Basic Journalism: Introduction to Newsgroups

Chapter Nine

Basic Journalism: Introduction to Newsgroups

Explaining Usenet and newsgroups, like the Internet itself, is like explaining the phone system. Sure, all the phones in the world are connected by cables and wires and switches, as you read in Lesson 1, "The Internet: What's It Really Like?" But that's not what matters to the people who use it. What really matters about the phone system to users is communication--people talking to each other, people doing business, people exchanging documents and computer programs, and people just passing the time of day.

In this lesson, you'll be able to find the answers to the following questions about Usenet and newsgroups:

• What exactly is Usenet?
• How do newsgroups work?
• How are newsgroups organized?
• What type of information is on Usenet?
• Does Usenet have rules like e-mail does?

As with the lessons on e-mail, the principles I talk about here are universal, regardless of the specific newsgroup client you may use.

Usenet and Newsgroups Explained

Is Usenet wires and cables? Are newsgroups just data and commands traveling over these wires and cables? Or is it the people who use these computers? Well, someone once said, "Usenet is the set of people who know what Usenet is." This answer may seem circular, but it really isn't.

The participants in Usenet are what make up Usenet. In fact, these people, collectively, can answer almost any question you ask of them, entertain you, teach you, listen to what you have to say, and broaden your horizons in ways you never dreamed possible.

Usenet Defined

The first question most people ask is, "What does Usenet mean?" Well, the name is modeled after Usenix, the UNIX users' conference series. It was supposed to mean UNIX Users Network, because all the early sites were UNIX machines, and many of the early discussions were about the UNIX operating system.

New Term: UNIX: Believe it or not, UNIX is not an acronym for anything. UNIX is an operating system originally developed in 1969 by Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie (allegedly so they could play games!). UNIX, a powerful and portable operating system, expanded and became the foundational operating language of the Internet.

Of course, you may want to know a little about how Usenet actually works. Usenet is actually rather complicated, but perhaps a short explanation can make the essentials clear:

You can get "news" transferred across the Internet in basically two ways. The first is by means of listservs, which I discussed in Lesson 8, "Communicating with the World: Using Mailing Lists." The second way to get news is to have a machine that is dedicated solely to storing and serving news, as illustrated in Figure 9.1.

Using this second method, which is how Usenet works, you can read from and post to the news server using a news client. You then can read what you want, when you want--instead of having tons of listserv mail jamming up your mailbox. These news servers organize, distribute, and keep track of thousands of messages--a task that a listserv simply can't duplicate.

Figure 9.1.

With Usenet, you can go to the news instead of having the news come to you.

New Term: Post: A message to a Usenet newsgroup is called a post. When you submit messages (also called articles) to newsgroups, you are posting.

Newsgroups Defined

Many people have a difficult time distinguishing between Usenet and newsgroups. To clarify, think about the publishing industry. You can talk of the publishing industry as an umbrella enterprise that is all-encompassing. When you start talking about publications such as The Wall Street Journal, however, you're talking about the actual "stuff" of which the industry is made.

You can think of Usenet, in this sense, as the structure, or umbrella, that encompasses the thousands of newsgroups that make up Usenet. The newsgroups themselves define this electronic "industry."

Trying to describe all the newsgroups available would be akin to trying to describe all the publications in the world--you couldn't. In short, you can find a newsgroup on just about every topic you can think of; Figure 9.2 shows some examples.

Figure 9.2.

This list shows just a few of the thousands of newsgroups available.

Newsgroups cover topics regarding recreation, society, culture, business, and computers (of course). Currently, over 12,000 newsgroups are available. How they are constructed and organized is covered in the next section.

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CAUTION: Just because thousands of newsgroups exist doesn't mean that you can get them all. Remember, you need to have access to a server that can handle every single article on every single newsgroup. Just like no guidestore carries every magazine, no Internet service provider carries every newsgroup. A service provider that carries 4,000 to 8,000 newsgroups is considered average.

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Newsgroup Hierarchies

Now that you know that all these great groups are out there, you are ready to begin making sense of how they are organized. In the beginning, Usenet, like the Internet itself, was relatively small. Thus, no real need for a lot of organization existed. As traffic increased on the Net, however, the number of people (and issues) also began to rise. It soon became apparent that some structure was necessary, in order to prevent Usenet from becoming a runaway train.

Going to a Different Level

Out of this newfound need for structure, hierarchies were born. Everyone knows what a hierarchy is. In business, the CEO is at the top, followed by top-level managers, then middle-management, who are above supervisors, who are above the workers. Newsgroups are organized exactly this way also, as illustrated in Figure 9.3.

Figure 9.3.

Newsgroup hierarchies are much like any other structure composed of different levels.

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Just A Minute: Newsgroup names have dots in them. Think of newsgroup names as descriptive domain names. You can pronounce the dots or not, but don't pronounce them as "period." rec.humor.funny is either "rec humor funny" or "rec dot humor dot funny."

