How do I use the Usenet Netnews ?

	The Usenet Newsgroups (aka. Netnews) are a large set of discussion groups. Each of these groups has a different topic and are hierarchically organized. If you want to take part in the discussion, then you post an article into one or more newsgroups. These articles are stored and can be read by everyone who is interested in doing so. You yourself can read articles posted by other people, post follow-ups (a reply that goes to the newsgroup, not to the author of the article) and reply directly to the author of an article.
	What do I need ? As with nearly any other service you need two things: A client to read the newsgroups and a server to connect which carries all the newsgroups and the articles. Client software is available for a wide range of operating system as shareware or freeware. We recommend using a news client, that has the following capabilities: Subscribe to newsgroups and view subscribed newsgroups only. Integrated mail handling (for posting and sending follow-ups) Sort articles (topic, date, sender) Integrated UUdecoding (see below) Suppress already read articles If you are still looking for a news client, you will find one here: Agent Gravity NewsXpress MS Internet News Win VN News for NT Internet Mac Software Mac Helpers Mac Internet Apps Newswatcher World Wide Web browsers often have a news reading capability built in. Examples of such browsers are Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer (needs to be downloaded separately). Top
	Where can I connect ? News Servers normally aren't public, though there are some. If you want a list of public accessible news servers, then have a look at this list of public NNTP servers. Private news server can mostly only be used from people who have a specific domain in their address. Please ask your ISP or system administrator for the address of a Usenet server. When you connect to a server the first time you will have to receive a list of active groups from this server. Some newsreaders will ask you to confirm before doing so and others require that you enable this feature somewhere in an option setting menu or dialog. After you have received the entire list on newsgroups, you can subscribe to newsgroups of your interest. Subscribing means, that you tell your news client the newsgroups, you intend to read frequently. Your client then will only display the subscribed groups. If you want to view all other groups again (for subscribing additional groups), then newsreaders often an option like show all groups. Note that receiving the complete list of newsgroups can last several minutes. Newsreader store all available newsgroups in a file called newsrc. After you have received a complete list of all newsgroups available, you don't have to retrieve a complete list the next time you log on. A good newsreader will only check for new groups, added since the last time you have logged on. Top
	How do I use the Usenet ? As mentioned above, the Usenet is a discussion forum, divided into several groups. Please note that not all newsgroups are carried by all servers. While your server might carry 600 groups another one might carry 23000+. If you're interested in a special newsgroup, that isn't on your server, then please contact the news administrator of your server and ask him to carry that newsgroup for you. If you can provide a reasonable explanation why you would like this newsgroup, I'm sure he will carry this newsgroup for you in the future. Normally a few days after you have asked, the newsgroup should be listed. Hierarchical discussion groups Discussion groups are organized hierarchically. Their names consist of several words, separated by a point. A typical newsgroup hierarchy would be something like: comp.os.ms-windows.announcements comp.os.ms-windows.setup comp.os.ms-windows.programmer.win32 comp.os.ms.windows.programmer.graphics You can see the hierarchy clearly in the above example. The first hierarchy is comp, which obviously is short for computer. The second one is os, a short for operating system. The third is ms-windows. Now the hierarchy splits up. There is a announcements hierarchy, which contains article about announcements regarding the MS-Windows operating system. Then there is a setup hierarchy. It contains articles about windows setup. The next two examples are of interest to windows programmers. This hierarchy is therefore called programmer. Also this splits up into win32 and graphics. I think the above example clearly shows, how the newsgroups are organized. There are seven (often called the big-seven) hierarchies: Newsgroups beginning with are for discussion about comp Everything about Computer Science, Computers, Programming, Hard- and Software news Information around the Internet, Help for new users rec Recreation, Holidays, Television, Arts, ... sci scientific topics except computers (see comp) soc Social discussions like politics, relationship talk Discussions misc Everything else, that doesn't fit in one of the above TABLE 2.9.1: The big seven. In addition to these, there is an additional hierarchy, called alt. This hierarchy is special. When creating or suggesting a new group, then there are certain guidelines to follow. These guidelines do not apply to the alt hierarchy (see: How to create newsgroups). Alt.* groups can be created by everyone, who knows the appropriate commands. So there are lots of alt.* groups, even empty ones, that were created and aren't used by veryone. Your system administrator will decide, which groups of the alt.* hierarchy he wants to carry on his server. In addition to the big seven and the alt.* hierarchy there are many newsgroups which are only of local interest. Such newsgroups might be of interest to you, if you live in a certain country or even in a certain town. These local newsgroups are not international and might only be carried by news servers in that particular country. Examples of such are: Newsgroups beginning with targeted audience fr Newsgroups only of interest for people living in France at Newsgroups only of interest for people living in Austria fido Discussions from the Fidonet TABLE 2.9.2: Examples for local discussion groups If you find any newsgroup, containing the word binaries somewhere in its name, then you'll most likely find binary files (sounds, pictures, ...) in these groups. If there is a group with the same name a second time with a .d appended, then this group is for discussion of the binary files posted to the other group (see: decoding files). Reading articles To read articles in a newsgroup, open the desired group. How to do this depends on the client. Window based clients will open the group if you (double)click on its name. When you select a newsgroup the newsreader will request the headers (that is the subject line of all articles) of the article in this group. These headers will be presented in list form. Some clients offer to option to thread articles, which means, that articles, which somehow belong together (have the same subject line) are shown in a kind of outline. Now you can browse the article headers and see if there is anything of interest for you. If you've found an article that sounds interesting, then open this article for reading. This is also client depending. Like above, double(clicking) will do the job in most clients. The article now is being loaded from your news server. After the entire article has been transferred, you can read it or save it on your hard disk for later offline reading. Replying to articles If you have read an article and want to reply to it, then