Threaded Discussions (Usenet News)

Threaded discussions are text-based archives of email messages which are displayed in a particular manner so it is easy to follow the strands (or threads) of a specific discussion. Threaded discussions have been around almost as long as there has been an Internet. The historic technology for this sort of activity is called Usenet, so we will look at it first. Later we will look at another technology for doing the same task (web-based threaded discussions) which is replacing the venerable Usenet approach.

Usenet

Usenet is a collection of discussion groups (newsgroups) similar to listservs, but they differ in one major capacity. Rather than forcing you to receive each piece of mail from the group in your account, Usenet groups allow you to go to them and read mail stored at an Internet site. Read as much as you like, and your disk quota will not suffer. You don't subscribe to individual Usenet groups per se, but as long as you have a site where you can get to the groups, you can count on the mail being there. A nice option of Usenet is that many listservs are also stored on Usenet, so that you can avoid having to subscribe to them.

There are many different software programs, called newsreaders, that allow access to Usenet News via servers (or "hosts") located at major Internet sites. NewsWatcher, WinVN Newsreader, InterNews, Microsoft Outlook, and Netscape Navigator (version 2.0 or higher) are some of the most common newsreaders.

A news server (also called an NNTP Server) is a computer on which Usenet group archives reside. A news server at any individual site will usually not allow access to every Usenet group due to space and editorial considerations.

How Many and What Kinds?

Usenet demonstrates the diversity and vagaries of Internet culture like no other Internet application can. There are something like 50,000 newsgroups worldwide, so you should have no trouble finding something of interest among them. I've listed some of the major categories of groups below to get you headed in the right direction. However, my doing so is something of an oversimplification. In the alt groups, for instance, you'll find the serious (alt.internet.services), the risqué (alt.sex.stories), and the downright silly (alt.fan.lemurs). Don't think of these group categories as strict taxonomies; try to imagine them as broad neighborhoods. Some of the neighbors are okay, some are a little off-center, and some . . . well . . . what's the number for 911!?!? 8-)

Anyway, the category labels are usually three and four-letter abbreviations which are often a little vague and confusing to new users. Here are many of the most common abbreviations, followed by a brief definition:

Usenet Abbreviation	Definition
alt	broadly "alternative" groups with something of an iffy reputation
bit	newsgroups which redistribute listserv postings in Usenet format. Many listservs are archived in this way to save folks from strains on their accounts.
bionet	biological topics
comp	computer topics
misc	anything and everything, but "safer" than alt groups
rec	recreational topics
sci	scientific discussions
soc	social issues of all types
news	newsgroup topics--news.answers is a good group to find lists of FAQs (frequently asked questions) for individual newsgroups.
talk	open-ended debates on all topics
k12	all facets of K12 education

Individual newsgroup names will begin with a type code from the list above and continue onward with name segments separated by periods. Lengths will vary from two words to several. Most are three segments or less, but every now and then a "alt.swedish.chef.bork.bork.bork" (the name of a real group!) slips in.

Some Usenet Rules

Think of these rules as "ways to keep myself from being flamed repeatedly." People on newsgroups are sometimes a little touchy when confronted by newbies (don't ask me why). You can add these suggestions to my earlier list of netiquette guidelines to be completely safe in Usenet land.

1. Before posting to a group, read the FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) document. Newsgroups will usually keep a list of common questions and usage guidelines that are extremely useful for new users. It can be extremely annoying to regularly read a newsgroup and get the same newbie questions posted again and again and again. This may be how flaming began in the first place. By reading the FAQ, you can avoid asking these questions and be sure that your post fits the goals and intended audience of the group. You may have to read the newsgroup for a while before a FAQ is posted, or you can check in the newsgroup news.answers to see if the FAQ is located there. Not every group posts their FAQ to news.answers, but most do. This waiting period dovetails well with Rule 2.
   
2. Always read a group for at least one week before posting. This lets you make sure that you'll be observing group netiquette when you post.
   
3. Be especially careful with humor and sarcasm. Most newsgroups are distributed worldwide and sometimes a joke in one culture is not so funny in another. Besides, there are enough people who could get bent out of shape in our own culture.
   
4. Read all follow ups to a message and don't repeat what has already been said.

Basically, be careful out there, but have fun. Roam around and sample the wares in what Bennett Falk has called "the Usenet Bazaar."

