Roadmap For The Information Superhighway Internet Training Workshop

MAP08: Usenet

"Ideal conversation must be an exchange of thought, and not, as
many of those who worry most about their shortcomings believe,
an eloquent exhibition of wit or oratory."
Emily Post, Etiquette

Imagine a conversation carried out over a period of hours and days, as if people were leaving messages and responses on a bulletin board. Or imagine the electronic equivalent of a radio talk show where everybody can put their two cents in and no one is ever on hold.

Unlike e-mail, which is usually "one-to-one," Usenet is "many-to- many." Usenet is the international meeting place, where people gather to meet their friends, discuss the day's events, keep up with computer trends or talk about whatever's on their mind. Jumping into a Usenet discussion can be a liberating experience. Nobody knows what you look or sound like, how old you are, what your background is. You're judged solely on your words, your ability to make a point.

To many people, Usenet IS the Net. In fact, it is often confused with Internet. But it is a totally separate system. All Internet sites CAN carry Usenet, but so do many non-Internet sites, from sophisticated Unix machines to old XT clones and Apple IIs.

Technically, Usenet messages are shipped around the world, from host system to host system, using one of several specific Net protocols. Your host system stores all of its Usenet messages in one place, which everybody with an account on the system can access. That way, no matter how many people actually read a given message, each host system has to store only one copy of it. Many host systems "talk" with several others regularly in case one or another of their links goes down for some reason. When two host systems connect, they basically compare notes on which Usenet messages they already have. Any that one is missing the other then transmits, and vice-versa. Because they are computers, they don't mind running through thousands, even millions, of these comparisons every day.

Yes, millions. For Usenet is huge. Every day, Usenet users pump upwards of 40 million characters a day into the system -- roughly the equivalent of volumes A-G of the Encyclopedia Britannica. Obviously, nobody could possibly keep up with this immense flow of messages. Let's look at how to find conferences and discussions of interest to you.

The basic building block of Usenet is the newsgroup, which is a collection of messages with a related theme (on other networks, these would be called conferences, forums, bboards or special-interest groups). There are now more than 5,000 of these newsgroups, in several different languages, covering everything from art to zoology, from science fiction to South Africa.

Some public-access systems, typically the ones that work through menus, try to make it easier by dividing Usenet into several broad categories. Choose one of those and you're given a list of newsgroups in that category. Then select the newsgroup you're interested in and start reading.

Other systems let you compile your own "reading list" so that you only see messages in conferences you want. In both cases, conferences are arranged in a particular hierarchy devised in the early 1980s. Newsgroup names start with one of a series of broad topic names. For example, newsgroups beginning with "comp." are about particular computer- related topics. These broad topics are followed by a series of more focused topics (so that "comp.unix" groups are limited to discussion about Unix). The main hierarchies are: 

             bionet          Research biology
             bit.listserv    Conferences originating as Bitnet mailing lists
             biz             Business
             comp            Computers and related subjects
             misc            Discussions that don't fit anywhere else
             news            News about Usenet itself
             rec             Hobbies, games and recreation
             sci             Science other than research biology
             soc             "Social" groups, often ethnically related
             talk            Politics and related topics
             alt             Controversial or unusual topics; not
                             carried by all sites
In addition, many host systems carry newsgroups for a particular city, state or region. For example, ne.housing is a newsgroup where New Englanders look for apartments. A growing number also carry K12 newsgroups, which are aimed at elementary and secondary teachers and students. And a number of sites carry clari newsgroups, which is actually a commercial service consisting of wire-service stories and a unique online computer news service.

