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What Is this Newsgroup Thingie
You Keep Talking About?

Warning: This page and the other pages about newsgroups contain only the basic information you need to get started using newsgroups. For more information and information about advanced use, you will need to look elsewhere. Also, if you find that some of the words used in these pages confusing, check out my Usenet Glossary Page. Some of the information contained on a page may be duplicated on other pages - I apologize, but felt it was necessary to repeat myself for clarification or for emphasizing particularly important information.

These web pages were made to provide a home page for a "newsgroup" called alt.support.crohns-colitis. But many people are not familiar with newsgroups, or may have heard them called by another name, such as "Usenet" or "Internet News." I know, that last one makes it sound like it's just for news bulletins about the Internet! To understand what a newsgroup is, you have to first understand that the Internet is made up of several different kinds of systems. You are probably already familiar with the email system, and, since you are reading this page, you obviously know something about the World Wide Web. The Web has become the most popular part of the Internet because it's so easy to use and can do so many neat things, but it's really the newest part of the Internet. Newsgroups, on the other hand, were one of the earliest parts of the Internet to develop.

The basic idea behind newsgroups is that they are electronic bulletin boards where people exchange messages in a public forum. People post messages (we use the words "post" and "posting" just as if someone had nailed a written message to a post); other people download the message and some of them may send replies back to the newsgroup where even more people may download them, read them, and post replies to the replies. Or they can send new messages on a different topic for other people to read and reply to. It really is a great way to exchange information with a lot of different people from all over the world. (For More Information: Usenet History below.)

Usenet relies on a loose network of specialized computers called news servers. Don't worry, almost all ISP's have them and there are subscription services and free-access servers available as well. Basically, once I write a message, I send it to my news server. My news server then sends it on to other news servers that are connected to it, and those news servers send it on to other news servers that are connected to them, and so on. Unfortunately, some news servers are not as well connected as others are and may not get all of the messages that are sent from various servers around the world or may not be able to send your messages to all the various servers around the world. And different servers have different amounts of storage space available to store messages, so they may choose not to get as many messages or the messages may only be available for a short period of time. Or they may choose not to carry all of the some 90,000 available newsgroups. (For More Information: How to Use Newsgroups.)

Because they are a specialized part of the Internet, you need specialized software to read and post to newsgroups. But you probably already have the software you need. Microsoft Outlook and Outlook Express and Netscape Navigator have news readers built right into them. AOL has access to newsgroups built in. There are other programs that you can get just to read news; for example, I use Forte's Agent, but I read a lot of newsgroups and Agent has a lot of features especially for newsgroups. And there are services that allow you to access newsgroups through your web browser. Personally, I don't like to read the groups that way, but it is handy if you happen to be away from your own computer. (For More Information: How to Use Newsgroups.)

Our newsgroup is called "alt.support.crohns-colitis," but there are thousands of different newsgroups available, each of them catering to a specific topic or interest. In the bad old days when it took forever to download a simple text message, newsgroups were designed to transfer text messages only. Of course, it didn't take too long before someone figured out a way to turn other files - such as pictures, sounds and movies - into a code that could be transferred through newsgroups and then decoded back into the original files. In fact, they used these same techniques to make it possible to send pictures in email. So now there are groups dedicated to trading all kinds of pictures, music, movies and software. You can find just about anything that interests you in newsgroups - and you may find some things that disgust you as well!

With so many newsgroups, it would be easy to get lost. So the powers that be decided that there should be some kind of hierarchal organization and set up different sections. These hierarchies are named in the first part of the newsgroup's name - in the case of alt.support.crohns-colitis, the hierarchy is "alt" for "alternative." There are other hierarchies such as "comp" which is for computer-related topics, "it" which is for messages in Italian, "japan" which is for messages in Japanese and so on. It's a good theory, but it really isn't used that much in practice! For some reason, everyone seems to put their groups in the "alt" hierarchy, making it the largest and most difficult to use. But the name of the group itself ought to give you more information about what the group is for. Groups beginning with alt.support are supposed to be support groups. Groups beginning with alt.fan are supposed to be fan clubs (eg, alt.fan.elton-john). Groups beginning with alt.binaries should be groups that trade files, and hopefully the name will give you a better idea of what kind of files are traded on a particular group, such as alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.nude, alt.binaries.sounds.mp3.1970s, or alt.binaries.multimedia.cartoons. At least, that's the way it's supposed to be.

