(7) - VR.5 INFO ON THE NET (7.1) - What newsgroups discuss VR.5? Most of the message traffic on VR.5 centers around the VR5 listserv. (See section 7.8) However, the digests of that listserv are post to the newsgroup alt.tv.vr5. There's also sporadic discussion on rec.arts.sf.tv, rec.arts.tv, and alt.tv.x-files, although the "discussion" there usually degenerates into flame wars, ratings flames, or "my show is better than your show" advocacy-type postings. (7.2) - What's the history behind alt.tv.vr5? (1) alt.tv.vr5 was created by Tom Servo on 26 March 1995. Because he didn't follow the rules for alt.* group creation, the number of sites carrying it was pretty low. (2) On 7 May 1995, Jonathan Gan re-created the group after following "official" group creation procedure in alt.config. After five days of discussion, VR.5 fans had come through and posted eloquent messages of support: CArdoin658 Dave Kliman David Stinson dspiral Gerry Smith John Dobbin John Resotko Megan Gentry Robin Miller Ruth Ellen Seid Stanley ("Spokesman for the Committee") Stephen McLeod alt.tv.vr5 is now a "legitimate" newsgroup. If you still can't get it on your site, write to the address "news", "usenet", or "postmaster" on your system, and ask them to carry alt.tv.vr5. The newsgroup once averaged over 440 articles a week, with no flames spotted and intelligent conversations along VR.5's entire spectrum. Please help keep alt.tv.vr5 flame-free! Nowadays, it averages a couple dozen posts per week, most of which are VR5 listserv digests and SPAM, as occurs in most alt.* groups. On 3 May 1995, Lori Singer (Sydney) herself acknowledged the efforts of those in alt.tv.vr5 trying to save the show. On 5 June 1995, we received confirmation that the four biggest U.S. commercial online services -- Prodigy, America Online, CompuServe, and Delphi Internet -- had committed to providing alt.tv.vr5 for their customers. If you're on America Online, you can receive alt.tv.vr5 by: 1. Going to Internet Connections 2. Choosing Newsgroups 3. Choosing "Expert Add" or "Search Newsgroups" 4. Typing in "alt.tv.vr5" (Thanks to Maritza Stember for these instructions.) On 4 July 1995, alt.tv.vr5 celebrated its 101st day in operation. (7.3) - What are these VR5 Digests I see on the newsgroup? The VR.5 mailing list cross-posts to alt.tv.vr5. As each digests comes out, it automatically gets posted to alt.tv.vr5. This serves a number of purposes: * Allows people to read the mailing list without getting their e-mail boxes bombed on busy days. * Fosters discussion on the newsgroup itself. * Keeps the newsgroup from becoming a barren wasteland. The digests are more or less searchable through the Dejanews service, too. http://www.dejanews.com They are also archived privately at Jonathan Gan's FTP site. Jon explains the directory layout and system: VR5 digests 500-502 and 508-599 are now available at . I'm still fishing in the computer for digests 503-507, which are in any of several subdirectories on my hard disk. If you have any of the digests I'm searching for, *please* e-mail me. I'm eager to compress the 500s -- which began in February and just ended yesterday -- into a single ZIP file as soon as I can, to save space and transfer time. Meanwhile, a directory for the 600s is now up at ftp://ftp.eskimo.com/u/r/raquele/vr5-digests/600s/ (7.4) - Where can I find information on the World Wide Web? There are several web sites for VR.5 information. They each have a different emphasis, but most have pictures and sounds from the series, as well as links to other sites and text information files. - The Sci-Fi Channel has a VR.5 web site up, complete with episode guide, multimedia downloads, and actor profiles. http://www.scifi.com/vr5 - Jonathan Gan has the original FAQ up on his web site, along with a multitude of other handy VR.5 reference documents, including the fan-fiction, conference, and E-mail Newsletter archives. Visit it at the following site: http://www.eskimo.com/~raquele/vr5/ - Yahoo!'s listings for VR.5 sites is available at: http://www.yahoo.com/News_and_Media/Television/Shows/ Science_Fiction__Fantasy__and_Horror/VR_5/ - Stanley, "Spokesman for the Committee" runs the Organic Computer, a site chock full of VR.5 graphics and sound clips. Point your graphical WWW browser to: ftp://archive.egr.msu.edu/pub/vr5/vr5.htm