The Guide - Understanding and Using Newsgroups

USENET

	What are Newsgroups?
	Different ways to use Newsgroups
	Getting setup with Newsgroups
	Reading messages in a Newsgroup
	Posting a message to a newsgroup
	Newsgroup Netiquette
	VSNL Specific Newsgroups
	A Glossary of Terms
	Getting more help

Understanding and Using Newsgroups
What are Newsgroups?
by Peter Doshi

We all might be familiar with the notion of public forums. Newsgroups are the electronic equivalent of public forums which live on the Internet. Collectively, all the newsgroups are commonly referred to as "Usenet", which stands for the "User's Network".

Today, there are more than 40,000 newsgroups in existence, which cover topics on just about anything imaginable. These newsgroups are arranged hierarchically by subject. If you're interested in humor, for instance, you might want to try:

          rec.humor.funny

No one single entity controls all the newsgroups. In similarity to a public open forum, people are free to express their ideas and share thoughts. Proper netiquette should be upheld while using this valuable resource.

You can think of newsgroups as a gigantic collections of mailboxes where sending off an email will soon be available for all to see. Unlike private email which is a private and more or less one-to-one medium, Usenet is meant to be public just like a forum. What you say in Usenet will be available for everyone to read. Likewise, you can read what everybody else has written.

To get started with Usenet, you'll first need to setup a program which can read news, called a newsreader. You'll find directions on setting up here.

Different Ways to use Newsgroups