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The Big 7

The hierarchies established years ago are still in effect today and comprise what's known as the Big 7 newsgroup hierarchies. The following 7 hierarchies contain a majority of all newsgroup traffic:

• alt.: This alternative hierarchy deals with almost any issue under the sun and is considered the "rebel" hierarchy.
• comp.: This hierarchy is composed of newsgroups having to do with computers.
• misc.: This is the catch-all miscellaneous newsgroup hierarchy.
• news.: The smallest hierarchy, news. contains only a handful of newsgroups dealing with issues surrounding Usenet and newsgroups themselves.
• rec.: These newsgroups cover recreation.
• sci.: This hierarchy contains newsgroups about various topics in science.
• soc.: The soc. hierarchy contains newsgroups that deal with social issues.
• talk.: In the newsgroups in this discussion hierarchy, you can talk about almost anything.

Wait a minute! I listed eight hierarchies, not seven. Am I trying to pull a fast one on you? No, not really. The alt. hierarchy wasn't actually a part of the original seven. Today, however, it is the biggest hierarchy on Usenet.

A little more explanation regarding this issue might be in order. In the seven standard hierarchies, proposed new newsgroups must be nominated and voted on by the Usenet community before they are carried by most news servers. Many people using Usenet didn't want to wait for the voting process, however, or simply wanted to deal with topics outside the realm or taste of the standard hierarchies. As a result, the alt. groups were born. In short, anyone can create an alt. newsgroup.

So why do you still need the Big 7? Simple; when everybody can start creating groups; you end up with topics such as alt.american.automobile.breakdown.breakdown.break. Therefore, many news server administrators don't even carry the alt. hierarchy because of the large amount of noise on these groups.

New Term: Noise: Sooner or later, you'll hear the term "signal-to-noise ratio." This expression is merely a way of describing how much useful material (signal) compared to useless material (noise) is on a given newsgroup.

Today, dozens of legitimate hierarchies exist, many of them bigger than some of the original ones. Table 9.1 gives you a taste of some of the bigger ones.

Table 9.1. Additional newsgroup hierarchies.

What's in the News?

By now, you should realize that you can probably find anything under the sun by cruising through the world of Usenet. In the following sections, you can see a few good examples of how Usenet can be extremely helpful.

To the Newbies

One of the first and best places to go if you're new to Usenet is to the news. hierarchy. Several groups--in particular, news.announce.newsgroups, news.announce.newusers, and news.answers--are helpful. In these groups, you can find out about proposed new groups, get announcements and explanations, and get general answers from people who have been on the Net awhile.

The best of these groups is most likely news.answers, because you can get the FAQs in this group. These helpful documents answer the most common questions asked by beginners on almost any topic under the sun. Figure 9.4 shows an example.

New Term: FAQ: FAQ stands for Frequently Asked Questions. Many times, newcomers to a newsgroup ask questions that the old-timers have heard over and over again. So someone writes a FAQ and posts it periodically to reduce the number of redundant questions.

Figure 9.4.

The FAQs available on Usenet are almost as diverse as the newsgroups themselves.

World's Biggest Garage Sale

In addition to finding some really good information on Usenet, you might find that you can locate some really good stuff, too. For some examples, turn to the misc.forsale hierarchy. With a little patience and perseverance, you can buy just about anything.

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Time Saver: You can find probably over 100 forsale newsgroups in all, not all of which are in the misc. hierarchy. In fact, many news servers carry their own hierarchy of local newsgroups, one of which is usually a forsale group.

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Of course, most of these groups are under the misc.forsale.computers hierarchy, where you can buy modems, equipment for PCs or Macs, and a host of other items. You also can check out misc.forsale.non-computer, which has hundreds of postings a day, as you can see in Figure 9.5.

Figure 9.5.

Need to revitalize your music collection? Here's the place to do it.

What Money Can't Buy

Not everyone on the Internet is looking to make a profit. In fact, a majority aren't. What better place to look than to the Internet if you're interested in working for the "public good."

If you're so inclined, look at soc.org.nonprofit, as shown in Figure 9.6, to find many useful resources (even a FAQ) if you're looking to serve the public. Get information on fund-raising, management tips, research tools, and more--all geared toward people interested in the public welfare.

Figure 9.6.

Usenet is a great place to go when you're in unfamiliar territory.

Usenetiquette

Usenet is, in many ways, a community. People who are "on the Net" have heard many of the same jokes, remember many of the same incidents, and have heard of many of the same people as the others. As with any other community or society, you need to figure out the rules everyone goes by. Of course, no matter what you do, learning is going to take a little time.

Many of the tips on etiquette I gave you in Lesson 5, "Understanding E-Mail," apply to Usenet, as well. In fact, you may want to go back and quickly read the end of that lesson again to refresh your memory. You can take several additional steps on Usenet to make your transition to the Net smoother.

Lurk Before You Leap

When I first got on the Net many years ago, a friend of mine told me to never post to a newsgroup until I had read it for two weeks first. Never was a better piece of advice given. Getting on a newsgroup and immediately posting is the same as barging in and interrupting a conversation in progress.

