Virtual Community USENET newsgroup

Virtual Community 

USENET newsgroup 

CSC1720 – Introduction to Internet 

Essential Materials

Outline 

What is USENET news? 

Newsgroup Naming 

How does it work? NNTP? 

How to search your favorite 

newsgroup? 

Miscellaneous Topics 

Do’s Do s and Don'ts 

How to setup a USENET newsgroup? 

CSC1720 – Introduction to Internet 2 

All copyrights reserved by C.C. Cheung 2003.

What is USENET news? 

Globally distributed discussion forum. forum. 

Also known as USENET News. News. 

A collection of special interest groups, called 

newsgroups. 


Each newsgroup is devoted to a certain topic. 

There are over 6,000 newsgroups in the news 

server of CSC, CUHK. 

There are over 8,088 newsgroups in the news 

server of Engineering Faculty, CUHK. 

Under each newsgroup, there are many 

messages called news articles. articles. 



Definitions 

News administrator – A person who is in charge of 

running a news server. 

News server – A computer that saves, forwards and 

manages news articles. Usually, a news server is 

running in one domain. 

News reader – A program that allows user to 

read/post/subscribe/unsubscribe a newsgroup. 

Newsgroup – An on-line on line forum that allows users 

from the Internet to join the discussion on a 

specific topic. 

Usenet – A collection of newsgroups 



Terminology 

Article 

Post 

Posting 

Follow-up Follow up 

Thread 

Subscribe 

Unsubscribe 

Newsreader 

News client 

Expired news 

News server 

Newsfeed 

Way-station Way station 

NNTP 



News reader 

Tin Outlook Express 



News reader – Web-based Web based 



News Server – UNIX/Win 



Mark Moraes's Explanation 

Subject: What is Usenet? 

Date: Sat, 28 Dec 1996 09:01:25 GMT 

From: netannounce@deshaw.com (Mark Moraes) Moraes) 

Newsgroups: 

news.announce.newusers, 

news.announce.newusers, 

news.admin.misc, news.admin.misc, 

news.answers 

Followup-To: 

Followup To: news.newusers.questions 

Usenet Usenet is the set of people who exchange articles tagged with one one 

or 

more universally-recognized universally recognized labels, called "newsgroups" (or "groups" for 

short). There is often confusion about the precise set of newsgroups newsgroups 

that 

constitute Usenet; one commonly accepted definition is that it consists consists 

of 

newsgroups listed in the periodic "List of Active Newsgroups" postings postings 

which appear regularly in news.lists and other newsgroups. A broader broader 

definition of Usenet would include the newsgroups listed in the article 

"Alternative Newsgroup Hierarchies" (frequently posted to news.lists). news.lists). 

An even broader definition includes even newsgroups that are restricted restricted 

to specific geographic regions or organizations. Each Usenet site site 

makes 

its own decisions about the set of groups available to its users; users; 

this set 

differs from site to site. 



Newsgroup Naming 

Newsgroups are organized in a hierarchical 

structure. 

With the broadest grouping first. 

Followed by an arbitrary number of sub-groupings. 

sub groupings. 

A notation you're probably familiar with: 

– rec.music.folks 

– cuhk.forum 

– cuhk.cse.csc1720 

The name of each newsgroup is based on its 

content and is self-explanatory. 

self explanatory. 



The Big Eight 

comp 

Computer science and related 

topics. 

comp.theory.cell-automata automata 

comp.internet.library, etc. 

comp.theory.cell 

news 

Groups concerned with the news 

network and news software. 

news.newusers.questions 

news.software.readers, etc. 

rec 

Groups discussing hobbies, 

recreational activities, and arts. 

rec.arts.manga, , rec.arts.tv rec.arts.tv, , etc. 

rec.arts.manga 

sci 

Groups discussing scientific 

research and applications (other 

than computer science). and arts. 

sci.aeronautics, , sci.geo.meteorology 

sci.geo.meteorology, , 

etc. 

sci.aeronautics 

soc 

Groups that address social issues, where 

social can mean politically relevant or 

socializing, or anything in between. 

soc.culture.swiss, , soc.women, etc. 

soc.culture.swiss 

talk 

The talk groups are a forum for debate on 

controversial topics, The discussions tend 

to be long long-winded winded and unresolved. This is 

where to go if you want to argue about 

religion. 

talk.philosophy.humanism 

talk.religion.buddhism 

talk.religion.buddhism, , etc. 

misc 

Anything that doesn't fit into the above 

categories, or that fits into several 

categories. 

misc.legal, misc.jobs.resume, etc. 

humanities 

Another major group? 

humanities.misc 

humanities.misc, , humanities.classics, etc. 