How to Read the News

There are several ways to read Usenet news. The first is to use a dedicated Usenet newsreader application such as NewsWatcher, WinVN Newsreader, or the newsgroup module in Netscape Communicator (newsgroups are listed under the "Communicator" menu). NewsWatcher, WinVN Newsreader and links to other software is available at <http://www.augsburg.edu/it/downloads.html>.)

In order to get your newsreader application to retrieve the news, you need to give the program some information regarding where the newsgroups reside. This is similar to giving a web browser a web page address, except you only need to do it once. The news server address is usually something like "news.yourisp.net," where "yourisp.net" is the name of your ISP such as "aol.com" or "att.worldnet." Follow the setup instructions that your ISP gave you when you signed up for their service.

If you are on campus, you may connect to Usenet news via the news server at Onvoy, a private provider of integrated voice, data and Internet services (formerly the quasi-public MRNet), who provides Augsburg's Internet access. The address of Onvoy's news server is <news.onvoy.com>. No matter which newsreader program you choose, the news server address is a preference you must set in order for you to retrieve Usenet news.

Very Important Step!: Also, make sure your personalization information is entered! The personalization and other user-defined options can be found by selecting "Preferences..." from the File or Edit menu of most newsreader software applications.

Information about many Usenet newsgroups are provided at the following World Wide Web address:

http://tile.net/news/

Other Approaches to Usenet Via the WWW

More recently, many archives of Usenet and usenet-like discussions have been developed. The basic concept remains--discussions arrayed into nested threads--but the tool you use to access the discussion is the more familiar web browser rather than a Usenet news reader application.

Several commercial web sites have been developed to serve as "portals" to the sometimes confusing Usenet world. Some of these web sites provide access to the entire universe of Usenet groups. Others provide access to only a few or none of the official Usenet groups, but offer private discussions on topics similar to those found on Usenet. The main difference is participation--the discussions at some web sites probably will not include the vast number of potential users that Usenet has. For example, while potentially every user of the Internet (250 million and counting!) has free, anonymous, and unrestricted access to Usenet, only registered users of these special purpose web sites may post messages via these sites. The most popular of these news web sites is Deja.com.

Deja.com (www.deja.com), is a web site which offers access and searching capability to many Usenet archives and some other Deja.com-only discussion forums (approximately 45,000 discussion forums). It claims to be one of the Web's most popular sites. It is also very commercial and a bit confusing.

Deja.com, formerly known as Deja News, was founded in 1995 as the first destination on the Internet dedicated exclusively to discussion and was the first service capable of searching and archiving Usenet newsgroups. Steve Madere, the company's founder, created the sophisticated search-and-retrieve technology used at the site. Deja.com offers its services to consumers free-of-charge--it derives its revenue from sponsors and e-commerce partners.

Accessing Deja.com is as simple as pointing your web browser to their web site (www.deja.com). Follow the instructions found at their site. Again, several students have reported it is very commercial and a bit confusing, so you might not want to limit yourself to just Deja.

Other free commercial web-based portals to the Usenet experience include www.talkway.com and www.remarq.com. A fee-based service is available at www.newsguy.com.

Small Scale Threaded Discussions

Other web-based discussion tools have been developed, primarily for schools and workgroup settings, which permit threaded discussions for small groups of users. The Discussion Board found in the Communications Section of our CourseInfo web site is an example of this approach. It works in a manner similar to Usenet, but instead of potentially millions of users--it provides access to about 25 persons (the maximum number of students who may enroll in most courses).

Conclusion

Well, I appear to have come to the end of my ramblings on threaded discussions. I have found my experiences with these groups to be both enlightening and often fun. I have frequently accessed these groups to solve one problem or another with my computer--drawing on the collected wisdom and experience of other computer users is so much more efficient than brute trial-and-error on my part!

If we are to believe the story line from the film "Mission: Impossible," threaded discussion groups are used by international spies to communicate with one another. I am not sure if you will run into any spies during your exploration of threaded discussion groups, but just to be on the safe side--don't agree to rendezvous with anyone in Prague! ;-) Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to have fun and to learn. This computer will self-destruct in five seconds...good luck!

Internet Lessons version 1.5. Copyright of lessons (C) 1999 by Joseph A. Erickson, All Rights Reserved. Permission Granted for Individual Usage.

If you plan to distribute multiple copies of this work, please contact the author.

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