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CAUTION: Whatever you do, don't ever use the terms bulletin board or bbs to describe a newsgroup. This offense is tantamount to referring to a Harley Davidson motorcycle as a scooter.

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The act of simply reading a newsgroup, also called lurking, is a great way to find out what is appropriate for that newsgroup. Lurking is the best way to get the "context" of the group before jumping in. Also, remember that not all groups are the same; lurking on one group for a while does not qualify you to jump in on another group. Read each group you want to post to for at least a few days before you begin to participate.

The War of the Newsgroups

No, this section isn't a rewrite of the H.G. Wells classic. Newsgroup wars can all too easily happen when tempers and emotions get out of control. Remember that a flame is a personal or otherwise derogatory attack. In e-mail, a flame can be relatively harmless. But let one fly in a group surrounding a particularly heated topic, and you've got a full-blown flame war on your hands.

In Usenet, perhaps more than anywhere else on the Internet, you must think carefully about what you're going to write before you write it. Senseless attacks on people and ideas rarely win over anyone and usually succeed only in producing lots of useless posts about nothing. If you're susceptible to a quick keyboard finger, you might want to stay away from groups such as alt.abortion and others that are just flame wars waiting to happen.

Newsgroup No-Nos

Posting the same article to hundreds or even thousands of newsgroups, either as individual postings or as a number of cross-postings, is possible. This act, called spamming, is not acceptable behavior. No topic is relevant to 20 or more newsgroups. If you choose to spam anyway, someone will cancel your posts, and chances are your site will revoke your Usenet access as well.

New Term: Cross-posting: Just as you can send e-mail to more than one person, you can post an article to more than one newsgroup, which is called cross-posting. You should always exercise extra caution when cross-posting, to make sure that you are sending articles only to appropriate groups.

Another way to bring yourself lots of grief is to shamelessly advertise your business on Usenet. Advertising is not the purpose of Usenet. More appropriate forums, such as the World Wide Web, are set up for business promotion. More often than not, advertising on Usenet brings a lot of unwanted e-mail into your mailbox.

Finally, most laws do apply to Usenet and other electronic media. You may be tempted to post the text to John Grisham's latest thriller. Just be aware that, if you do, you are liable for the same consequences that any other violator faces.

So what does happen when people start using a newsgroup inappropriately? Most newsgroups deal with this issue by using moderation. Quite simply, in a moderated newsgroup, each posting goes to an individual instead of directly to the group. This person, called the moderator, checks the message to make sure that it's appropriate and then sends it on to the group.

Some newcomers to Usenet are shocked to hear of moderated groups and think of moderation as a form of censorship. All a moderator can do is prevent a posting from appearing in one particular newsgroup; plenty of unmoderated newsgroups are around, so any rejected posting can easily be posted elsewhere.

On the other hand, some newcomers can't believe that some groups are unmoderated. These people expect some authority figure to remove offensive or obscene material. Because Usenet is a cooperative anarchy, however, and the vast majority of groups get along nicely without moderators, always having a moderator isn't likely to happen.

Summary

In this lesson, you learned exactly what Usenet and newsgroups are and where they came from. They work similarly to listservs but differ in that they are accessed by the user. This lesson taught you how newsgroups are arranged into hierarchies, as well as how these hierarchies help you find useful information.

In addition, you learned some of the ins and outs of newsgroup etiquette. You now know many of the most common mistakes to avoid, such as flaming, spamming, and advertising. At this point, you're ready to move on to the workshop to help extend your knowledge.

Workshop

The following workshop helps solidify the skills that you learned in this lesson.

Q&A

Q I'm not sure I understand why it's so terrible to do some advertising and cross-posting on Usenet. Can you explain a little more?

A Sure. First, a vehicle for disseminating commercial information already exists; it's called the World Wide Web. Second, a lot of newsgroups and a lot of articles appear in those newsgroups. Remember that someone is paying for all this traffic. Needless replication of posts and lots of useless posts only add to the costs a server administrator absorbs and then immediately passes on to you, the user.

Q What if I'm interested in a newsgroup but can't find it on my news server. What do I do?

A The best thing to do is to ask your Internet service provider if such a group exists. If it does, you can ask the ISP to add the group to its server. Another avenue is to find a related newsgroup, lurk awhile, and then ask if such a newsgroup exists.

Q I was fascinated by the concept of buying something through a newsgroup. Isn't there a lot of potential for getting ripped off?

A Yes, there is. A little common sense, however, can help. First, avoid deals that look too good to be true; they probably are. Next, lurk on the newsgroup to see if you can find any complaints about the person selling the item. Finally, when you're buying a big-ticket item, always use C.O.D. This way, you assure yourself that you'll at least receive the product before you buy it.

Quiz

Take the following quiz to see how much you've learned.

Questions

Answers

Activity

Come up with at least five topics that you're interested in. Next, given what you know about newsgroup hierarchies, try to guess which hierarchy each one of your topics would fit into. For an added challenge, try to guess the actual newsgroup name your topic might have. When you learn how to search for newsgroups in the next lesson, you can see how well you did.