Alternate Newsgroups 

Over the years, some useful/popular local newsgroups are as 

widely distributed as the core USENET groups. 

alt - Groups that discuss " 

alt Groups that discuss "alternative alternative ways of looking at things things". ". 

alt.gopher, alt.x alt.x-files.rpg files.rpg, , etc. 

biz - Discussions related to business. This newsgroup hierarchy allows 

postings of advertisements or other marketing materials. Such ac activity tivity is not 

allowed in other groups. 

biz.digital.announce, biz.clarinet.webnews.sports 

biz.clarinet.webnews.sports, , etc. 

fi - Technical, recreational, and social discussions in Japanese 

fj.rec.fishing 

fj.rec.fishing, , fj.soc.traffic fj.soc.traffic, , etc. 

ieee - Discussions related to the IEEE (Institute of Electronic and Ele Electrical ctrical 

Engineers) 

ieee.announce 

ieee.announce, , ieee.stds.announce 

ieee.stds.announce, , etc. 

k12 - A group dedicated to teachers and students, kindergarten through high 

school. 

k12.chat.elementary, k12.library, etc. 



Read Newsgroup – 

Outlook Express 



Newsgroup – alt 

Different news server 

Different newsgroups 



Cannot access news server 



Local Newsgroups 

Your local region/organization may have newsgroups 

created locally. 

Though created locally, news may still be passed to other 

regions/organizations if so wanted and configured. 

For example, CUHK can read tw news though they are 

created locally in Taiwan. 

hk - Hong Kong 

hk 

hk.general hk.general, , hk.comp.mac 

hk.comp.mac, , hk.comp.pc hk.comp.pc, , etc. 

tw - Tai Wan (in Big5 Chinese code) 

tw.bbs.campus.nctu 

tw.bbs.campus.nctu, , tw.bbs.lang.spanish 

tw.bbs.lang.spanish, , tw.bbs.rec.movie 

tw.bbs.rec.movie, , etc. 

cuhk - You should know! 

cuhk.forum cuhk.forum, , cuhk.alumni.forum 

cuhk.alumni.forum, , etc. 



News server: 

news.cuhk.edu.hk 

subscribe 

CSC1720 newsgroup 

csc1720 newsgroup 



How does it work? 

You use a news reader to read news, post news, follow-up follow up a piece 

of news, etc. 

Your newsreader interrogates with a news server. server. 

A news server negotiates with other servers to transfer certain 

newsgroups between each other (news ( news feed). feed). 

A news server holds the news articles for a certain pre-set pre set period 

(controlled by the server's administrator). 

And eventually discards them at their expiry date. date. 

Page 155, The Whole Internet - User's Guide & Catalog Catalog, , Ed Krol Krol, , O'Reilly & Associates, Inc. 



How does it work? (cont’) (cont 

A news server holds the news articles for a certain pre-set pre set 

period (controlled by the server's administrator). 

And eventually discards them at their expiry date. date. 

In CSC, CUHK, 

– 30 days for local newsgroups, i.e. hk and cuhk 

– 5-10 10 days for overseas newsgroups 

News feed generates a huge amount of network traffic and 

storage requirements. 

A typical server subscribing 2,500 newsgroups may receive 

more than 50 Mbytes per day. 

A server administrator may choose not to accept certain group, 

either because: 

– The group is too active and consumes a lot of resources. 

– The content is not suitable for the proximity, for example, alt. alt.sex sex 

may not be appropriate in a working environment. 



Network News Transfer 

Protocol (NNTP) 

The protocol that is used for posting/ distributing/ 

retrieving USENET news articles among news server. 

