| A newsgroup name starts with a category type, followed by a period ("dot"
in the terminology of the Internet), then a subject that can be followed
by a number of sub-categories each separated by a dot. For example:
news.newusers.questions. As you move to the right in a newsgroup
name, the subject focus becomes more limited. For example, rec.autos
and its subgroups talk about autos, rec.autos.driving is about
the driving experience and how to better handle a car. The names are similar
in the alt newsgroups. There is both a rec.autos.antque
and alt.autos.antique newsgroup. The alt newsgroups may
tolerate stronger language and behavior.
In the early days, Internet users would hear about a group of interest
and then "subscribe" to it with a UNIX based newsreader program. This
made it possible to automatically retrieve all the postings you had
not yet seen whenever you accessed a group. You could read postings
and prepare queries and replies to given messages off-line and then
upload them to your favorite groups in a batch.
That can still be done today with the newsreaders built into Netscape
Navigator and Internet Explorer. But the feeling of community within
most groups no longer exists, and many are clogged with spam
(junk mail). However, if newsgroups are treated as a vast database
of potentially useful information on a subject, they can be quite worthwhile.
Try Google Groups (http://groups.google.com/)
a part of the Google search engine devoted to newsgroups that not only
archives years worth of postings, it also aggressively filters out spam.
 Communication Timing
When people and computers communicate, there are two ways of timing the communication:
synchronous and asynchronous. Both words are derived from
the Greek words syn- 'together' andchronos 'time'. So:
- synchronous communication happens when the two people or
two computers are communicating 'together in time' - that is, at the
same time. A conversation between two people, either in person or
on the phone, is an example of synchronous communication. The speaking
and the hearing take place at the same time.
- asynchronous communication is
when people or computers are communicating 'not together in
time' - that is, at different times. If you leave a message on someone's
voice mail, they don't hear it when you're speaking it. Hopefully,
they'll hear it later and give you a call!
See http://www.zdwebopedia.com
for more detail on how computers do synchronous and asynchronous communication
over networks.
Messages posted in newsgroups are a form of asynchronous
communication.
- A message is posted in a newsgroup.
- It may take some time for a reader to decide to post a reply. In the meantime, the person who posted the original message waits.
- Once the originator gets a reply, he can reply to that reply
creating a threaded communication.
Threaded Communication
Threaded communication is a running log of comments, replies and opinions
about a subject. You can find several threads covering different subjects
in a single forum. If you start by reading the first message, you
can follow the thread by reading each reply to the previous message. Posting
a message that is not a reply to an earlier message starts a new
thread. (See http://www.zdwebopedia.com
for more detail.)
Figure 1:
A view of news.announce.newsgroups using Microsoft Outlook Express
Sometimes the subjects of a message may change to a different subject
without changing the subject title. For example a message starts out talking
about brake pads on a bicycle and the thread ends up telling stories
about hair-raising falls down a steep cliff when brakes fail.
How an Asynchronous Threaded Discussion Group works
Newsgroups are like an organized email system except there is no single
user that mail is sent to. Instead, the messages everyone writes are sent
to a newsgroup section, available for anyone who accesses that newsgroup.
In some newsgroups, no one in particular manages
or controls the newsgroup - they are in the control of the community.
When such a newsgroup exists, everyone can send anything to the newsgroup
and it is made accessible to everyone else on the Internet. No
single server or online service hosts these newsgroups. They originate
from many sources and are hosted on many systems, known collectively as
the Usenet network, the original name given
to this service.
Other newsgroups are moderated. It is the system administrator at any
given ISP or online service such as AOL or CompuServe that decides which
newsgroups will be offered and how long postings will be available,
typically about two weeks.
Advantages of Asynchronous Communication
via the Internet
- You'll find plenty of information on just about any subject. You
can get help with problems you are having from someone who is having
the same problem.
- Anyone can post to a newsgroup if they have access to the Internet.
- Fairly easy to find a subject using a good newsreader software package.
