- What is Usenet? What are newsgroups?
- What do I need to access newsgroups?
- Who's in charge of Usenet?
- How are newsgroups organized so I can find one I like?
- What is Netiquette?
- What if somebody flames me, or posts material I find offensive?
- I posted a message, but it's not listed on the Newsgroup yet. What happened?
- I tried to reply to somebody from a newsgroup using e-mail, but my message got returned. Why?
- How do I keep my posts from getting archived at DejaNews?
- I'm trying to access Seanet's news server from a different dial-up account, but I can't. Why not?
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| 1. What is Usenet? What are newsgroups? |
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Usenet is an international discussion network that can be accessed via the Internet. It is composed of thousands of newsgroups that are divided into hierarchies by subject. When accessing newsgroups, you can view or post your own articles pertaining to the subject of that newsgroup. Even though newsgroups posts look like e-mail and most e-mail programs have newsgroup capabilities, there is a key difference between the two types of messages -- newsgroup postings are completely public.
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| 2. What do I need to access newsgroups? |
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You'll need software known as a newsreader. You probably already have one on your computer. Netscape and Outlook both have newsgroup functions. There are also a number of programs such as Free Agent that are available for download on the Internet. These programs are designed specifically as newsreaders. There are instructions for configuring newsreaders in our Help Desk area. Usenet can be accessed via the web at Google (http://groups.google.com).
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| 3. Who's in charge of Usenet? |
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No one person or organization is in charge of Usenet. Anyone who can access it can post and read articles in newsgroups. The tradition of Usenet is that everybody has a right to share their thoughts and opinions on Usenet, even though someone may disagree or find their ideas offensive. People from many countries with many ideas post to newsgroups and you may find some of these people and ideas offensive. Keep in mind that you do not have to subscribe to newsgroups that you find offensive.
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| 4. How are newsgroups organized so I can find one I like? |
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Newsgroups are hierarchical, beginning with a category and then branching off into other categories. A newsgroup's name reflects these categories in order of branching, separated by dots. There are eight main branches in the hierarchy: comp, humanities, news, misc, rec, sci, soc, and talk. Then there is the alt category which contains newsgroups that don't fit in any of the other categories. It's a good idea for new users to read news.announce.newusers and news.answers to get a feel for what Usenet is like and how newsgroups operate.
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| 5. What is Netiquette? |
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Netiquette is a commonly agreed-upon set of rules and etiquette for behavior on the Internet and Usenet. See Seanet's Netiquette FAQ for more information.
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| 6. What if somebody flames me, or posts material I find offensive? |
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Don't flame back. Usenet is a free community policed by no one. It's best to ignore the offending party and add them to your killfile. You'll find instructions for using killfiles in the help documentation of your newsreader. It's good to remember that while everyone on Usenet has the power to voice their opinion only you have the power to choose what you do and do not read (or respond to).
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| 7. I posted a message, but it's not listed on the Newsgroup yet. What happened? |
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Your message won't show up until the next time you retrieve headers for that newsgroup. Posting is not an immediate process and it will take a few minutes for your post to show up on a newsgroup. To avoid sending multiple copies of the same message, wait about five minutes and retrieve headers again instead of re-posting the message.
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| 8. I tried to reply to somebody from a newsgroup using e-mail, but my message got returned. Why? |
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Most likely they placed a spamblock on their e-mail address. This is also known as munging. On Usenet, people frequently munge their e-mail address so that the spammers who harvest addresses from the newsgroups can't e-mail them. This is done by placing a word or phrase in your e-mail address settings after the @ symbol, like this:
username@seanet.com.nospam
Placing the spamblocking phrase or word after the @ symbol cuts down on unnecessary traffic hitting our mail servers (and keeps your service fast). You may want to mention at the bottom of your posts what people can remove from your address to reply by e-mail. Spammers typically harvest e-mail addresses from newsgroups with "bots" who ignore the information at the bottom of posts, but be aware that new bots are quickly developed and some of them may harvest addresses from within posts.
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| 9. How do I keep my posts from being archived at DejaNews? |
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DejaNews is a great resource for research and catching up on a thread you missed. However, if you don't want your posts archived, you can type the following string in the first line of your posts:
X-no-archive:yes
This string must be present in either the headers of the post or in the first line of the message. Newsreaders like Forte Agent allow you to configure your settings to include this in your headers, however, Netscape and Outlook don't have this option. This will keep only your initial post from being archived; any replies to your post will be archived unless the author also uses the X-no-archive function.
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| 10. I'm trying to access Seanet's news server from a different dial-up account, but I can't. Why not? |
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Seanet's news server can only be accessed while you are connected to the Internet via a Seanet account.
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