Netnews/Usenet: Discussions with the Networked World

How would you like to listen in while experts in a field that interests you have an animated conversation? Even better, how would you like to interrupt, to ask questions and to add your own two cents worth? All from the comfort of your own home or office, at your leisure? Welcome to the world of Netnews newsgroups. But be careful -- they may be habit forming!

Open conversations are being held on a gazillion topics, from computers and chemistry to politics, religion and sports, from physics, philosophy and psychology to music and motorcycles. Or, more exciting in some ways, you can participate in an ongoing conversation with the faculty in your department, the students in your class, or meet local people with common interests. The most recent few weeks of these conversations are available through Netnews, day or night.

Netnews, also called Usenet news, is a large collection of open bulletin boards. Just enter the command

Netnews

The only sensible way to deal with such a large number of groups is to organize them into a hierarchy. Netnews does this, separating the parts of the group name with dots. For example, "sci.math.num-analysis" is devoted to numerical analysis; it is obviously related to math, which is in turn a sci (for science) group. The groups beginning with uic are distributed only here on campus. There are regional hierarchies for states or countries (like the chi group for Chicago), but most are distributed worldwide.

Each site chooses which of the around 8000 news groups they'll subscribe to; we have about 3000 at UIC. Since a given site might not have all the groups of interest, it might be necessary to get news feeds from several other sites. We get most of our news groups from Northwestern University, and the rest from various other sources. In turn, we feed other sites, including PCs running newsreaders. It takes some time for the news to hop from computer to computer; it's been estimated that it takes about 8 hours for a post to be propagated worldwide.

Usually the focus of a hierarchy is obvious from the name: SCI for science, comp for computers, rec for recreation, soc for social, news for Netnews itself, and so forth. Three of the groups available at UIC are commercial services: acc, from American Cybercasting, which has articles from the LA Times, the Washington Post, and USA Today; clari, which has articles from the Associated Press; and jrnl, from Journal Graphics, which has transcripts of various TV talk and news shows.

Some groups get the same questions asked over and over, because the asker is new and the answer disappeared three weeks ago. In response, many groups routinely post a FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions, along with answers). The FAQ files are also often available through gopher or by anonymous ftp from other sites. Some are available on INFORM; use the search keyword faq. Another good place to look is rtfm.mit.edu, a server at MIT which has many FAQ s available for downloading by anonymous ftp. Please check with a group's FAQ before posting a legitimate, but perhaps common, question.

Netnews is fairly easy to use, but there are many things about it that you might want to know, including something about Netnews culture. There are definite expected behaviors on what to post (and what not to post), what groups to post to, how much of an old note to include in a posting, and so forth. New users should take a quick look at the "Netnews User's Guide", available through INFORM (use the search keyword netnews). Or check out the various groups under the news hierarchy. Remember when you post, your note will be read by thousands of busy people.

The procedure for creating new news groups with worldwide distribution is a little complicated, but we can create local UIC groups very easily. If your organization or class or department needs a group, let us know. The CSO is the place to go with questions on how to use Netnews, how to get a newsreader, or how to add new news groups; stop by 2267 SEL, call 413-0003, or send a note to consult@uic.edu.

Comments are appreciated; send them to
Robert Goldstein, bobg@uic.edu