Notes for this site: - It says ftp, but you will reach a hypertext page. - If you encounter any problems using the site (or if you're using a text-based WWW browser like lynx), you can also get the files on the site via anonymous ftp. Use ftp to connect to archive.egr.msu.edu, go to the /pub/vr5 directory, and get the files you want. - Pat Moss runs the Committee Special Report on VR.5. Go to: http://www.planetx.com/vr5 - Augie De Blieck, Jr. runs the Virtual StormCenter, a VR.5 web page dedicated to keeping VR.5 alive. Go to: http://daniel.drew.edu/~adebliec/vr5.html - Scripts transcribed from some VR.5 episodes can be found from Mara's site at: http://members.aol.com/Jubal01/vr5.html - Alexander Soendjaja has archived a transcript of the Pilot episode, complete with the scenes cut in the episodic version: http://www.geocities.com/TelevisionCity/3155/VR5Pilot.html - More episode transcripts are available from Spencer Rasko's page: http://206.8.125.20/bhs/students/Spence/trans.htm (This page also contains a transcript of Anthony Stewart Head's interview on Entertainment Tonight shortly before VR.5's premiere.) - The Sci-Fi Channel has its own set of VR.5-related links at: http://www.scifi.com/orbit/scifitv.html - You can sign the VR.5 Petition at the form available at: http://www.geocities.com/TelevisionCity/4950/petition_form.html - The "Dominion BBoard" on The Sci-Fi Channel's web site had some discussions on VR.5. Go to: http://www.scifi.com/bboard/bboards.html Choose the VR.5 topic and follow the instructions to read and reply to "posts" on the site. There is some renewed interest in this site now with the show re-airing on the Sci-Fi Channel. - A picture of the USA Today announcement of the AOL OMNI conference can be found here: http://www.quiknet.com/~franknw/news.html (Just ignore the news part of the page. It is out-dated and wrong.) - Lori Olson maintains the VR.5 Multimedia Site, with dozens of screen captures from most of the episodes: http://pearl.sri.com/vr5/ It includes quotes about the VR.5 effort. - James Watkinson has opened up a broad-spectrum VR.5 web site, complete with video clips you can download and a rotating selection of screen captures: http://www.macnet.com/home/jwatkinson/vr5home.htm - Not really a VR.5-specific site, per se, but it does mention VR.5: http://www.eden.com/users/my-html/fox-list.html It's a list of every show FOX ever aired. Do you want to see what other shows were given the short shrift by FOX? Here you go! - Augie De Blieck Jr. maintains the WWW version of the episode guide, complete with graphics and links: http://www.nic.com/~augie/episodes/episodes.htm - Entertainment Weekly did a review of the series when it first started: http://pathfinder.com/@@5dy5pgQAryPW6C3T/ew/950324/tv/ TV-VR5_Sliders.html - Another Entertainment Weekly article ("The Next X?") has a longer article about the series as well as a couple of pictures not seen anywhere else on the web: http://pathfinder.com/@@5dy5pgQAryPW6C3T/ew/950310/xfiles/ vr5.html - Michele Santiago has put up perhaps the oddest single page of VR.5 memorabilia to date. It contains the various original ASCII art designs of the VR.5 logo: http://members.aol.com/vr5sbloom/vr5/vr5ascii.txt - Here are some other WWW sites you may wish to visit, as well. The maintainer of this FAQ just hasn't gotten around to sorting them out yet: http://www.planetx.com/vr5/update/ http://www.teleport.com/~amalie/index.html http://www.abacus.ghj.com/sci_fi/vr5/vr5.htm http://www.geocities.com/BourbonStreet/1727 http://www.cs.ruu.nl/wais/html/na-bng/alt.tv.vr5.html http://206.8.125.20/bhs/students/Spence/vr5lnk.htm http://connexus.apana.org.au/~kat http://www.intercom.no/~savage/ http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Set/1946/ http://www.astro.ulg.ac.be/~lamy/vr5.html [In French] (7.5) - Does FOX have an e-mail address? = comments about any FOX series; include the series name in the subject FOX reads your e-mail. Charles Kennedy, Vice President of Programming Research for FOX, has written (on rec.arts.sf.tv) that he reads every piece of mail received through these addresses. When the address was still active shortly after the series premiere, William Cameron wrote that it took 8 weeks for him to receive a form letter from the address, so it appears that they are