Simply put, an Internet newsgroup is somewhere that people who share a passion for a topic or a person can swap stories, help each other out and try to sort out problems, without any money changing or hands or without anybody meeting physically. Some people see newsgroups as one of the most valuable resources on the Internet. On many of the technical newsgroups, people who are considered gurus in the field help out others free of charge, often with patience and a great deal of attention to detail. If you have a passion for some esoteric subject that bores the pants of your nearest and dearest, you are bound to find a newsgroup to chat to obsessives like yourself.
In the beginning
In 1979 Steve Bellovin, Jim Ellis and Tom Truscott came up with the idea that is now seen as the genesis of Usenet, the collective name for newsgroups. Although many others have since contributed to its development and growth, Usenet had its origins in the desire of Unix programmers to communicate easily with each other. Steve Bellovin, a graduate student at University of North Carolina, describes how at first it had only about 100 users with only about one or two new articles a day. From the beginning, Usenet culture was about like-minded enthusiasts helping and supporting each other. This is still the Usenet culture even though its scope has broadened immensely. A detailed history of the origins of Usenet can be found at www.columbia.edu/~rh120/.
The best place to find newsgroups relevent to your interests is at www.deja.com. Here you will find that newsgroups are grouped under several headings. For example, newsgroup names that begin with ‘comp.’ are generally about computers. Newsgroups that begin with ‘alt.’ [alternative] cover just about every kind of interest. Search for the name of a person or a topic you are interested in to generate a list of newsgroups on this topic.
Once you have found a newsgroup you are interested in you might consider ‘lurking’ for a while. This means viewing and read other people’s postings and conversations without making a contribution yourself.
Usenet is text-based so it can take a while to download and read all the contributions on a particular topic. If you wish to access newsgroups from your own PC, the first thing you will have to do is download a list of the newsgroups available from your own Internet Service Provider (ISP). If you use Outlook Express, do this by choosing Tools*Newsgroups. This can take several minutes the first time you do it (depending on your modem speed), but once downloaded you can view the complete list of newsgroups available — there are usually thousands on offer. The next step is to type in a keyword search for the subject that interests you and then you will find the relevant groups.
If you know of a particular newsgroup that isn’t provided by your ISP — a newsgroup concerning a rare disease, for example — if you contact your service provider they will usually make access available.
Random examples of some of the newsgroups on offer are: 24hoursupport.helpdesk, alt.agriculture.beef, and net.bicycles.general. But if you wish to indulge in more obscure interests there are newsgroups such as alt.anna.nicole.smith and alt.assassination.jfk. The technical help on many of the newsgroups is often very good indeed. I posted a rather obscure question about Excel on a newsgroup and within hours got a solution from an Excel guru in Australia.
Dos and don’ts
All newsgroups have certain rules. Moderators of these newsgroups will frequently post FAQs (frequently asked questions) that give the guidelines for posting. In general, cross-posting — sending a request for information to several newsgroups at once — is considered bad manners as it leads to peope answering the same query more than once.
Do not post requests in HTML format because this takes longer to download and not all computers can read posts in this format. It is also considered unacceptable to post attachments for the same reason. Advertisements and job offers are also considered unacceptable. However, many of the experts who post replies to newsgroups end up beingoffered work privately.
Do not post your answer in CAPITAL LETTERS LIKE THIS. This is considered the same as shouting and will probably result in several derogatory responses of a barrage of flaming e-mails.
When you are posting a technical question to a newsgroup, you need to be as specific as possible. For example, ‘What’s error 2451 in Access 97?’ is more likely to elicit a response than ‘Problem with Access’. Take your time to describe your problem as accurately as possible, include error messages verbatim and also describe what you are trying to do.
Reply to all postings courteously. Avoid abusing or insulting anyone — it will merely trigger off a rash of similar insulting responses that is annoying for those not caught up in the row. And don’t forget to thank people and let them know if their advice as helped.
If you don’t get a response to a request for help, try posting your problem again but phrase the subject line in a slightly different way. This will usually get a response. Even if it doesn’t , please remember the people kind enough to answer your questions are volunteers and are under no obligation whatsoever to come to your aid
If your posting gets a response, it will have a + beside it and all other replies and comments on your posting will be in this ‘thread’. Because of the sheer number of postings on some of newsgroups, postings more than a week old may not be available to view (In Outlook Express 5 using Tools*Options*Maintenance, and in most newsreader programs, you can specify a date limit on the messages available for viewing). It is therefore a good idea to save or print out any replies or suggestions you get to your problem.
Further useful guidelines on using newsgroups can be found at www.internet-tips.net/Newsgroups/Newsgroups.htm.
Spot the expert
MVPs is short for ‘most valued professional’ and are the newsgroup technical community equivalent to Oscars. These are people deemed by other users to have given the most accurate and technically helpful assistance on particular products within the newsgroups. These people are considered gurus in their field and many of them post on a daily basis to the newsgroups. They are often the most approachable and patient of the people posting to the newsgroups. A list of them and their Websites can be found at www.mvps.org.
If you have a passionate interest in anything. you can discover a totally new group of friends and source of advice using newsgroups. Usenet proves that the best things in life really are free!
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