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| Newsgroups, Forums and Web Boards | What are Newsgroups? |
What are Newsgroups?
Newsgroups allow you to to ask for advice, to give your opinion, or to read about your next vacation, without having to sign up for a mailing list or use a chat session. USENET is a non-physical worldwide network of computers which transmit messages to newsgroups.
You can choose which newsgroups to read, and your mailbox is not cluttered by them. They are conveniently organised by topic. You can post your message, and other people will then read your message. Then they will reply to your message, etc. Other people will start their own new topics - related responses to a topic are all called a thread. Your ISP might offer USENET news, in that case it has a news server that receives a newsfeed which contains everyone's news messages, potentially read by millions.
There are over 20000 newsgroups, organised by major subject hierarchies. There are 8 major hierarchies (called the BIG 8) - comp (computing), news (Usenet information), rec (hobbies, arts, recreation), sci (scientific research), soc (social issues and newsgroups pertaining to countries), talk (discussions on controversial issues), humanities (literature, fine arts and other humanities) and misc (anything else). Every category is then subdivided into further subcategories e.g. rec.music.jazz, comp.virus, etc. You can find faqs of newsgroups at faqs.org.
There are many alternative hierarchies which are very similar to USENET groups but aren't officially part of USENET. These include the popular alt hierarchy (this varies in the rules which are used to operate it, that is why it is called alt - it has nothing to do with alternative lifestyles and the like) (e.g. of a newsgroup is alt.culture.malta), and the malta.* hierarchy. Most countries have their own national hierarchy e.g. Italy has it.*, France has fr.*, Germany has de.*, and Malta has malta.*.
Normally some special software called a newsreader is required to read and post to newsgroups but you can get away with either just using the newsgroup facility of Netscape or IE, or else, especially if you not have access to a news server for a particular group, you might access the newsgroup(s) using a web site which allows you to do this. In the case of Malta Network Resources, going to the Newsgroups Section allows you to view Maltese newsgroups as web pages and to post to them.
If you want to download newsreader software, some good programs to use include Free Agent, Gravity (under Windows 95/NT) ; trn,lynx (under UNIX).
Go to the Newsgroup Quickstart page