USENET or Newsgroups

Abstract

Newsgroups operate in a system known as the Usenet. They are an extremely powerful and often overlooked area of the Internet. They put you in direct contact with the Internet's greatest resource, lots of other people, especially people who share your interests and passions.

Think of a group of people with this same common interest who carry on a conversation together. However, instead of being in a physical room they are on the Internet. In the case of the newsgroup any one of these people is called a subscriber or a member, and the mechanism that hooks them all together is called a newsgroup.

Newsgroups have been around almost since the dawn of the Internet, originally enabling scientists to post questions, and of course answers, to other scientists. Today however, newsgroups are closer to virtual coffee houses, where people get together to discuss subjects of mutual interest. With newsgroups, the communication is written, not verbal.

There are at least twenty-eight thousand newsgroups covering every topic imaginable, from computers, social issues, literature and science, to recreation, entertainment, hobbies and current affairs. They are organised into subject hierarchies. You will see names like alt.med.ems or alt.medicine; it's just a way of organising the thousands of newsgroups.

Newsgroups provide a way to quickly meet and communicate with people who share your interests from all over the world, without ever having to leave your computer. You can communicate with them anytime you like. If you are more the strong silent type, you can just read what others are posting without responding, although contribution is almost always welcomed. The great thing about newsgroups is that anyone can participate in them.

History of Usenet

Like many services on the Internet, newsgroups had their humble beginnings in an academic environment in 1979 when a couple of Duke University graduate students connected some computers together to exchange information with the UNIX community. At the same time, another graduate student at the University of North Carolina wrote the first version of the software used to distribute news.

This network, called Usenet, grew into a voluntary, cooperative exchange of news feeds, eventually evolving into electronic discussion groups. While there are some places that charge a fee for the news feed, Usenet continues to reflect its origins as a project designed to distribute information freely to anyone who wants it.

What are Usenet newsgroups?

Usenet is a worldwide public message board that hosts over 28,000 topic-specific discussion forums called news groups. They are located, called hosting, all over the world. One news group alone has a combined database of more than 650 million messages constituting Terrabytes of data in itself.

Typically a user poses (post) questions and the Usenet community "responds". Information is exchanged on everything from cheesecake recipes to tips on installing and maintaining Windows. If you've got access to the Internet and newsreader software, Usenet's vast wealth of free information is at your service.

The advantages of this type of medium are that the messages stay on the "board" for others to view and respond to for approximately 24hrs to 1 week. Because there is a limited amount of storage on a local news server, articles must be expired. But fortunately, the accumulated body of information of Usenet is not lost!

There are a number of WWW sites that archive and index Usenet articles. You can retrieve posts that have expired (or perhaps had not even arrived) at your local news server.

Some newsgroups insist that the discussion remain focused and on-target; to serve this need, moderated groups came to be. All articles posted to a moderated group get mailed to the group's moderator. He or she periodically (hopefully sooner than later) reviews the posts, and then either posts them individually to Usenet, or posts a composite digest of the articles for the past day or two.

So, what do you need to use newsgroups?

You will simply need a newsgroup reader. This is a program designed specifically for access to newsgroups. This will most commonly be Outlook Express or Netscape Mail. If you are one those people who choose not to use either of these popular programs, try some of the many others WinVN for instance.

You set up the software to point towards your ISP's (internet service provider's) newsgroup server. If you do not know what the newsgroup server address is (usually something like news.ispname.com), just contact your ISP and ask how you can access newsgroups.

In order to post messages from a newsreader, you initially need to enter some sort of personal information, such as your name, company, and e-mail address. These elements are required in every posting. Some people make up names and e-mail addresses (often for good reason), but this is not sufficient to protect your company affiliation. (The header in your posting identifies which server it came from.)

Generally it is good "netiquette" to provide a real name and e-mail address where you may be contacted. That way, if someone has an answer to a question you pose, it can be sent to you directly. Some companies that send out spam e-mail use software robots to mine newsgroups for e-mail addresses. They then send unsolicited ads. To prevent this, some people now provide return e-mail addresses in a form such as "johnsmithNOSPAMcrt.net.au"

At the bottom of their postings, via the signature that most newsreaders can create automatically, they explain that anyone who has a legitimate reason to contact them can do so by replacing the NOSPAM in the e-mail address with the @ symbol.

Newsgroups explained

Unlike a mailing list, newsgroups do not automatically send you all the messages that are posted on them. Instead, you decide which messages you want to read in the newsgroup.

This has the advantage of filtering the messages you receive, but the disadvantage that you have to manually select them first - something you do based on the messages’ subject headings.

A new posting to a newsgroup starts something called a "thread". A thread is made up of an original posting and all the answers to that posting. The original post in a thread is called an "anchor post".

When people stop posting in a thread we say the thread is "dead". When a thread has only the anchor post and no answers we say the thread is "empty". When a thread has lots of volatile posts we say the thread is "on fire".

When you post a message to a newsgroup that is meant to upset other people it is called "flaming" or "flame posting". When you post the same message over and over again it is called "spamming" or "spam". When a post is placed that tries to sell something it is called "trolling" or "trolls". Sometimes the term spam is used to describe trolls, but they aren't really the same. Trolls, spam and flaming are not welcome on most newsgroups.

Other terms that describe newsgroups are; UseNet, ListServ, mailing groups and E-Groups.

Navigating Usenet

Some would say that Usenet is like a river with thousands of tributaries. The main forks in the river lead to the top-level discussion categories (such as "alt") of which there are currently eight:

comp Computer hardware and software

misc Miscellaneous topics that doesn't really fit anywhere else

news Usenet-related topics

rec Entertainment, hobbies, sports, and more

sci Science and technology

soc Sex, culture, religion, and politics

talk Debates about controversial political and cultural topics

alt True anarchy; anything and everything can and does appear; subjects include Bob Dylan, Star Trek, Monty Python, privacy, and even sheep.

