Newsgroups

What is Usenet?
Accessing Usenet/Newsgroups
Newsgroup Naming Conventions
Posting/Reading News Messages
Newsgroup Terminology

What is Usenet?

Usenet is a massive number of discussion forums on every imaginable subject in which interested parties can share their knowledge and views - it is a world-wide distributed discussion system.

Usenet consists of a set of Newsgroups with names that are classified hierarchically by subject. "Articles" or "messages" are "posted" to these newsgroups by people all over the world.

Some newsgroups are moderated - in these newsgroups, the articles are first sent to a moderator for approval before appearing in the newsgroup.

There are tens of thousands of different newsgroup topics that exist at present, some are very serious discussion forums, whilst others are merely humerous.

Users of the newsgroup can read messages posted by other people, respond to those messages, or post their own messages.

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Accessing Usenet/Newsgroups

Newsgroups can be accessed in much the same way as when you send or receive e-mail. Many e-mail programs double as newsreaders, however you can attain programs that are designed for accessing newsgroups only.

The Missourinet news server address is: news.missourinet.net. To access various newsgroups you need to connect to Usenet via a news server, and then sign up at different newsgroups to receive their posts.

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Newsgroup Naming Conventions

With over 30'000 newsgroups available it is vital to have a formal hierarchy and naming convention to make it easier for users to find newsgroups of interest. As such, newsgroups are divided into hierarchies, each with its own name. Some of the main newsgroup heirarchies are:

alt	Alternative newsgroups covering a wide variety of topics
biz	Business oriented newsgroups
comp	Computer related newsgroups
misc	Miscellaneous - everything that doesn't fit into any other categories
news	Newsgroups covering different aspects of Usenet itself
rec	Recreational/hobby newsgroups
sci	Science oriented newsgroups
soc	Discussions of social issues
talk	Newsgroups for discussing controversial issues
aus	Australian content newsgroups

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Posting/Reading News Messages

Posting and reading newsgroup messages is very similar to reading and creating e-mail messages. The newsgroup messages are downloaded to your computer using either an E-mail program, or a specific Newsgroup program.

The first time you create the connection to the Missourinet News server the list of newsgroups will be downloaded. Please Note - this may take a few minutes to download as there are a few hundred different newsgroups. Once the complete list of newsgroups has loaded you can select which newsgroups you wish to subscribe to. You can subscribe to as many as you like.

You will see the new messages appear in your Inbox

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Newsgroup Terminology

Article	A message posted to a newsgroup.
Binaries	Files containing something other than text, primarily pictures and sounds, posted to a newsgroup.
Flame	Derogatory comments communicated in a posting to a newsgroup.
Flame War	When a discussion degenerates into nothing but a series of personal attacks, or flames (see above).
Lurk	To read a newsgroup without ever making yourself known by posting.
Message	An individual posting to a newsgroup (also called an "article").
Moderated Group	A newsgroup where submissions first go to an individual called a moderator, who must approve an item before it is posted to the group.

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