- May find information in a newsgroup when all other sources have failed.
Disadvantages of Asynchronous Communication
via the Internet
- Overwhelming at first sight. Intimidating by the number of people
your postings can get to and the overwhelming sense of the amount
of information you have access to.
- Anyone can post to a newsgroup if they have access to the Internet
so thread may take you somewhere you do not care to go or read something
you would rather not to read, like flaming (sharp retort or
criticism).
- Since anyone can post to newsgroups, a reply to your postings may
not be correct. It is just someone else's opinion.
- Many users have to pay a fee (either through a service provider
or download time charges) to receive their newsgroups.
- Even if you are in a particular newsgroup, all the posting may not
pertain to what the newsgroup is supposed to contain, i.e.: pornography
shows up everywhere.
What is Usenet?
Usenet is an international meeting place. People from all
over the world post things there. In a way, it is like having a discussion
with many individuals, carried out over hours or days. In 1979,
two graduate students, named Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis, came up with
the idea of using a computer protocol called UUCP to connect machines
for the purpose of exchanging information among UNIX users. They
set up three computers in a small network in North Carolina. Usenet
has now grown, thanks to the Internet, to encompass the entire world.
Try A Primer
on How to Work With the Usenet Community by Chuq Von Rospach; also
Welcome to
Usenet by Mark Moraes for more information.
Advantages of Usenet
- You can subscribe to those newsgroups that interest you and they
will be sent to your newsreader.
- There are thousands of newsgroups to choose from, something for everyone.
- There is complete openness. You can post anything you want. All opinions are heard equally. Minority opinions get exposure.
Disadvantages of Usenet
- There is no way of determining how knowledgeable someone who posts
is. The information could be wrong or an outright lie. It can
be easily abused.
- The sheer volume of traffic in any forum can be time consuming.
- Spam can be posted, wasting everyone's time. Some of the spam is pornographic, which can cause concern for parents.
- You need special user privileges to create and maintain each newsgroup.
- People can easily post topics unrelated to your newsgroup; they
could receive flames for it, but some don't care. There is little
accountability.
Web-based Discussion Groups
Traditional forums for discussion, such as Usenet and email lists are
not growing anywhere near the speed that the web is. There is a
need for web-based discussion groups. The two biggest groups that
are making use of it are fans of celebrities and shows; and organizations,
such as companies. Google Groups,
MSN, and Yahoo!
all provide hosting services for web-based discussion groups.
Access Fan groups tend to go for open access, which behaves much the same as Usenet.
Companies tend to opt for restricted access for their discussion groups,usually
this means the use of a password protected web page. This tends
to keep proprietary information out of the wrong hands. Restricted
access can make a group more focused, but it also means a lack of more
diverse information such as you'd find in the public forums.
A compromise between these two positions is a moderated newsgroup. All
posts are sent to a moderator, who decides whether they will be posted
or not. This means that anyone can still post, but undesirable
messages will be filtered out before posting.
ComponentsWeb-based groups have three main components. - A table of contents, showing information about the messages.
- A mechanism to assign each message its own unique file name.
This is usually a posting page, containing a form to fill out with
information, like your name and email address, in addition to the
message that you are posting. The form is a CGI script - think
of it as a tiny program for sending data over the Internet, in such
a way that it can go into some master form on the other end, or have
portions of it processed to go to other files.
- The individual messages themselves.
Drawbacks
- Replies have to be handled with extra CGI scripting. If you
want to set a news server up, you need someone knowledgeable in one
of the scripting languages.
- Archiving and maintenance: Space allotted on a server for
a given newsgroup is finite. The person doing maintenance needs
to have a system of removing old posts to keep room open for new ones.
Any archiving of older messages is going to have to take place elsewhere,
which may not be as accessible on-line.
For more information on web-based discussion groups, check out Creating
and Managing Discussion Groups on the Web by John Jung.
Now that you know more about the various types of newsgroups, let's try to
post to one. Go to module NA21h.
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