[To obtain the latest versions of the documents in this section, see the document home sites index.]
Usenet is the news service of the Internet. Unlike other services, you don't have to go looking for it; it comes looking for you! When anyone posts a message to a newsgroup, it gets passed from the poster's machine to neighbouring machines, and from those machines to their neighbours and so on, with an ingenious system to ignore duplicate copies of the same message arriving by different routes.
There are thousands of newsgroups covering every subject from the C++ standardisation process to the works of Terry Pratchett. You just "subscribe" to the ones that interest you, and you can join in the discussion too -- anything you post to a newsgroup will go to everyone who subscribes to it worldwide.
Usenet is the perfect place to ask questions. It's also the perfect place to get people annoyed with you if you commit a breach of "netiquette". Part of this involves checking to see if your question has been asked (and answered) before; many newsgroups carry "FAQ" documents (Frequently Asked Questions, or Frequently Answered Questions) which are posted to the newsgroup at regular intervals and updated regularly. Many of the documents on this CD are FAQs republished by permission of the authors. FAQs are a great starting point to find your way around
Because FAQs are updated regularly, I'd advise you to get hold of the latest versions of any on this CD that you find useful. The ones here are just a snapshot of a dynamic resource which was taken in the summer of 1997. Many of the documents here are from the newsgroup news.announce.newusers, and you can always find the latest set of FAQs in the newsgroup news.answers.
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| There is a good introduction to Usenet in the EFF's (Extended) Guide to the Internet. |
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| What is Usenet? An introduction to Usenet and its philosophy. |
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| What is Usenet?, a second opinion. Another perspective on the same issues. |
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| Rules for posting to Usenet: all about Netiquette, in other words. |
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| A Primer on How to Work With the Usenet Community |
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| Emily Postnews answers your questions on Netiquette: a tongue-in-cheek look at netiquette. |
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| How to find the right place to post: a FAQ giving advice on finding the right newsgroup to post your questions to. |
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| Hints on Writing Style for Usenet: useful advice on writing clearly so that you'll be more likely to get responses to any questions you post. |
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| Several packages for reading Usenet news. |
| DejaNews, a searchable Web-based archive of Usenet postings. |
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| faqs.org, a Web-based FAQ archive. |
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| Usenet FAQS by newsgroup: a Web-based FAQ archive at Ohio State University. |
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| Another FAQ archive at Oxford University |