                                   USENET
  

 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 
