HELP

Home > Help

Newsgroups

What is a newsgroup ?
Can anyone participate in a newsgroup?
How are newsgroups created ?
Where can I find a list of newsgroups ?
How do I get help on usenet ?
Rules on the Usenet
Different ways to participate in usenet
Understanding Usenet articles
Usenet Acronyms
Netiquette
Threading
What are new servers ?

Help on newsgroups software
Refer to Newgroups software (CSU)

What is a Newsgroup ?

A newsgroup or internet discussion group is the "bulletin board" of the internet. Within each newsgroup, messages (referred as "articles" or "postings") are posted by its participants and sent out worldwide to computers for other people to read. Newsgroup postings are posted much like email is sent between people. The difference is that a message is sent to a server , which then sends it on to thousands of other servers around the world, allowing thousands of people to view the message posted (Dejanews Inc. 1995-8). The Usenet is the moderating body of the newsgroups and it organises them into thousands of topis areas that discuss anything from food recipes to politics. More than 250 000 articles are posted to the Usenet each day.

Can anyone participate in a newsgroup ?

There are two types of newsgroups:
Unmoderated newsgroups, which are open and allow anyone to participate in the discussion and post anything they want.
Moderated newsgroups, where an IDG (internet discussion group) moderator reviews postings sent to their IDG before allowing them to appear in the newsgroup. This type of newsgroup usually contains more focussed discussion since the moderators want to keep the conversation "on-track".

How are newsgroups created ?

The idea for a new newsgroups must be thought out and then a control message needs to be sent to news administrators. Then the new newsgroup is announced in the newsgroup news.announce.newgroups. This is discussed between news administrators and a decision usually takes four weeks to occur. After a voting period has occurred and the vote is in favour of the new newsgroup then the news administrators post a control message to all news administrators starting the new group. If the new newsgroup is declined then that new newsgroup cannot be talked about for 6 months.

Where can I find a list of newsgroups ?

Usenet newsgroups are divided into eight main categories, known as "the big eight":

comp (computers) - discussions about computers, computer science, software sources and information on hardware and software systems.

rec (recreation) - Discussions about arts, hobbies and recreational activities.

sci (science) - discussions related to the application of the established science or research.

soc (society) - discussions related to world cultures, social issues and socialising.

talk - for those who love talking.

news- Newsgroups discussing newsgroups.

misc (miscellaneous) - groups on topics that are not classified into any of the other headings.

humanities - discussions about society and art.

Check the sites below for a suitable newsgroup for a certain topic:

More information on newsgroups

FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)

Creating a newsgroup

news.newusers.questions

Newsgroups Information Sites

How do I get help on usenet?

New users to the usenet frequently encounter problems. Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) try to guide the user and answer some common problems asked by most new users. FAQs are used so that new users do not post questions to newsgroups which may have been answered many times before. New users are encouraged to read FAQs if they encounter a problem. If it cannot be resolved then the news group news.newusers.questions will gladly accept your questions. Avoid plaguing various newsgroups with questions that can be answered in FAQs.

Rules on the Usenet

Even though the usenet community is not governed by any regulatory body. It is still good etiquette to follow some basic rules:

Never Forget that the Person on the Other Side is Human.
Don't Blame System Administrators for their Users' Behaviour.
Never assume that a person is speaking for their organisation.
Be Careful What You Say About Others.
Be Brief.
Your Postings Reflect Upon You -- Be Proud of Them.
Use Descriptive Titles.
Think About Your Audience.
Be Careful with Humour and Sarcasm.
Only Post a Message Once.
Summarise What You are Following Up.
Read All Follow-ups and Don't Repeat What Has Already Been Said.
Check your return e-mail address and expect responses.
Be Careful About Copyrights and Licenses.
This may be quite an exhaustive list of rules regarding etiquette of usenet but if you abide by these rules then you will not have any problems on usenet.

Different ways to participate in usenet

There are several ways to participate in the usenet here are some suggestions:

Read a lot, contribute nothing;
Ask questions;
Answer questions;
Participate in discussions; and post information.
These are just a few of the things that you can do as a user on the usenet. I'm sure you will find many more things to do on usenet which are just as good as these.

