Glad to hear it!
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/catslaves
Catslaves is a YahooGroup for RPCA members, and is more of an adjunct to the group than a replacement. Anecdotes still get posted to the NG, but after the September 11th tragedy, newsgroup members wanted a more immediate way to contact each other and interact with each other than the often slow response the Usenet system currently offers. "catslaves" was created to take advantage of YahooGroup's group e-mailing system. Within a week, it had become much more than that.
As with all YahooGroups, "catslaves" offers a group e-mailing system (where one e-mail to the catslaves address will send a copy of that e-mail all members), a gallery to share photos (mostly of cats, but of anything we think the group members may be interested in), a place to share files, a group calendar and a rudimentary database system. It also has its own chat room. The Chat has created its own RPCA sub-culture.
8.2.1 How to become a catslaves member
There are a number of ways to become a catslaves member. This is the easiest:
I'd also strongly recommend downloading Yahoo's Instant Messenger. It works like many other Instant Messenger systems but since you need a YahooID to get access to catslaves anyway, this seems to be the default IM system that the group uses. For a start, it allows you to see who is available for chatting with.
Chatting with fellow catslaves is addictive. Very addictive. Very *very* addictive. Did I mention that it was addictive? It can take over your life without you knowing it.
Adult concepts are also often discussed in the chat room (as most people chatting are adults) While we have no wish to offend anyone and would be quite happy to modify the conversation to whatever level the group feels comfortable with, it does consist mainly of adults talking about whatever it is that adults start talking about and therefore sometimes the topics can get rather surreal and/or have sexual content. Those group members who are still considered legally children should inform their parent/guardian of the nature of Chat and get their parent's permission before joining in. (Hope thats legal).
Please let the chatters if you are starting to feel uncomfortable with the topic being discussed - chatting is supposed to be fun and we don't want to turn people away just because some of us (not mentioning any names) are weirder than others. And never fear: eventually the conversation will return to either cats or food. Or both.
There are 3 ways to "chat", that is to type messages in real-time to other people. To find out which chat is being used, use YahooMessenger to InstantMessage someone who is on-line and ask them where they are chatting. Some may not respond, but you should stumble upon at least one other person who is on line and willing to talk to you: don't worry if its three in the morning where you are - there'll be someone awake, somewhere around the world, almost guaranteed.
This is the original chat room as supplied by YahooGroups. Almost all catslave members have access to the chat room. It requires no extra software and works on most systems. Unfortunately it does not appear to work with WebTV or behind some firewalls. The catslaves chatroom runs off Javascript applets, so enabling this feature on your browser is necessary. This form of chat is probably the most unstable of them all and has lead to a lot of new terms being developed to describe the various problems associated with its use.
8.1.1.2 IRC (Internet Relay Chat)
The advantage with IRC is that it is fairly stable and can be accessed from most computers that are connected to the internet. The disadvantage is that it needs another bit of software to be loaded on your computer.
How to operate in the IRC environement is out of the scope of this FAQ, but the to chat here you need to connect to EFnet (any one will do) and join #catslaves room. Kitcat is the 'bot and Eva is the owner of Kitcat
8.1.1.3 Yahoo Instant Messenger Voice Conference
Discovered in the most recent edition of YahooMessenger, the Voice Conference feature seems fairly stable in comparison to the Chat Room and has similar features. It does however need someone to invite other people to join, people can't just join up when they log in. If you have a microphone on your computer, you can literally talk over the internet with this option, however, most chatting is still done with text as not everybody has true "voice" capability.
