Net for Newbies

Net for Newbies - Usenet Newsgroups.

The Usenet, one of the most interesting parts of the net, but also the place you are most likely to be flamed if you don't use proper netiquette. If Email can be seen as analogous to sending someone a letter, then Usenet groups can be compared to pining a note on a notice board. Both Email and Usenet Newsgroups share common elements both in the technical way the data is packaged and the way the medium is used. There are Newsgroups covering almost every topic imaginable. Some more serious than others but all have certain things in common, a group can be of one of two types a non-binaries group or a binaries group. Binaries groups will normally have the word binaries in its name. A binaries group is one to which you may post binary attachments, files. These can vary from pictures and MP3 to whole programs. Most discussion groups fall into the non-binaries category and it should be remembered that binary attachments includes rich text/HTML which the likes of Outlook Express defaults to so remember before posting to a usenet group make sure you newsreader is set to plain text.Remember also, that as the people reading your post don't know you, come from differing cultures and backgrounds, and may not have English as a first language, You should make sure your post cannot be misinterpreted and things like humour are clearly indicated, with a smiley etc.

How news works

When someone posts to a newsgroup they are either starting a new topic line,(thread);or replying to and existing post in which case the post shows as Re: topic of post(note: it is Re: text not RE: text or Re:text); just like email however all subsequent posts are also Re:s and they form what is know as a Thread, and if someone replies to a reply rather than the original post this forms a sub-thread. If you think your reply to a sub-thread takes it very far from anything else in the thread you can post a new message still quote the bit your responding to and construct the title as follows New message,(Was Re: Original message) but you should have good reason for doing this.

Thread structure

When replying to a post you should:

Always Attribute the post, say who you are replying to Your Newsreader should do this for you.
Quote the part of the post you are replying to above you reply, indent with a '>'
Trim unrequired parts of the original post

See the example below:

In article Message-ID, Authors Name Authors Email Address wrote:
>whatever part of the post you are responding to indented to
>show its a quote. Your newsreader should indent the whole post.
>but you must trim it.
Your response to the above quote here
>any other stuff you wish to respond to it the post, trimmed down
> and in order
Your response
Your name or nick and any small signature text.

Signatures

A signature in is a small, section of up to four lines of text and information at the end of your email that personalises it. Generally signatures include, name/nickname URL of your web site, a quote from literature or a favourite song and ASCII art. Please note, a signature should not exceed 4 lines in length a large signature is a waste of bandwidth and bad netiquette.

There are a few things to remember before you post to a newsgroup.

Find and read the groups Frequently Ask Questions,(FAQ). Use a search engine to find it.
Lurk, Subscribe to the group and read it for a while to get a 'feel' of the group.
Set you news reader to plain text and 70 char per line, unless the FAQ says otherwise.
Put a spam block in you email address.
Make sure you read your post through before you send it.

Don't Feed the Trolls!

On the Usenet, as in everyday life you will come across people whose sole purpose in life is to wind other people up. To which end they will post deliberately stupid, Off Topic, or abusive posts, use bad netiquette and any other means to get a large thread of responses going. These people are known as 'Trolls' and you 'feed' a Troll when you respond to it's post. Mostly Trolls are just trying to get a response, but sometimes they will cross-post to another group to either generate more traffic and cause more chaos and/or start a flame war between groups with opposing view points. Occasionally Trolls can be funny, but generally their just annoying and best left alone or killfiled,(see newsreaders below). Remember as feeding a Troll will encourage it, and may even attract more Trolls, you may get flamed for feeding a Troll.

Cross-posting, X-No-Archive and other stuff

It is possible to post the same message to more than one group at once, this is know as cross-posting sometimes written as X-posting. In general cross-posting is not a good idea, you should not cross-post unless you have a good reason to do so. When responding to a post which has been cross-posted, you have the option of only responding in the group you are reading, in general this is the best way to go. There are a few fields in the news header, which are optional, X-No-Archive is one of them, if you set it, it's presents will request sites like Deja not to archive the post, so it can be read in years time. There may be some time when you may wish to set this in general though, you shouldn't post stuff you would want people to read now or in the future.

Old News

As I mentioned above Deja archives almost everything sent to the Usenet, so if you have a question about anything chances are it's already been asked and answer on the Usenet. So if you need to know anything it's always worth doing a search on Deja. Deja's Power search being the most effective in my opinion.

Newsreaders

There are many different newsreader, for most platforms. Whilst you choice of newsreader is a matter of personal preference in many ways. Your newsreader should allow you to filter or killfile, authors or topics which you do not want to read. Most people will be using Outlook Express whilst and adequate mail client it's not a great newsreader. I would recommend the following:

Forte Agent, a free version is also available called freeagent from the Forte site.

More?

For everything you need to know about the Usenet go Here