Understanding Usenet Articles

There are three things that a usenet article will contain. A header, body and a footer.

An example of a header follows:

Subject: Welcome to Usenet!
Date: Fri, 22 Nov 1996 08:00:05 GMT
From: netannounce@deshaw.com (Mark Moraes)
Newsgroups: news.announce.newusers, news.answers
Followup-To: news.newusers.questions

Here are a list of some common header lines and what each one stands for:
Header line Description
Date: date and time the article was posted.
Follow-up: shows where the follow up articles will be sent.
From: user id and address that posted the article.
Lines: size of the article including signature.
Newsgroups: newsgroups to where the article was posted.
Reply-To: address to send personal replies.
Sender: address of computer that sent out the article.
Subject: short description of contents of article.

The body of a usenet article usually contains the main topic of discussion within the article. An example of a body of a usenet article is:

>Steve wrote: What does UUCP stand for?

> >David wrote: UUCP stands for Unix to Unix Copy.

> The footer of a usenet article contains personal information on the person who sent the article. An example of a footer follows

Steven Lamb | "If you fall down seven times
CSU Albury. | make sure you get up eight times"
94026733@aardvark.mur.csu.edu.au | - Old Chinese Proverb

The standard attributes within a footer are name, organisation and Email address. Some people also include quotes to spice up their articles. The only restriction placed on footers is that they be limited to four lines this stops people writing essays on themselves.

Usenet Acronyms

There are common acronyms that are used throughout the usenet along with the internet as well. A table of common acronyms is given below [Taken from Hahn & Stout 94]

Acronym	Meaning
BRB	be right back
BTW	be the way
CU	see you
FAQ	Frequently asked questions
FAQL	Frequently asked questions
FOAL	friend of a friend
FYI	for your information
IMHO	in my humble opinion
IMO	in my opinion
MOTAS	member of the appropriate sex
MOTOS	member of the opposite sex
MOTSS	member of the same sex
MUD	multi user domain
MOO	MUD Object Oriented
IRC	Internet Relay Chat
Ob-	Obligatory
Objoke	Obligatory joke
OS	Operating system
PD	Public domain
SO	Significant other
ROTFL	Rolling on the floor laughing
RTFM	Read the manual
WRT	With respect to

Netiquette

As a user of the network, you may be allowed to access other networks (and/or the computer systems attached to those networks). Each network or system has its own set of policies and procedures. Actions which are routinely allowed on one network/system may be controlled, or even forbidden, on other networks. It is the users responsibility to abide by the policies and procedures of these other networks/systems. Remember, the fact that a user can perform a particular action does not imply that they should take that action.

The use of the network is a privilege, not a right, which may temporarily be revoked at any time for abusive conduct. Such conduct would include, the placing of unlawful information on a system, the use of abusive language in either public or private messages, the sending of messages that are likely to result in the loss of recipients' work or systems, the sending of "Chain letters," or "broadcast" messages to lists or individuals, and any other types of use which would cause congestion of the networks or otherwise interfere with the work of others.

Threading

So far we have seen that the articles in newsgroups are arranged into "groups" that are based around a central general theme like sci and comp. Threading is a way of looking at the articles in a news group in terms of the specific subject that the article deals with. All articles that are submitted to a news group have a subject. A thread uses the subject to group articles as apposed to a general topic. You will find that in may newsgroups that there will be a number of articles that people will write that are about the same subject. The threads will die out mainly because of boredom related to the topic.

What are news servers?

News servers are computers that collect information from around the world from other news servers. The news administrator gets to decide if he/she wants all newsgroups on their server or not. The news administrators keep in touch with each other so that the usenet does not get out of control. Some newsgroups are actually run by and for news administrators so that they can communicate with each other easily. There are generally two type of news servers that are run by news administrators: internal and external.

Internal Internal news servers are servers that contain information based on an organisation. They do not have access to the usenet; the news is only internal to the organisation.

External External is the news server which is connected to the usenet. It is a far more common news server than the internal one. Also the external news server is more versatile than the internal news server because you are connected to the usenet. We will be mainly referring to external news servers.