busy. And via Alexis Massie , we have the following "other" FOX addresses: = Mark Schey, FOX-to-Delphi middle-man = "MJ," FOX Scheduling (7.6) - Where can I find VR.5 sound clips and pictures? VR.5 sound clips can be found occasionally in the newsgroup alt.binaries.sounds.tv. However, the most reliable way of finding sound clips and pictures is to go to the VR.5-specific World Wide Web sites. (See section 7.4.) Lori Olson's VR.5 Multimedia Site and The Organic Computer, contains an extensive collection of interesting sound clips and pictures. You can also find items posted occasionally to alt.tv.vr5. (See section 7.7.) Jonathan Gan compiled a list of WWW sites with graphics on them - a list which is added to with nearly every update of this FAQ, it seems: (7.7) - Are binaries allowed in alt.tv.vr5? How can I decode them? Nobody has ever complained. However, it is against common USENET protocol and courtesy to do so. You are better off placing your binary in an alt.binaries.* newsgroup or posting it on your web page. In either case, make a brief post pointing people in that direction so we all can enjoy. (7.8) - Are there VR.5 discussion mailing lists? The main VR.5 discussion mailing list is run by Pat Moss , and it's called "VR5." It may be useful to you if you're a fan of the series but can't receive alt.tv.vr5 (no matter how much you beg your system administrator). Here's VR5's charter and other info: --------------------------------------------------------------------------- CHARTER: This automated mailing list is chartered to support the discussion of the television show VR.5. It is also to be used for the discussion of VR applications on the Internet (and other networks). This includes (but is not limited to) AR, ColdX, VRML and AI Systems. SUBSCRIBING AND UNSUBSCRIBING: The administrative address for this list is LISTSERV@PLANETX.COM and this is where *all* SUBSCRIBE and UNSUBCRIBE messages should be sent. To subscribe to this group, send the message "subscribe vr5 your name" to the administrative address. To unsubscribe from the VR.5 mailing list, send the message "unsubscribe vr5 your name" to the administrative address shown above. Send the message "help" to the administrative address if you want to know how to change your reception and echo settings. USE OF THE LIST: The normal mailing address of this list is VR5@PLANETX.COM and this is where you should send messages to the rest of the group. Please do not send advertizing or use this automated mailing list as a political soap box. We all have our own opinions. Misuse of the list will result in a blacklisting. QUESTIONS OR PROBLEMS: Please send any problems with the automated mailing list to me at PMOSS@PLANETX.COM where I will look after the problem as soon as I can. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- The VR5 list is sporadic and erratic. It can be as slow as one or two messages a day to as many as 50 or 60. (At his height, VR5 channeled 300 messages a day!) In any case, subscribe to the list from a mailbox you can clear periodically during the day or week to avoid being deluged with the volume of messages. If you've subscribed and you're upset with the high volume of posts, send an e-mail message to containing the following in the body of the message: set vr5 mail digest Instead of sending you each message as it's sent, the list server will send you only *one* e-mail message each day with a digest of the last 24 hours of VR.5 discussion. Joining the List To join the mailing list, send an e-mail message to containing the following in the body of the message: subscribe vr5 My Name Replace "My Name" with your first and last name. Removing Yourself from the List To remove yourself from a list, send e-mail to containing the following in the body of the message: unsubscribe vr5 My Name Replace "My Name" with your first and last name. Sending Messages to the List If you'd like to send a message to the VR5 list, send it to Your message will be transmitted to everyone on the list you sent it to. NOTE! Do *not* send your subscribe/unsubscribe message to . If you do, you won't be subscribed/unsubscribed, and your message will be sent out to everyone on the mailing list. It can be pretty embarrassing! :-) There is also now an Anthony Stewart Head mailing list, created by fans of "Buffy, The