

If you don't have any IRC software, you can download mIRC from http://www.mirc.com/

 


   

Are there any websites devoted, nay yet, dedicated to her?

In addition to the commercial sites with pictures for sale, there are roughly 50 "fan" sites that contain stuff about Jo. They run the whole gamut, from sites that merely feature a handful of favourite pictures right up to "complete archive" sites.

Not many sites feature the video clips - few webmasters can afford the Web space (or the bandwidth...)

The situation regarding websites that feature our Jo can be volatile ('net.death by Jo' does still happen) - with some sites falling victim to their own success (in one case using more than 100 times their bandwidth quota), or to censorship by the ISPs involved (like the Virgin closures late 1997, or the Xoom closures late 1998).

The current list of websites can be found in Part 4 of this FAQ.

 

Advice to prospective webmasters

As mentioned above, there are several pitfalls for would-be webmasters to overcome. The following list of guidelines should help you to set up (and more to the point, retain) your website:

 


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