Is there a rule of thumb for what encoding to use when posting to usenet servers?
Yes, it is. For Russian, both e-mail and Newsgroup messages should be sent to the Internet in KOI8-R encoding, because KOI8-R lets users of *different* computers (Mac, PC/Windows, Unix) exchange Russian messages or read them in a Newsgroup. KOI8-R is a ‘common ground’ for Russian. It is explained in details on my site, in the “Fonts and encodings” section: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/[continued on next line] homepages/Paul_Gorodyansky/fonts_ms.htm#part11 Q.: Can you please explain about the use of ‘-ise’ or ‘-ize’ in English: A.: Consensus seems to be that the forms in ‘s’ were invented by British newspaper editors about 70 years ago. Most forms in ‘z’ are valid on both sides of the Atlantic, BUT some words DO invariably take ‘-ise’ (everywhere) – e.g. surprise, advertise.