Vampire Slayer." To join the list, send an e-mail to with a blank subject line. In the message, type either "subscribe ash-gasp" or "subscribe ash-gasp-digest" depending on which format you'd prefer. (7.9) - Are VR.5 discussions conducted on IRC? Maybe. When the show was first aired, weekly IRC chats were held on Saturday nights - the day after a new episode was aired. Nowadays, no such regular chats are held. However, it's always worth a check at #vr5 to see if anyone is in there. Otherwise, post a message in alt.tv.vr5 or on the VR5 mailing list to set up a time and date and you can probably find someone who'll chat with you. Recently, a movement has begun to have discussions on IRC every Tuesday night, when Sci-Fi airs VR.5. Look to the newsgroup and/or listserv for details and more info as it becomes available. There is also now a dedicated VR.5 chat room available through: http://206.8.125.20/bhs/students/Spence/vr5lnks.htm (7.10) - Where can I find information on keeping VR.5 alive? Augie De Blieck, Jr. has generously offered to be the home site for information on how to keep VR.5 alive -- in any media. Finger: adebliec@daniel.drew.edu World Wide Web: http://daniel.drew.edu/~adebliec/vr5.html (7.11) - Do the VR.5 producers have an e-mail address? KallyM provided the e-mail addresses for the producers and for Rysher Entertainment: VR5Prod@aol.com Rysher@aol.com The VR.5 staff at does read your mail; they've responded to several questions from VR.5 fans. (7.12) - Can I read alt.tv.vr5 via Gopher? The Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration provides a service by which you can read posts from most any newsgroup. If you can read alt.tv.vr5 normally, don't use this service -- excessive overload will cause it to go down. To read alt.tv.vr5: (if you don't understand German :-) (1) Gopher to olymp.wu-wien.ac.at (2) Use the menus to go to Information in English WU Information Services WU-NetNews alt.* alt.tv.* alt.tv.vr5 You can also go directly to this URL: gopher://news.wu-wien.ac.at:7119/1alt.tv.vr5 If you want to post to alt.tv.vr5, check out section 7.14. (7.14) - Can I receive and post to alt.tv.vr5 via e-mail? David Shaler suggested: I haven't tried this yet because there is no need for me to try it, but for those who can't recieve alt.tv.vr5 or other newsgroups, this might be right up your alley. You can send posts to alt.tv.vr5 through email by sending it to alt.tv.vr5@news.demon.co.uk In the subject, put what you would put if you were posting a message the rgular way and type up your message in the body. You can also recieve all the posts in a newsgroup. First you have to send an email to netnews@db.stanford.edu and leave the subject blank but in the body type help. Remember to turn your .sig off so it isn't put into the message. You'll get instructions back on how to set it up so that when items are posted in the newsgroup you'll also receive a copy through email. This can be done with any newsgroup and you can send mesages to any newsgroup. Just replace the name of the newsgroup with another when you send it to news.demon.co.uk (7.16) - Has any original VR.5 fan fiction been written on the Net? Yes! Currently, WorstWitch maintains the VR.5 fan-fiction collection, via an extensive web site. Stories are frequently available in both .txt and .zip formats. http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Corridor/9422/ficthome.htm Read and enjoy the stories in the file! If you have any comments, please send them to the authors at their respective e-mail addresses. They'd love to hear from you. If you'd like to write your own story, do so and post it to alt.tv.vr5 for other fans to enjoy. If you'd like it included in the VR.5 fan fiction archive, e-mail your story to WorstWitch at . She's be more than happy to archive it herself or add a link to your site from hers. If you are stuck for ideas, an article with suggestions on coming up with ideas is available at the Eskimo FTP site: ftp://ftp.eskimo.com/u/r/raquele/archive/vr5-fanfic/gettingideas (7.17) - What's Virtual Storm? Virtual Storm is an Internet-based organization that's dedicated to promoting VR.5. Members of the Virtual Storm coordinate their efforts online by organizing mail, e-mail, fax, and phone campaigns to TV networks and media organizations. Originally