Most groups have a FAQ, or frequently asked questions, file that tells you what the group is for and what kind of things are allowed and what kind of things are not allowed for that particular group. The FAQ may be available on a web site like this one, but it should be posted on the newsgroup regularly. Of course, no one can really enforce these rules, but if you break them - whether you mean to or not, whether you know you are breaking them or not - you are going to get a lot of nasty replies! People will call you all kinds of names, threaten to tell your mother and send you nasty emails that may contain a virus or two. What can I say, people get really worked up over these things.

In fact, there are people who will post inappropriate messages in groups just to create this kind of problem. These people are commonly referred to as "trolls" since they are "trolling" for arguments with their messages. One of the first rules you learn about newsgroups is, "Don't feed the trolls," meaning that you should ignore such messages and not reply to them. Unfortunately, no one really follows that rule, so trolls go about their merry way, disrupting groups and creating anger all over Usenet.

Another problem is that, even if you obey every rule, someone is still likely to get pissed off about something that you wrote and send you nasty replies, call you all kinds of names, threaten to tell your mother and send you nasty emails that may contain a virus or two. Such messages are commonly referred to as "flames" because once they start burning, they tend to spread destruction through the group like wild fires. Someone posts a nasty message about you, you post a nasty message back and then ten people join in posting nasty messages about the two of you, and soon it's a free-for-all. This is another thing that trolls like to do to disrupt groups.

The thing is, it's easy enough to get upset by a written message. Sometimes we take for granted the amount of information we get from watching people as they talk or listening to the tone of their voice or the inflection. If I say something words that would be mean if you just took them at the exact meaning, but I have a big smile on my face, you would usually think that I'm joking and don't mean it - or that I'm getting a lot of pleasure out of insulting you! But you can't see the smile or the wink of an eye in a written message. You can't hear the emphasis put on words that might tell you that someone is being sarcastic. So you need to be careful about what you write and how you write it. Don't assume that someone will naturally understand that you are joking - make sure by adding an appropriate remark like:

• j/k = just kidding
• <grin> = grinning
• ; ) = a winking smiley face

My personal favorite has always been - "just in case your sarcasm detector isn't on or working properly ...."

By the same token, try to give people the benefit of the doubt. On our group, most of the people are nice and friendly, and they love a good joke or laugh. We feel that laughter is good medicine. As you get to know people, you will learn about their personality, making it easier to detect when they're making a joke or being facetious - but, like I said, it isn't always obvious from just reading the message. If you do have a problem with someone, it is best to contact that person by email to resolve the issue and not involve the entire newsgroup.

And, even though there is no real way to enforce it, you really should only post messages to a newsgroup that meet that group's topic. Personal messages are best handled through private email. There are some exceptions on our group, but that's because our group is not just about inflammatory bowel disease, but about living with inflammatory bowel disease. That means that we talk about a lot of things that may not seem to be related to inflammatory bowel disease. We also tell jokes to each other that are not related to inflammatory bowel disease - sometimes we really need the laughs! But our group tends to be more flexible about such things; other groups may not be. (For More Information: All About Netiquette).

More Information

Additional Pages:

A Glossary of Common Usenet Terms
All About Netiquette
How to Use Newsgroups

Usenet History

Usenet was developed in 1979 at the University of North Carolina by Steve Bellovin. It's purpose was to share information between large UNIX mainframes on different parts of the campus by way of telephone data transfer, and it so at the astounding rate of about a dozen messages each day! Eventually the idea was picked up by other colleges and a new system was developed that would allow as many as 1000 messages to be transferred between machines each day. By 1983, Usenet was off and running with nearly 500 sites exchanging a few hundred messages each day. Although many people have suggested that Usenet use is on the decline as people tend to focus on the World Wide Web, traffic is extremely high. On any given day, you can find terrabytes of data to download. (Return to Above)

 

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