Follow one of the river's forks and you'll come to smaller branches (such as alt.animals), which lead to tributaries containing messages divided into even more specific topics (such as alt.animals.dogs). Ultimately, your journey will take you to the smallest part of the data stream; the part containing messages from people who are interested in one particular topic (such as alt.animals.dogs.pugs).

The different parts of a newsgroup's name are always separated by a period, a traditional categorisation symbol in the computer world. Each newsgroup contains threads made up of messages (also referred to as 'articles' or 'postings') that look like e-mail between one user and another, but can be read by anyone accessing that particular newsgroup.

Which News Groups should I subscribe to?

Determine which newsgroups interest you and subscribe to them. Because of the sheer volume of newsgroups available on the Internet, only subscribe to those that really interest you. Don't forget to keep to the generally accepted code fondly referred to as netiquette.

After you have looked through enough newsgroups, you will be ready to post your own messages, either a response to something you have read or some totally new question or comment. The posting procedure differs a little from program to program, but the general outline is always the same.

Once you have subscribed you may want to make sure you can post a message. In most newsgroups, it is considered bad form to post messages that are merely a test. However, a number of test newsgroups exist (they have the word "test" in their name). You can use any of these to verify that you can post successfully. Be warned that some test newsgroups, such as alt.test, automatically send you e-mail when your posting appears. This is a convenience, but it means that posting to such a group may generate e-mail from around the world as your message gets forwarded from news server to news server.

General Rules for Newsgroups

If you're just getting started with USENET newsgroups, check out the many useful articles in the news.announce.newusers and news.newusers.questions newsgroups. Do this before you post anything anywhere.

Lurk for a while before you post. "Lurking" is reading the discussion group correspondence without actually participating. Despite the sinister sound of the word, lurking in cyberspace is actually quite encouraged. Lurking gives you an idea of who the participants are and what the tone of the discussion is. It helps you avoid mistaking a joke for a serious statement, or posting a comment only to find out that a virtually identical statement appeared in the group yesterday.

Get and read a copy of the FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) document for the groups you subscribe to, most have one. FAQs are incredibly useful documents, often containing more information and are often better than textbooks. The FAQ gives you a base level of knowledge that most of the other people in the discussion group share will already have. Most FAQs for newsgroups are available in Worldwide Web form at http://www.faqs.org/

When you start posting, post appropriate comments and questions. Try to fit in with the tone and style of the discussion group. Just behave like a participant in a constructive discussion. Use descriptive and specific subject lines. This helps others decide whether your particular words of wisdom relate to a topic they care about.

Are there rules of Etiquette to observe?

Many of the basic Netiquette rules for discussion groups fall under Rule 4, Respect other people's time. Here they are:

Your Questions
When posting to a discussion group, try not to ask poorly thought out questions. You may be familiar with the term that "there's no such thing as a stupid question." Well it seems on the net that may not necessarily be the case. A stupid question is one that you could have easily found the answer to yourself if you had looked, or one that you're asking in the wrong place. If you have read the FAQ, and don't find the answer there, and you believe that you're looking for the answer in the right place, go ahead and ask. But, if you still suspect that it's a request for some fairly basic information, ask that responses be sent to you by email. That way, you're not responsible for discussion group readers having to wade through screens full of identical answers.

Fortunately, most network surfers are generous people who will be happy to help out, even if the question is considered a little less than "well thought out". However, it is polite not to take advantage of their time if you don't have to.

Add Value
Try not to post comments that don't add anything to the discussion. When you're just cruising through a thread in a leisurely manner, it's not too annoying to read through a lot of "hear, hear"'s and "I agree"'s. But if you're actually trying to find information, it can be very painful. So save those one-word responses for threads that have degenerated to the point where none but true aficionados are still following them.

Be Specific
If your posting is only of interest to a specific geographic area, try to limit the distribution to that area.

Be Relevant
Make sure you're in the right newsgroup. If you think that Barney the dinosaur is the best thing to happen to kids TV since Kermit the frog, don't waste your time in the USENET newsgroup alt.barney.dinosaur.die.die.die. Or for that matter posting notes saying "I HATE CATS" to rec.pets.cats is a complete waste of time, nobody there cares. It may seem obvious, but don't post stories or questions about fighter aircraft to a newsgroup for gardeners. If you're in doubt, it's always acceptable to ask, but try to do it briefly.

Practice Tolerance
When someone writes something that makes you angry, resist the impulse to flame back. One angry response can beget a long and nasty flame war.

Be Polite
Phrase your postings politely. Cursing is frowned upon, except in designated areas such as USENET newsgroups like alt.tasteless. If you feel you really must express your opinion in the strongest possible terms, questionable euphemisms and made-up expletives are usually the best approach.

Be Accurate
Make sure your postings are correct. This is particularly important with information about serious topics such as illness for example. Information, true or false, spreads like wildfire through cyberspace. Being responsible for making people sicker than they already were is not a good idea.

Verify Information before you rely on it or post it
For that matter don't assume that posted information is always correct, and certainly try not to spread it around if you are at all unsure about its validity.

Things never to post to a discussion group

Requests to have your name added to a mailing list. There is always a separate email address for such requests; for Internet and BITNET lists, it usually starts with "LISTSERV" or "listname-request." Find it and use that method.

Requests for the FAQ, these can usually be obtained from a "LISTSERV" address as well. Also try not to answer very basic or "ill conceived questions". If you feel charitable enough to send an answer, send it by email directly to the asker; don't load the entire readership with it. This also applies to any question you think will get a lot of identical responses.

Arthur Hissey
Computer Research & Technology
www.crt.net.au