Quoted from Requests For Comments - RFC977 

– The news server specified by this document uses a stream 

connection (such as TCP) and SMTP-like SMTP like commands and 

responses. It is designed to accept connections from hosts, 

and to provide a simple interface to the news database. This 

server is only an interface between programs and the news 

databases. It does not perform any user interaction or 

presentation- presentation level functions. These "user-friendly" "user friendly" functions 

are better left to the client programs, which have a better 

understanding of the environment in which they are operating. 

When used via Internet TCP, the contact port assigned for this 

service is 119. 



How to search newsgroup? 



ROT13 Encryption 

Potentially offensive postings should be encrypted. encrypted. 

A common encryption method is rot13. rot13. 

If you read the content of the news, you may find: 

Jrypbzr gur gur pbhefr pfp1720. 

Guvf zrffntr vf rapelcgrq hfvat ebg13. 

You may ask your news reader to decrypt it and you will 

obtain: 

Welcome the the course csc1720. 

This message is encrypted using rot13. 

Can you figure out how rot13 encrypts text? 

– Rotation 13 – letters are rotated 13 positions further down 

the alphabet. 



ROT13 in Outlook Express 



Moderated Newsgroups 

Some newsgroups are moderated. moderated. 

A moderator examines the content of a newly 

posted article first before the article is actually 

released to the public. 

Posting to a moderated group is no different 

than posting to any other group. 

News servers know which groups are 

moderated and who moderates them. 

Your newly posted articles are forwarded to the 

appropriate moderator automatically. 

How about “unmoderated 

unmoderated newsgroups”? 

newsgroups 



Threading 

A thread 



News Attachment 



uuencode / uudecode 

UNIX-to UNIX to-UNIX UNIX encode 



Encode a file into 

printable characters 

Pictures, multimedia files, executable 

programs can be posted in newsgroups. 

– .MPG, .TXT, .JPG, .EXE, etc. 

– Translate a binary file into a special code that 

consists entirely of printable characters. 

But we cannot post them directly into 


– Must be specially encoded to be posted. 

UUENCODE – a common scheme. 



Cross Posting 

Sometimes, you may want to post the same 

article in several groups at once. 

This is called cross posting. posting. 

For example: 

You may want to post an article to initiate a 

discussion on Jacky Cheung's new musical. 

You think a few newsgroups are related. 

hk.entertainment, 

hk.entertainment, 

hk.rec.music, 

hk.rec.music, 

hk.general, hk.general, 

hk.forsale, hk.forsale, 

alt.music.misc, 

alt.music.misc, 

Best specify the Followup-To 

Followup To. . 



Do’s Do s and Don’ts Don ts 

Don't post "Hi, I am John." type of messages. 

Don't follow up and email reply at the same 

time. 

Don't post nasty articles. 

Do post test messages only to cuhk.test, cuhk.test, 

alt.test, alt.test, 

hk.test. hk.test 

Do think before you crosspost. crosspost. 

Do post only to relevant groups. 

Do read news for some time to learn the culture 

of a newsgroup before posting on the 

newsgroup. 



When you reply a news or 

email 

How to write effective reply? 

– Quote and trim messages properly 

– Top down formatting 

Please write reply below the original message 

– HTML/richtext 

HTML/ richtext email 

HTML email is bad, why? 

– Reply length 

Send a reply to a list with one sentence long? 

– Include your signature 



New Comers 

news.announce.newusers 

news.announce.newusers 

This group consists of a series of articles that explain various facets of 

Usenet. 



This is where you can ask questions about how Usenet works. 

news.announce.newsgroups 

news.announce.newsgroups 

Look here for information about new or proposed newsgroups. 

news.answers 

news.answers 

Contains lists of "Frequently Asked Questions" ( (FAQs FAQs) and their 

answers from many different newsgroups. Learn how to flight jet lag in 

the FAQ from rec.travel.air 

rec.travel.air; ; look up answers to common questions about 

MS Windows in an FAQ from comp.os.ms 

comp.os.ms-windows windows; ; etc. 

alt.internet.services 

alt.internet.services 

Looking for something in particular on the Internet? Ask here. 

alt.infosystems.announce 

alt.infosystems.announce 

Adding new information services to the Internet will post detail details s here. 