proposed on 31 May 1995 by Jonathan Gan , Virtual Storm has enjoyed broad support from fans of the show online. The Virtual StormCenter -- Virtual Storm's home on the World Wide Web -- is an excellent source of addresses, phone numbers, and sample letters if you want to help keep VR.5 alive. It's maintained by Augie De Blieck, Jr. ; you can reach it at: http://daniel.drew.edu/~adebliec/vr5.html Virtual Storm's current objectives are: - To support the efforts by John Sacret Young, Samoset Productions, and Rysher Entertainment to revive VR.5, possibly as a television movie of the week. - To increase awareness of the series. - To bring in new fans and find original ones. - To tell the media that we exist and that fans are working hard to bring back the series Currently, the Virtual Storm is asking for signatures on a Virtual Petition of sorts to convince FOX that there is enough interest in VR.5 to warrant a television movie. Please sign it by sending a brief message to John Dobbin with your name and location (city, state/province, country) You don't have to be on-line to sign it, either. Send in the the same information for your off-line friends who wish to support the cause and they'll be added right in, too. The petition is currently at just over 700 names. It will be sent in to FOX after 100 names have been signed. (7.18) - Is there a VR.5 multimedia program? There used to be. =( Nathan Donato produced and released a "VR.5 multimedia kit" with NeoBook Pro. It contained pictures, sound clips, information about VR.5, and more. To run the multimedia program, you needed: - MS-DOS - Sound Blaster or other sound card - VGA 256-color display or better However, nobody has seen or heard from Nathan in quite some time, and the program seems to have disappeared. If anyone has a copy, please let the FAQ maintainer know as - he'd like to get the program on the web again. (7.19) - Why is there nothing in this space? I don't know and I'm too lazy to renumber everything to fit it in. Please note, section (7.15) is also strangely absent. Yeesh. (7.20) - Why do I keep hearing about a VR.5 fan convention in San Francisco? In response to requests from the rest of the online VR.5 fan community in early June 1995, John Dobbin described a VR.5 fan convention in San Francisco that would happen if the posts in alt.tv.vr5 numbered over 300 in a three-day period. It starred many of the personalities on alt.tv.vr5 and the VR.5 mailing list, and as people responded and added their own dreams and comments, the thread became a virtual history of the online fan effort. It included fans' impressions, moods, dreams, and hopes for VR.5 as they worked hard to get it back on the air -- well after the 300-post milestone was passed. You can find the entire "Convention" thread in the VR.5 Fan Fiction Archive; see section 7.16. (7.21) - Have Virtual Storm's efforts been reported on in the media? Northern New Jersey's (U.S.) newspaper "The Record" interviewed Virtual Storm's Media Relations director Augie De Blieck, Jr. on Virtual Storm's efforts to promote VR.5. Alonzo Jones described "The Record" as a northern New Jersey publication with offices in Hackensack, New Jersey, Bergen County. Here's part of the text of the article, as posted by Augie: --------------------------------------------------------------------------- FANS MAKE LAST-DITCH EFFORTS TO SAVE THEIR FAVORITES by Virginia Rohan (The Record, E-2, June 11, 1995) Aux armes, TV fans! This is the spring of discontent. Over the past few weeks, I've received a number of calls and letters from readers who are irate about everything from cancellations to cast changes - and who would like to incite other viewers. After reading my recent column about ABC's axing of "My So-Called Life" - which is still generating sad letters - Augie De Blieck, Jr. of North Haledon wrote to alert us of a "growing movement" on the Internet to resuscitate Fox's "VR.5". His World Wide Web site is the official home page for the campaign, christened "Virtual Storm." (The address for the WWW site is http://daniel.drew.edu/adebliec/vr5.html. [sic] He'll also take e-mail at augie@nic.com) The campaign has several goals. First, De Blieck wants Fox to air the remaining three episodes. As of Wednesday, Fox hadn't made any plans to air them. "Second, we'd like to see