there are two possibilities. A reply which goes to the newsgroup, so everyone can see it, which is called a follow-up, or a reply which is sent directly to the author. The decision on how to reply is up to you. If you think that your reply is of interest to other readers, then post a follow-up, otherwise use a direct reply. Before replying to an article (especially follow-ups) make sure that no other person already has posted a follow-up, which already contains the things you wanted to say. Posting articles Positing an article is the same as writing a mail. Most clients have a built in interface (in fact, I don't know any who hasn't) to post articles into newsgroups. But before posting an article, you should browse the current articles to see, if anyone else already didn't post the same question or statement. If you're new to a group it's also a good idea to ask for a FAQ of this group. You might find the answer to your question in it. If you want do a test posting to ensure correct delivery of your mails, then please do not make a test posting in a discussion group. For this purpose several newsgroups have been installed, which will accept your testposting. From some of them you will also get a reply, how long your mail has taken and much more. Such newsgroups can be found in virtually any hierarchy. Examples of such are: alt.test de.test comp.test As you can see there also might be a test group in a local hierarchy. If such is available to you, please use this group to keep traffic to a minimum. Decoding files While on the Usenet you might have noticed groups that somewhere have the word binaries in its name. This group contains files, that you can download and view (in this order !!!). Downloading is simple. Open the article as you would with a normal article, that you intend to read. You now will see a lot of garbage. Don't worry, that's correct. This is the file in encoded form. As soon as the article has finished loading, find a menu that allows to save the article to disk (the file menu is a good hint). Then you will have to decode the saved article. Therefore you need a program called UUDecode or any similar decoder, capable of decoding UUEncoded files. Please follow the instructions on how to decode in the program's help or manual. Many newsreaders also will do the decoding for you. Browse through your reader's menus and if you find a menu like decode, then try it out. It most likely will do the decoding for you. Note that you don't have to save the article first, when using a decode command. Sometimes you will find articles, that look like this: This is part 0 of a file (0/2) This is part 1 of a file (1/2) This is part 2 of a file (2/2) This means, that the file was too large to be posted entirely in one file (newsreaders normally will split up posted articles, that are larger than lets say 10000 to 15000 lines into smaller parts). The first file, which has the (0/2), normally is a description on what this file is intended for. The next two articles (1/2) and (2/2) are the two parts of one larger article (file). In order to get the file you have to download all two parts. Modern decoders are capable of dealing with multipart files. Binary files contain character, which can't be transmitted over the internet. The Internet intentionally was designed to transfer text. Text files can be transmitted with a 7-bit ASCII code. Binary files can't. So a file has to be encoded (8bit -> 7bit) in order to transfer them over the Internet. Posting binary files Posting files works exactly the other way round like decoding them. You first have to encode the file using an encoder capable of creating UUEncoded files. Then prepare to post an article and attach the uuencoded file. If the file is too large to be posted in a single article, then you will have to split it up. Use a size of 10000 to 15000 lines per part. And post each part as a single article. Append the part number and the total number of parts to the subject line of the article and also include a part 0, which indicates, what this file is all about. Many newsreaders have this feature built in. You select a file to post, the newsreader will UUEncode it, split it and post it. But be sure to set the max. line length to the highest possible size (again 10000 to 15000 lines is a good idea). Because if you post a large file, with a maximum line number set to lets say 900, a file that would have 15000 lines would suddenly have 17 parts (simple math, eh!). One word on posting binary files: Please only post them to groups that have the word binaries in its name. If there is a .d appended to the name, then this group is for discussion of the binaries posted from another group. You can post a notification, that you have posted a binary file in this group. If you have two groups like comp.binaries.ms-windows.binaries.utils comp.binaries.ms-windows.binaries.utils.d than this means, that the (binary) files should go into the first group; the second group (*.binaries.utils.d) is for discussion of the files posted to the first (*.binaries.utils) group. Top
	Additional information This section contains additional information about the Usenet Newsgroups but is not necessary to use it. How to create a newsgroup If you have a good idea for a newsgroup, then you might suggest to create one (after you have verified, that no similar other group already exists). You can suggest the creation of a new group by posting a message to news.newgroups. Be sure to include the full suggested name and hierarchy and why you think that this newsgroup should be created. Then you suggestion will be discussed and a CFV (call for votes) will be made. In this CFV all people can vote yes or no for the creation for a group. After a while (I think it's about a month) the results will be made public and if the majority has voted yes, then your suggested newsgroup will be created. This procedure does not apply to the alt.* hierarchy. A newsgroup in this hierarchy can be created by anyone (if he knows how). If you have a reasonable suggestion for a new group, then try to create (better have it created) in some of the other hierarchies (comp, misc, ...) by posting a suggestion to news.newgroups. Interesting groups for beginners If you are new to the Usenet, then you might want to have a look at the following newsgroups, which you can ask questions in or find a solution to your news problem: news.newusers.questions news.answers news.answers Note that there often are local newsgroups, which carry almost the same information as the groups mentioned above, only in a different language. For example, then groups at.newusers is the corresponding newsgroup for new austrian Usenet users. Before you begin Before you start using the usenet, a few words of advice: If you haven't done so far, please read the netetiquette. Because of the large number of people reachable using the Usenet you might think, that it is a good place for commercial posting, advertisements, chain letters and stuff. Please don't. Remember, the Usenet is a discussion forum, not a large market place. Unfortunately some people do not know (or don't want to know) this. So here are some warnings for you. Be careful about great looking tips around the first of April. Don't believe everything posted around this date. Also be careful if someone has included the newsgroup alt.test in the follow up header of a posting. Do not reply to this mail as it might be interpreted as a global test and you will get lots of garbage delivered to your mailbox.

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