So what are Newsgroups
anyway (FAQ)?
Newsgroups, sometimes known as
Usenet, are a way of communicating on the Internet. It is somewhere between
e-mail and instant-messaging and combines many of the advantages of both and has
some special features of its own.
There are around 60,000+
different groups covering all sorts of categories of interest. Some groups have
hardly any people using them, Users, and some have thousands. Some of the more
popular ones are regional and local groups and those dealing with interests such
as computing, education, hobbies and downloads.
Just as with accessing the web
or reading e-mail you need software to access newsgroups. The good news is that
you almost certainly have some already in the form of Microsoft's Outlook
Express. This has a built in newsreader and is free, there are also many other
programmes freely available, try www.download.com
or www.tucows.com and search for
'newsreader'. It is also possible to read newsgroups, and even 'post' or write
messages, using some web sites like www.google.com/
(click 'Groups') and www.usenet-access.com/.
If you are going to access
Newsgroups using software then you need permission to use a news-server.
Fortunately there are many free news-servers, try a search or www.newsservers.net/
. Often your ISP (Internet Service Provider) will provide news access as part of
their service to you, so check their web site or give them a ring.
So it seems pretty complicated
to get involved, is it worth it? Well once it is set up then it is simple and
quick to read what other people have written, 'Threads', and reply. The great
thing it is much more immediate than e-mail but you still have time to think and
compose before replying. Also you can access a large community of people with
very similar interests to you. You could meet people from your local area, buy
and sell for free, get
help with a computing problems, just have a natter, find out some information
from a real, helpful person and hundreds of other uses.
Newsgroups are absolutely
perfect for many of these things. A message can be seen by thousands of people
with similar interests or the information required. Many people just log on for
a few minutes a day and catch up with conversations that interest them. You will
find many people are very helpful, knowledgeable and humorous on the
groups.
Of course not everyone is
entirely helpful, and there are dangers and pitfalls. 'Trolls' are users who
seem to enjoy annoying other users, deliberately start arguments just for their
own sake and even masquerade as other users. 'Flame' wars can break out where
people try to insult each other to an extreme degree. 'Spam' is also around on
newsgroups but can mostly be ignored and links to viruses can be a problem.
In your newsreader software
make sure you set your e-mail address to one that cannot be used to send spam (unrequested
e-mail). Many users add a bit of text to the address that is easy for other
users to recognise but will be included by an automatic e-mailing programme such
as spammers use. Examples would be me@NOSPAMyahoo.com
, meREMOVETHIS@aol.com or meSPAMOFF@hotmail.com
etc. Also it is best to set up a free e-mail account to use just for newsgroups, at
least at first, so you can stay anonymous, try www.yahoo.com
or www.hotmail.com ,there are many
alternatives.
'Cross posting', sending the
same message to many different groups, is often frowned upon, and many find 'top
posting', replying with your message above the text you are responding to,
annoying.
Technically
news messages propagate across the internet from server to server so it may take
hours before a message is seen by everyone on a group around the world .
Back
to main page here or vote here 
.
Need a Newsgroup account, try Giganews at Newsgroups
Want to know more about Newsgroups, also called Usenet? Click here.
For any other questions or to
contact the organisers please click here.
