Newsgroups

One of the most powerful aspects of the Internet is the ability to interact with people around the world via your PC. The basic ways to do this are through e-mail, newsgroups, mailing lists or discussion groups, chat groups, or by publishing the information you want to communicate. This chapter will provide a brief introduction to newsgroups and instructions for how to participate in them with the AT&T Worldnet Service browser. You can read through from the beginning or jump directly to the section of interest by clicking on the title of your choice below. Be sure to also read the introduction to netiquette, the informal set of rules for polite behavior on the Internet.

Overview
Finding Newsgroups
Participating in Newsgroups
AT&T Worldnet Help Newsgroups
For More Information

Overview

Newsgroups are similar to e-mail except that instead of sending your message to someone's mail box, the message is posted on a bulletin board where anyone can read it and respond. This allows a discussion to take place among several people. A newsgroup may have several active discussions at one time. These discussions happen in threads, groups of related articles generally with the same subject line.

There are eight official categories of newsgroups in the Usenet hierarchy:

Category	Description
comp	Newsgroups related to computers and computing.
humanities	Literature, art or other topics covered by the term humanities.
misc	Miscellaneous topics. Of course the ultimate miscellaneous topic is misc.misc.
news	These newsgroups cover issues related to newsgroups themselves. Unless you are interested in issues of newsgroup administration, this category will probably not interest you. However some of the postings concern Usenet policy issues and explanatory articles for new users. These will be of great interest to you if you are a new user.
rec	The subject here is recreation, including sports, hobbies, and any other type of fun activity.
sci	Newsgroups on scientific topics.
soc	Social and cultural issues get discussed in these groups, and just plain socializing goes on, too.
talk	These groups are for talking about all kinds of issues, especially political arguments.

A few other categories have developed over the years, such as:

Category	Description
alt	These alternate groups feature postings about anything that does not belong in the mainstream newsgroups.
biz	Here is where you'll find postings related to business, commerce, jobs, etc.

There are tens of thousands of newsgroups in the world. Each service provider has to decide which of these newsgroups will be carried on their service. Since there are millions of messages posted to these newsgroups, the service provider must also decide how many days or weeks to keep messages available. There is a limit as to how many messages can be saved and still allow room for new messages. So, you'll need to check your newsgroups regularly to be sure you don't miss any messages.

Finding Newsgroups

Newsgroups are named according to a hierarchical structure. A newsgroup name looks something like:

rec.radio.shortwave

You may find out about individual newsgroups from a Web site, you can get a list of all available newsgroups, or you can search for newsgroups on a particular subject. If you subscribe to a newsgroup, you will have easy access to it from the Newsgroups button of your browser. However, you do not need to subscribe to a newsgroup to read or participate in it. Subscribing to a newsgroup is similar to saving a bookmark or favorite in your browser. It just makes it easier for you to find it again.

Participating in Newsgroups

There are two ways in which you can participate in a newsgroup: you may choose only to read what other people are saying or you may choose to participate. If you use Outlook Express, see How to Configure Microsoft Outlook Express to Access Newsgroups on the AT&T Worldnet Help site to learn how to use it for newsgroups. If you prefer to use your browser to participate in newsgroups, see WURD on Using AT&T Worldnet WebNews.

Let's take a look at how newsgroups are displayed. When you access newsgroups, a new window will be opened on your computer. You can return to your browser by switching windows. When you're done with the newsgroups, close the newsgroup window.

You can use the links below to view the two methods of viewing newsgroups. These links open the AT&T Worldnet Service suggestions newsgroup. When you are done, close the newsgroup window or switch back to this window:

Note: The Netscape and Microsoft newsreaders, and the AT&T Worldnet Webnews interface, show only the original posts with a plus sign (+) next to them if there are replies to the posts. To see the replies, click the plus sign and the thread (conversation) will expand.

To learn more about using newsgroups and some newsreader programs, see our News FAQ and the WURD on News Readers.

AT&T Worldnet Help Newsgroups

AT&T Worldnet Service offers many Help newsgroups just for their members. A list of these newsgroups and their descriptions may be found by clicking here.

For More Information

Next: Chat (IRC)

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