Reading Newsgroups

Another popular method of information exchange on the Internet is through the use of Usenet newsgroups (also known as Internet news or simply discussion groups). 

Newsgroups are similar to bulletin boards.  A message is posted about a particular topic (or thread), other users then respond to that message or create a new thread of their own.

There are well over 14,000 different newsgroups available.  Some of them are exclusive to UIC, many others are public forums accessible to anyone on the Internet.

UIC newsgroups
By convention, UIC newsgroups are named following the form uic.xxxxx where xxxxx is the newsgroup name; for example: uic.computer or uic.class.math101 Newsgroups set for UIC classes always start with uic.class. 

Reading News with a newsreader
A program called a newsreader is used to participate in Usenet News. These days, Netscape Communicator, through its Message Center component, can act as a newsreader and is in fact the supported ACCC newsreader program. Pine on UNIX can also serve as a plain-text newsreader and is also supported by the ACCC.

Reading News with Netscape
URLs of the form news:<group> where <group> is a valid newsgroup name can be used to access a newsgroup in Netscape; for example: news:uic.general

Entering news: by itself as a Netscape URL brings up a directory of local newsgroups.  To search for and add specific newsgroups, click Subscribe to Discussion Groups under the File pull-down menu once you are in the Netscape Message Center.

Samples of newsgroups:

• uic.general
  A general newsgroup for the UIC Community
• news.newusers.questions
  An excellent source of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) for the novice user