... With so much to choose from, everybody will likely have their own unique Usenet reading list. But there are a few newsgroups that are particularly of interest to newcomers. Among them:

news.announce.newusers
This group consists of a series of articles that explain various facets of Usenet.
news.newusers.questions
This is where you can ask questions about how Usenet works.
news.announce.newsgroups
Look here for information about new or proposed newsgroups.
news.answers
Contains lists of "Frequently Asked Questions" (FAQs) and their answers from many different newsgroups. Learn how to fight jet lag in the FAQ from rec.travel.air; look up answers to common questions about Microsoft Windows in an FAQ from comp.os.ms-windows; etc.
alt.internet.services
Looking for something in particular on the Internet? Ask here.
alt.infosystems.announce
People adding new information services to the Internet will post details here.
And now for a few words from "p-crispy-one":

The EFF (1) notes that daily input into Usenet is equivalent to volumes A-G of the Encyclopedia Britannica. You should be warned that the information on Usenet is of much lower quality. Anybody with an opinion can post anything in a Usenet newsgroup, whether they know what they're talking about or not. If you want to bet your grade in school or your company's or organization's future on information you get from Usenet, please e-mail me first -- I have some bargains in real estate (including a great price for a bridge in Brooklyn) I'd like to discuss with you.

There are more Usenet newsgroups, dedicated to the discussion of more topics, than you could even imagine. I recently heard that there are over 6,000 different Usenet newsgroups, although I think that number may be a little low. The Osborne/McGraw-Hill Internet Yellow Pages has fifty-five pages of Usenet newsgroup listings (p. 363-418).

What are some of these newsgroups? Here is a short list taken from the Osborne/McGraw-Hill Internet Yellow Pages (and reprinted by permission): 

  alt.abuse-recovery                Helping victims of abuse recover
  alt.barney.dinosaur.die.die.die   Hate and excoriation of Barney the
                                    Dinosaur
  bionet.jobs                       Job opportunities in biology
  bit.listserv.xerox-l              Xerox products
  biz.books.technical               Selling and buying books
  clari.biz.top                     Top business news
  comp.cog-eng                      Cognitive engineering
  ...
As you can see, the topics are pretty diverse. I also want you to notice something about the group names. All of the Usenet group names have periods (or, in Internet language, "dots") in them. That is a great way to see if a group is a Usenet group or a mailing list group (which we covered in MAP05: LISTSERVs and MAP06: Other Mail Servers). 
     GROUP                  TYPE

     gnu.emacs.sources      Usenet newsgroup
     RHA-L                  Mailing list
     rec.birds              Usenet newsgroup
     Navigate               Mailing list
So, how do you read the posts in a Usenet newsgroup? Well, you have to have access to a Usenet newsreader.

There are literally DOZENS of different Usenet readers out there. Your local Internet provider will be able to tell you what Usenet reader you have access to, and will probably also be able to tell you some of your reader's commands (remember that in a lot of Usenet readers the commands are case sensitive).

Some of the more important Usenet reader commands that you need to know are:

HOMEWORK:

  1. Ask your local Internet service provider if you have Usenet access. If you do, ask your provider for a handout or help file which lists the commands for your reader. (Most Usenet readers also have a pretty extensive, albeit confusing, help screen. If you can get into your reader, you may want to check out this help screen).

    If you don't have Usenet access, or if your provider does not have a help file, please be patient. When we get to the lessons on Gopher (in about 2 weeks), I'll show you some tricks that will help you around this problem :)

  2. If you have access to either the rn or nn newsreader (two of the most used newsreaders around), I have two files that may help you. Again, use the get command to get them from the LISTSERV file server at University of Alabama. 
         nn users:               rn users:
     filename  filetype      filename  filetype

     nn        intro         rn        intro
     nn        cmds          rn        cmds

NOTES:
  1. We'll talk about the Electronic Frontier Foundation in MAP10: Internet Security.
    Go back to where this citation is referenced.

SOURCES:

The text in this lesson comes from the Electronic Frontier Foundation's "EFF's Guide to the Internet, v.2.3" and is reprinted by permission. 

   (\__/)  .~    ~. ))
   /O O `./      .'               PATRICK DOUGLAS CRISPEN
  {O__,   \    {                   PCRISPE1@UA1VM.UA.EDU
    / .  . )    \                THE UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA
    |-| '-' \    } ))
   .(   _(   )_.'         Roadmap: Copyright 1994 Patrick Crispen.
  '---.~_ _ _&                      All rights reserved.

                          The views expressed in this letter do not
                            necessarily represent the views of the
                             University of Alabama - Tuscaloosa.
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Updated: 1995-03-28, 17:37