The following text is adapted from the Electronic Frontier Foundation's (1) "EFF's Guide to the Internet" and is reprinted and edited with permission:
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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, no one is ever on hold, and the history of the conversation is saved for review.

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.

This is different from a chat room.  A chat room is a place to have a live written conversation with another person.  The person or people you are writing to are able to see what you and others write as it is written.

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 IBM 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. And this figure is probably a low estimate, as Net usage continues to explode.  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, bulletin boards 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:

... 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:

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):

... 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).

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).

Most users of the Internet now access Usenet through their World Wide Web browser or email software. (Although we haven't talked about it formally, a Web browser is software that allows you to download and see Web documents, images, embedded video, sound, and programs). Built-in to the most popular current browsers including Netscape 3.0 or later and is the capacity to view and reply to Usenet messages. Microsoft requires that you install a second program called Internet Mail and News as an add-on for Explorer. If your web browser does not currently have these features, you may choose to upgrade your browser. Help for these products are available on-line through the Help menu.

But basically, users post messages to newsgroups like they would using email.  The commands are similar, and the etiquette is too.

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.  (This is important, because you won't see the messages until you subscribe.  Usually there's a box to check or menu or right clicking on the newsgroup will give an option to subscribe.)

- 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. If the Newsreader is Netscape, explore the help menu about Newsgroups.  Print it out and put it in your binder.

If you are using Netscape Navigator 3.0 or later, a Usenet reader is built-in. Open the Newsgroup reader in a Netscape window by typing
News: 
in the Location box under the menus. If this doesn't work, you probably need to ask your Internet Service Provider what you need for this to work. If you are using Microsoft's products, you need to open Microsoft's Internet Mail and News add-in, or download these from http://www.microsoft.com/ Otherwise, find out how you can explore Newsgroups from your ISP and start exploring them.

2) Search for a newsgroup that supports your professional interests.  I've found that municipal and town government isn't excatly the hottest of topics, but there is a lot about computing and technology, as you might imagine.  Choose one of the indexes on the web that lists all the possible newsgroups.  See if your ISP offers that newsgroup by looking at the list from your site.  Subscribe to the newsgroup and review the messages to see if you can benefit from the group.  Email me with a newsgroup(s) you found interesting or helpful.

3) Ask yourself if a newsgroup would benefit town officers.  What would the topic be about?  Send it to me with your answer.

To help with your homework:

Here are a few web links that town officials can use to introduce themselves to newsgroups.

• A Master List of News Groups, http://www.deja.com . Here it's possible to search for newsgroups AND articles that may relate to your interests.
• A Newbie Project, a guide for new users: http://tgos.org/newbie/index.html
• How to Write a Good Newsgroup Message, http://www.gweep.bc.ca/~edmonds/usenet/good-newgroup.html

SOURCES:

Some of 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.

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ROADMAP: Copyright Patrick Crispen 1994, 1995. All rights reserved. Modified by permission by UVM Extension System, 2001.