This form of chatting seems to be by far the most popular. To find out the YahooId's of fellow catslaves, look in the "Members" section of the catslaves group. (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/catslaves/members)
There are many other cat-related newsgroups. Many of our posters also post in some of these other groups. Not all of them necessarily involve anecdotes about cats
News:alt.animals.felines
News:alt.cats
In the rec.pets.* heirachy there are
You may also find these newsgroups helpful
news:Rec.pets
news:sci.med.veterinary
news:alt.binaries.pictures.animals
There are probably quite a few e-mail lists involving cats as well. Look at e-groups.com
Services like Google (http://groups.google.com/), which is free, and Remarq (http://www.remarq.com/), which requires you to pay, archives almost all the messages ever posted to Usenet. If you really need to feed your addiction you could look for past posts in these archives. These archives are also good for searching on things that happened long ago that people refer back to, and getting information on things other people have killfiled (like on of the taboo subjects for example)
Apparently the search engine http://www.dogpile.com/ is very good at finding usenet messages as well.
There are also two people I know of who archive material from this NG. Think of these places not as complete archives, but more as "best ofs"
Flippy's Cat Page has over 1200 pages all related to cats. She has almost all the really good articles that have ever been posted on this NG, as well as other anecdotes and cute articles and pictures of her friend's cats that have been sent directly to her.
Although you have endless hours of fun going through all of her 2000+ pages, here are some direct links to articles and pictures sent in by members of this NG.
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Becky: |
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Bev Dunlop |
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CATherine |
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Catlynda: |
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David Y |
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Dewi |
http://www.flippyscatpage.com/ponderingkitties.html |
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Ginger-lyn: |
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Helen Miles: |
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Helen S: |
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Jenniffer: |
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Joy Conley |
http://www.flippyscatpage.com/joyconley.html |
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Julie Cook: |
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Karen Hooper |
http://www.flippyscatpage.com/laurie.html |
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Kkat: |
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Laurie |
http://www.flippyscatpage.com/laurie.html |
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Marina |
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Mark Edwards |
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Melinda: |
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Mere: |
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mn: |
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Pam Shirk: |
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Raven: |
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Red Wolf: |
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Sandy: |
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Sheenah: |
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Tish |
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TJ: |
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Tonie Becker: |
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Vicky Chapman |
http://www.flippyscatpage.com/rain.html |
8.3.2 David Stevenson's Cat Pages
http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk/cat_menu.htm
David has collected many stories and articles about cats. His page also includes helpful hints about cats and a good guide to netiquette. Dave holds the list of "People & Places" which has a list of people, where they are and the names of their cats. Dave's other passions are Trains and Bridge, which are also featured on his homepage (the Cat Pages being only one section)
Many people here hare their own web pages. Some people even keep an archive of their own stories.
Here is a list of the "regulars" and a link to their pages.
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Beth: |
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Bev Dunlop: |
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Bev Hudema: |
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Britta: |
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CATherine: |
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David S: |
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David Y: |
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Dee: |
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Dystini: |
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Felix |
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Felix: |
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Flippy: |
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Friend: |
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Ginger-lyn: |
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Greg Scholey: |
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Hazel: |
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Jon: |
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Joyce: |
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Julie Cook |
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Karen: |
http://albums.photopoint.com/j/AlbumIndex?u=1526099&a=11549753 |
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Kate: |
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Lisa > ^..^ < : |
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Kristy Palmer: |
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Major & Tye: |
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Marina |
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Marina: |
http://albums.photopoint.com/j/AlbumIndex?u=1423585&a=10656865 |
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Mark Edwards |
http://rampages.onramp.net/~medwards/other.htm |
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Mary: |
**Mzkitn**: |
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Nabu: |
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Norm |
http://community.webshots.com/album/8370077dDsMuEZaTa |
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Odette: |
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Pauline: |
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Raven: |
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Reggie: |
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Susan M: |
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Susan P |
http://www.pets.oceansfree.com/ |
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Tish: |
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Tonie Becker |
http://albums.photopoint.com/j/AlbumIndex?u=1170524&a=8614886 |
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Victor: |
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Wa2ise: |
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Yowie (Vicky) |
https://www.angelfire.com/mt/yowie/ |
<If you want yours here, just e-mail me at yowie9644@yahoo.com.au>
Comments, questions, corrections? E-mail yowie9644@yahoo.com.au
