Tutorial 2: Usenet News | |||||||||||
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What is Usenet? |
Usenet is a worldwide collection of computers that distribute articles
between themselves. Unlike email, in which only the sender and the
designated recipients see the articles, on usenet anyone may read any
article. Usenet is divided into groups. Groups have names which are indicative of their intended use, and are arranged into a hierarchy. For example, here are the names of some Amiga groups:
Since group names are a hierarchy, the most general scope is written on the left. In this case, comp indicates that this group deals with computer topics. sys indicates that it deals with a particular type of computer system, amiga indicates that the type of computer system is "amiga", and finally, hardware (for example) indicates that it deals with Amiga hardware. |
Where did Usenet Originate? |
Usenet was developed in 1979 at the University of North Carolina. It
first ran on only 3 machines, and could handle just a few articles per
day. From that modest origin it has grown into a worldwide system
available in nearly every country in the world, to hundreds of millions of
people, that carries 15 gigabytes of information per day, and is steadily
growing. Much of this information is "noise", with little or no valuable content. Separating the noise from the signal becomes increasingly important as the size of usenet continues to increase, and is a task at which NewsRog excels. |
How does Usenet Work? |
This is a much larger and more complex question than can be properly
addressed here. Briefly: there are news servers and news
clients. News clients are what individual users use to read
news articles by connecting to a news server. NewsRog is a news
client. It can operate in Online Mode, where you stay connected to
a news server, and each article is fetched from the server as you read it,
or Offline Mode, where news articles may be downloaded all at once
for later offline reading. Due to the nature of Usenet news, not everyone in the world has the same view of it. Articles you see may not be visible to your friend in Mozambique, and vice versa. There are many reasons for this, but just remember that usenet is a worldwide distributed system. |
Is Usenet the same as the Internet? | No. Usenet is carried primarily, but not exclusively, on the internet, but it is only a small segment of the actual internet. And usenet is independent of any particular transport. Usenet news may be propegated via transports as diverse as email and CD-ROM. |
Where can I find Usenet FAQs? | Usenet is a vast and complex system, and discussing it in detail is beyond the scope of this documentation. But more information is available in usenet Frequently Asked Questions. |
What do I need to use NewsRog? |
NewsRog works with NNTP style news servers. To use NewsRog, you must have
the hostname or IP address of your NNTP news server. Most ISPs (Internet
Service Providers) provide NNTP news service to their customers. Your ISP
should have given you this information when you signed up for service.
There are also subscription NNTP services available. In particular NewsRog requires a NNTP Server that follows RFC977 (A Proposed Standard for the Stream-Based Transmission of News) and the Common NNTP Extensions defined in draft-ietf-nntpext-imp-01.txt. Most NNTP news servers in use today follow these specifications. |
Posting Etiquette |
There are few hard rules, but plenty of guidelines for good behavior.
Remember that what you post may be read by thousands, even tens of
thousands of people. It is considered good manners to read a group for a
while before posting to it. Be polite and concise. Don't post off topic
material. Trim quoted text to the minimum necessary for context - many
people still pay by the minute for their internet connections. Don't be
rude. There is a widely diverse representation of people, cultures, and
native languages, and a little tolerance goes a long way. Keep signature
files to four or fewer lines. Don't post test messages to discussion
groups - there are groups such as alt.test for that purpose. Above all, certain things are frowned upon and are likely to get your access terminated. Don't post "Make Money Fast" pyramid schemes. Don't post identical or nearly identical material to a huge list of newsgroups. If in doubt, ask someone more knowledgeable before posting. A few moments spent once to make your post on topic, concise, and readable may save a few moments for ten thousand other people. |
Summary |
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