How to start a newsgroup? 

A formal “Request Request for Discussion (RFD ( RFD) ) is 

posted to “news.announce.newgroup 

news.announce.newgroup” 

Next, Call for Votes (CFV ( CFV) ) is posted to the 

same newsgroup and the voting period will 

be 20-30 20 30 days. 

At the end of the period, the result are 

posted. 

The group will be created only if 

– 100 “yes yes” votes more than “no no” votes 

– At least two-thirds two thirds of the votes were “yes yes”. 



How to start a newsgroup? 



Internet Commons 

Flame War 

Spew, Blathers 

Excessive Quote 

Other Denizens 


Netiquette 

Smileys / Emoticons 

Abbreviations 



Flame War 

A flame is a particularly nasty, nasty, 

personal attack on somebody for 

something he or she has written. 

Takes up considerable resources. 

Flame wars can be tremendously 

fun to watch at first. They quickly 

grow boring, though. 

THINK! Before you join a flame war. 



Spew 

Spewers assume that whatever they are 

particularly concerned about is of 

universal interest. 

They send numerous articles to 

numerous newsgroups about the topic 

they concerned about. 

If you comment on his/her behavior, you 

will turn up to receive his/her reply which 

consists of hundreds of lines to 

comment you! 



Blathers 

The problem of blathers is that they 

can't get to the point. 

They write out screenfuls of words, 

when others might sum up in a 

sentence or two. 




People afflicted with this include the 

entire original message in their 

reply without excising irrelevant 

portions. 

The worst quote a long message 

and then add a single line: 

– "I agree!" 



Other Denizens 

Net.weenies - These are the kind of people who enjoy LOWER 

Net.weenies These are the kind of people who enjoy LOWER 

 

CASED insulting others. 

Net.geeks - People to whom the Net is Life, who worry about what 

happens when they graduate and lose their free, 24-hour 24 hour access. 

Lurkers - Actually, you can't tell these people are there, but they 

are. They're the folks who read a newsgroup but never post or 

respond. 

Wizards - People who know a particular Net-related Net related topic inside 

and out. 

Net.saints - Always willing to help a newcomer, eager to share 

their knowledge with those not born with an innate ability to navigate navigate 

the Net. They are not as rare as you might think. Post a question question 

about something and you'll often be surprised how many responses 

you get. 



Netiquette 

Netiquette, which is short for Internet 

etiquette, etiquette, 

is the code of acceptable 

behaviors users should follow while on 

the Internet; that is, the conduct 

expected on individuals while online. 

– Netiquette is all about respect. 

– Keep your messages short and to the point. 

– Watch your grammar and spelling. 

– Be careful with humor. Avoid sarcasm. 

– Be polite. Avoid offensive language. 



Netiquette 

Reference 



Netiquette 

Netiquette 

– Use uppercase words very sparingly. 

UPPERCASE TEXT YELLS AT PEOPLE. 

– Never leave your "subject" line blank. 

– Include your email address in the message 

body (i.e. in your signature file). 

– Avoid sending flames, flames, 

which are abusive or 

insulting messages. Never participate in 

flame war. war. 



Flame War 

Damp Squib 

Detonator 

Firefighter 

… 

reference 



Smileys / Emoticons 

Use emoticons to express 

emotions. Popular emoticons 

include 

Use 

– :) :( :o :) ;) :-# : # :-X : X :-O : O :( :< : ~ ( :P ;P ^-^ ^ ^ 

^_- ^_ ;_; T_T $_$ @_@ O

Examples Reference 



Abbreviations 

Bye For Now 

By The Way 

Grin 

Hope This Helps 

I Just Want To Know 

I Just Want To Say 

In My Humble Opinion 

Laughing Out Loud 

On The Other Hand 

Rolling on the Floor Laughing 

Thinking of You 

Your Mileage May Vary 



Acronyms http://www.muller-godschalk.com/acronyms.html 



References 

Internet FAQ Archives 

How USENET protocol works? 

The End. 

Thank you for your patience!

Virtual Community USENET newsgroup

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