MAP08: USENET


     "Ideal conversation must be an exchange of thought, and not, as
      many of those who worry most about their shortcomings believe,
      an eloquent exhibition of wit or oratory." -- Emily Post, Etiquette


The following text comes from the Electronic Frontier Foundation's (1)
"EFF's Guide to the Internet" and is reprinted, in its entirety,
with permission:

-----

Imagine a conversation carried out over a period of hours and days,
as if people were leaving messages and responses on a bulletin board. Or
imagine the electronic equivalent of a radio talk show where everybody
can put their two cents in and no one is ever on hold.

Unlike e-mail, which is usually "one-to-one,"  Usenet is "many-to-
many." Usenet is the international meeting place, where people gather to
meet their friends, discuss the day's events, keep up with computer
trends or talk about whatever's on their mind.  Jumping into a Usenet
discussion can be a liberating experience.  Nobody knows what you look or
sound like, how old you are, what your background is.  You're judged
solely on your words, your ability to make a point.

To many people, Usenet IS the Net. In fact, it is often confused
with Internet.  But it is a totally separate system. All Internet sites
CAN carry Usenet, but so do many non-Internet sites, from sophisticated
Unix machines to old XT clones and Apple IIs.

Technically, Usenet messages are shipped around the world, from
host system to host system, using one of several specific Net
protocols.  Your host system stores all of its Usenet messages in one
place, which everybody with an account on the system can access. That
way, no matter how many people actually read a given message, each
host system has to store only one copy of it. Many host systems "talk"
with several others regularly in case one or another of their links goes
down for some reason.  When two host systems connect, they basically
compare notes on which Usenet messages they already have.  Any that one
is missing the other then transmits, and vice-versa.  Because they are
computers, they don't mind running through thousands, even millions, of
these comparisons every day.

Yes, millions.  For Usenet is huge.  Every day, Usenet users
pump upwards of 40 million characters a day into the system -- roughly
the equivalent of volumes A-G of the Encyclopedia Britannica. Obviously,
nobody could possibly keep up with this immense flow of messages.  Let's
look at how to find conferences and discussions of interest to you.

The basic building block of Usenet is the newsgroup, which is a
collection of messages with a related theme (on other networks, these
would be called conferences, forums, bboards or special-interest
groups).  There are now more than 5,000 of these newsgroups, in several
different languages, covering everything from art to zoology, from
science fiction to South Africa.

Some public-access systems, typically the ones that work through
menus, try to make it easier by dividing Usenet into several broad
categories.  Choose one of those and you're given a list of newsgroups in
that category.  Then select the newsgroup you're interested in and start
reading.

Other systems let you compile your own "reading list" so that you
only see messages in conferences you want.  In both cases, conferences
are arranged in a particular hierarchy devised in the early 1980s.
Newsgroup names start with one of a series of broad topic names.  For
example, newsgroups beginning with "comp." are about particular computer-
related topics.  These broad topics are followed by a series of more
focused topics (so that "comp.unix" groups are limited to discussion
about Unix).  The main hierarchies are:

             bionet          Research biology
             bit.listserv    Conferences originating as Bitnet mailing lists
             biz             Business
             comp            Computers and related subjects
             misc            Discussions that don't fit anywhere else
             news            News about Usenet itself
             rec             Hobbies, games and recreation
             sci             Science other than research biology
             soc             "Social" groups, often ethnically related
             talk            Politics and related topics
             alt             Controversial or unusual topics; not
                             carried by all sites

In addition, many host systems carry newsgroups for a particular
city, state or region.  For example, ne.housing is a newsgroup where
New Englanders look for apartments.  A growing number also carry K12
newsgroups, which are aimed at elementary and secondary teachers and
students.  And a number of sites carry clari newsgroups, which is
actually a commercial service consisting of wire-service stories and
a unique online computer news service.

... With so much to choose from, everybody will likely have their own
unique Usenet reading list.  But there are a few newsgroups that are
particularly of interest to newcomers.  Among them:

     news.announce.newusers     This group consists of a series of
                                articles that explain various facets of
                                Usenet.

     news.newusers.questions    This is where you can ask questions
                                about how Usenet works.

     news.announce.newsgroups   Look here for information about new or
                                proposed newsgroups.

     news.answers               Contains lists of "Frequently Asked
                                Questions"  (FAQs) and their answers from
                                many different newsgroups.  Learn how to
                                fight jet lag in the FAQ from
                                rec.travel.air; look up answers to common
                                questions about Microsoft Windows in
                                an FAQ from comp.os.ms-windows; etc.

     alt.internet.services      Looking for something in particular on
                                the Internet?  Ask here.

     alt.infosystems.announce   People adding new information services to
                                the Internet will post details here.

