Theme 5- Computers
Newsgroups
Links to information about Newsgroups: |
Also known as USENET, newsgroups are discussion areas where people post messages to the group. It is the Internet equivalent of a bulletin board.
Newsgroups differ from 'chat rooms' in that they are not 'real-time'-you are not communicating directly with the other users.
It works thus:
- You post a message, a letter, an essay, a question to the newsgroup
- The message is distributed worldwide. It will be sent to thousands of different 'news servers' and kept there for days, weeks, or months, depending on how the news server is set up
- Other participants in the newsgroup can post replies to your message or just read it, along with other people's replies
Some groups are moderated, that is postings will be sent to a sort of editorial board, which may be just one person who decides if the posting is relevant to the charter of the group and not too libellous, etc before posting it.
How you subscribe to newsgroups depends on your newsreader or mail program. Your ISP will have some sort of connection but you can use others.
Always remember that articles will 'expire' (be deleted) after a certain length of time. Some readers do this after you have read them so if you really need an article, copy it to a local file.
When posting to a newsgroup, remember that lots of people are going to read your message and you can't delete it! Always consider just emailing the other person directly first. Always check who the reply will go to before replying to newsgroup articles. Never post binary files (pictures etc.) in a non-binary newsgroup because these files are very large and many newsreaders download all the messages rather than just the headers.
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Internet Services- continued  |