Fox reconsider and renew the show, if only as a mid-season replacement." "Third, if that fails, we wish another network would pick it up - such as the WB, UPN, or USA. Failing that, we would like to see either a series of novels or a comic book devoted to the show." De Blieck said the most promising prospect at the moment is the possibility of syndication. He says "a series of poor decisions by Fox management" led to the show's demise: Its 8 p.m. Friday time slot amounted to a kamikaze mission. Ditto, the decision to unveil such a youth oriented series in the spring. "College students - like myself - are a little more concerned with final exams and thesis papers than TV shows during this time of year, causing many to skip television," De Blieck argues. * * * Then the article goes on to an interesting piece with John DeLancie (where she spelled MacGyver wrong - UGH), and an irate fan of Law & Order. The real WWW address is http://daniel.drew.edu/~adebliec/vr5.html She missed the tilda. But the e-mail address is valid, so if someone did want to visit, they could e-mail me and ask for the proper address. Theoretically. My letter was written before the formation of Virtual Storm, so there are a couple of differences in mission right now, I'd assume. The article adds up more to a hybrid of last month's with this month's campaigns. And by the way, I hope it doesn't look like I was trying to make myself look like the sole driving force behind all of this. I always said "we" to her, but she seems to single me out as some sort of troop-rallier. So you have it. I have no idea if anyone has visited the WWW site - a smart Internetter might have known to include the tilda they omitted - but I know I have yet to receive any e-mail. But "Virtual Storm" has hit the press!!! --------------------------------------------------------------------------- (7.22) - What do members of the VR.5 production team say about Virtual Storm's efforts? They certainly appreciate fans' efforts to promote VR.5, and all of the producers or writers we've talked to have endorsed and given their full support for Virtual Storm. (7.23) - What's that miniFAQ I see being posted in alt.tv.vr5? Lori Olson currently maintains the mini-FAQ, posted regularly on alt.tv.vr5. Some essential information is contained therein for those who can't or don't want to read through this entire list. (7.24) - What's that Survival Guide I see being posted in alt.tv.vr5? John Dobbin has taken over the maintainance functions of the alt.tv.VR5 Survival Guide, a document posted weekly to alt.tv.vr5 with essential information designed specifically to keep regular readers of the newsgroup up to date with the latest info as well as introducing new readers to the peculiarities of VR.5 fan-hood and the newsgroup. (7.25) - How can I publicize my VR.5 web page? There are many ways! The first two steps you probably want to take are: 1. Register your page with Yahoo. Go to http://www.yahoo.com/ and search for 'VR.5'. Choose their current heading for VR.5 listings. Click on Add and fill out the form to suggest a page. (Also, be sure to check out their listings of WWW announcement services.) 2. Send a post to comp.infosystems.www.announce. Be sure to comply with the requirements of the newsgroup. READ THE FAQ! (7.26) - I use Microsoft Windows. Can I get an icon with the VR.5 logo? Yes! Stanley, "Spokesman for the Committee" created one, and it is now available once again at the bottom of the VR.5 FAQ homepage: http://www.nic.com/~augie/vr5/index.htm (7.27) - I use Microsoft Windows '95 with the Plus! package. Is there a VR.5 theme? There is now! Dawn Smith has made two separate VR.5 themes available. You can get them from her via the web at http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Set/1946 (7.28) - What's the "On-Line VR.5 Newsletter?" For a period of a few months starting in August of 1995, Augie De Blieck Jr. took the news from the VR.5 mailing lists and newsgroup and compiled them into a short, informative newsletter, which he posted on newsgroups alt.tv.vr5, rec.arts.sf.tv, and rec.arts.tv. However, due to several reasons (lack of time and material, a computer crash) the newsletter was cancelled. However, there is an archive available of all the issues at http://www.eskimo.com/ftp/u/r/raquele/archive/vr5enews.txt