-----

And now for a few words from "p-crispy-one":

The EFF (1) notes that daily input into Usenet is equivalent to volumes
A-G of the Encyclopedia Britannica. You should be warned that the
information on Usenet is of *much* lower quality. Anybody with an
opinion can post anything in a Usenet newsgroup, whether they know
what they're talking about or not. If you want to bet your grade
in school or your company's or organization's future on information
you get from Usenet, please e-mail me first -- I have some bargains
in real estate (including a great price for a bridge in Brooklyn) I'd
like to discuss with you.

There are more Usenet newsgroups, dedicated to the discussion of more
topics, than you could even imagine. I recently heard that there are
over 6,000 different Usenet newsgroups, although I think that number
may be a little low. The Osborne/McGraw-Hill Internet Yellow Pages
has fifty-five pages of Usenet newsgroup listings (p. 363-418).

What are some of these newsgroups? Here is a short list taken from
the Osborne/McGraw-Hill Internet Yellow Pages (and reprinted by
permission):

  alt.abuse-recovery                Helping victims of abuse recover
  alt.barney.dinosaur.die.die.die   Hate and excoriation of Barney the
                                    Dinosaur
  bionet.jobs                       Job opportunities in biology
  bit.listserv.xerox-l              Xerox products
  biz.books.technical               Selling and buying books
  clari.biz.top                     Top business news
  comp.cog-eng                      Cognitive engineering
  ...

As you can see, the topics are pretty diverse. I also want you to
notice something about the group names. All of the Usenet group
names have periods (or, in Internet language, "dots") in them.
That is a great way to see if a group is a Usenet group or a
mailing list group (which we covered last week).

     GROUP                  TYPE

     gnu.emacs.sources      Usenet newsgroup
     RHA-L                  Mailing list
     rec.birds              Usenet newsgroup
     Navigate               Mailing list

So, how do you read the posts in a Usenet newsgroup? Well, you have
to have access to a Usenet newsreader.

There are literally DOZENS of different Usenet readers out there.
Your local Internet provider will be able to tell you what Usenet
reader you have access to, and will probably also be able to
tell you some of your reader's commands (remember that in a lot
of Usenet readers the commands are case sensitive).

Some of the more important Usenet reader commands that you need
to know are:

     - How to access your Usenet reader

     - How to access a particular newsgroup

     - How to subscribe/unsubscribe to a particular newsgroup

     - How to read a post

     - How to send a post

     - How to respond to a posting by e-mail

     - How to save a post

     - How to move from one newsgroup to another

     - How to exit your Usenet reader


HOMEWORK:


1)   Ask your local Internet service provider if you have Usenet
     access. If you do, ask your provider for a handout or
     help file which lists the commands for your reader.
     (Most Usenet readers also have a pretty extensive, albeit
     confusing, help screen. If you can get into your reader,
     you may want to check out this help screen).

     If you don't have Usenet access, or if your provider does
     not have a help file, please be patient. When we get to
     the lessons on Gopher (in about 2 weeks), I'll show you
     some tricks that will help you around this problem :)

2)   If you have access to either the rn or nn newsreader (two of
     the most used newsreaders around), I have two files that may
     help you. Again, use the get command to get them from the
     LISTSERV file server at University of Alabama.

     nn users:               rn users:
     filename  filetype      filename  filetype

     nn        intro         rn        intro
     nn        cmds          rn        cmds

NOTES:

(1) We'll talk about the Electronic Frontier Foundation on Wednesday.

SOURCES:

The text in this lesson comes from the Electronic Frontier Foundation's
"EFF's Guide to the Internet, v.2.3" and is reprinted by permission.


   PATRICK DOUGLAS CRISPEN    THE VIEWS EXPRESSED IN THIS LETTER DO NOT
    PCRISPE1@UA1VM.UA.EDU      NECESSARILY REPRESENT THE VIEWS OF THE
  THE UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA      UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA - TUSCALOOSA

      ROADMAP: COPYRIGHT PATRICK CRISPEN 1994. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.