Newsgroups (NG), Usenet and BBS are one of the oldest services
available on the Internet. They are similar to the forums that are
widespread in the Web at present, in that these are places where
people come to discuss, mostly through text messages.
The core of Usenet is a network of newsgroup servers. A newsgroup
server operates on the NNTP (Network News Transfer
Protocol), similar to a Web server running on HTTP. Each server
hosts various newgroups, and the content in all the newsgroup
servers is synchronised on a regular basis. A user starts off a discussion
by sending a message to the newsgroup address on any
NNTP server. Other users connected to the same NNTP address,
and tracking the newsgroup can read that message. After the
NNTP server syncs with other NNTP servers the message becomes
visible to all NNTP users (this process is sometimes also called message
propagation). Similarly, replies to the message are also sent by
users to the NNTP server they are connected to, which then syncs
the data with the rest of the servers. Usually Internet Service
Providers host NNTP servers for their subscribers, though such a
service doesn’t seem to be offered by any of those based in India.
In the original scheme of things there were eight top level
categories of newsgroups, namely soc, comp, sci, rec, talk,
humanities, news and misc. Each of the main categories caters
to specialised topics: “soc” for discussion related to society, politics
etc; “comp” for discussions on computers and related technology;
“sci” for scientific discussions; “talk” for discussion on
general topics; “news” to discuss latest events; “misc” for uncategorised
topics; and “rec” to discuss hobbies or other recreational
activities. The “alt” category was added later on, and
with fewer restrictions on creating new NGs in this category, it
now has the most NGs. Starting a new NG in the “alt” category
is more easier than starting one under any of the rest. (But it is
still more difficult than starting your own Web forum). Since
there is no central authority ensuring a strict classification for
NGs, it is common to find NGs under top level category names
besides the main 9, like “hr” specifically for discussions in
Hungarian, etc.
There are subgroups under each of these main categories, and
recursively, more subgroups under those. A newsgroup can be
uniquely identified by its address which consists of the names of
all the groups it is under—for example comp.lang.c++ is a newsgroup
discussing the C++ programming language which was classified
under the languages newsgroup for discussing languages,
under the comp groups for discussion on IT topics. It would be
hard to make even a rough estimate on the actual number of newgroups,
but it is fairly correct to state that one exists to cater to
nearly every human interest.
When compared with Web forums, newsgroups are comparatively
“serious” in nature. Unlike forums with their reps and smilies
and emoticons and avatars, newsgroups are predominantly all
text. But, there are NGs that contain pictures and other content.
In fact, alt.binaries is an NG that is specially used to post large files
like movies etc, almost just like P2P networks. It is probably an
indication of the age of the users, but the discussions in newsgroups
tend to be serious, and the language formal and mature.
Unlike forums where there will be a censor or admin to monitor
the content, anything goes in most newsgroups. People are free to
post any topic in a newsgroup, but if they expect any meaningful
discussion it is best to practice self-censorship. Off topic posts usually
get a gentle reminder to repost in the appropriate newsgroup
or are simply just ignored, just like all the spam that also floods
these servers.
Most NNTP servers charge for granting access to users. Some
require you to register. But there are others that are free. Since
binaries take up a lot of space and bandwidth, it is almost impossible
to come across free NNTP servers offering this category of NG.
It is important to realise that the content on most NNTP servers
are regularly purged. So the chances of finding older topics are
quite slim, but this varies from server to server with some having
a shorter retention time than others.
To access NGs a NNTP client or newsreader is needed. NGs can
be also be accessed from online sites like groups.google.com,
which regularly updates NG data. Google has its own version of
newsgroups called Google Groups, which should not be confused
with the original NNTP newgroups. And given Google’s never-ending
and ever increasing hunger to store and process data, one can
be fairly certain that the posts will be there for a long time to
come, even after the original NNTP servers have purged them.
Given the similarity between e-mail and newsgroup clients,
most e-mail clients can also work as NG readers (and vice versa!),
and include the necessary options to configure an NG account.
Though, they will lack some of the features present in applications
positioned primarily as NG readers.
Configuring an NG client is similar to configuring an e-mail
client, but much simpler. One only needs a newsgroup IP to begin
with. If the NG only allows registered users, a username and password
will also be needed. A list of free NNTP servers can be
obtained from online sites like http://www.dmoz.org/Computers
/Usenet/Public_News_Servers/
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