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A newsgroup is a place on the Internet where you can read people's opinions or thoughts on a particular topic and post a response if you so choose. Some newsgroups, such as those under alt.binaries, include graphics. Some examples of newsgroups are:
There is a newsgroup about every topic imaginable. To get the full list of newsgroups, select Community from your Home page, then choose Discuss. The Featured discussions page will appear, which includes webtv.users, the moderated WebTV newsgroup, as well as that day's featured newsgroups. To get a complete list, select All groups from the menu on the left-hand side of the screen. There are many newsgroups for WebTV users only, and to get a list of those, just type in "alt.discuss" in the search blank on the bottom of the screen. Any newsgroup that begins with alt.discuss is for WebTV users, and cannot be accessed by other Internet users. For more information on how the naming of newsgroups works, take a look at Tip #4. For more information about newsgroups in general, check out this article from the Archive. Usenet is made up of the many thousands of newsgroups available on the Internet. WebTV Networks gives you access to Usenet under Discuss, found in Community. For more information about Usenet and its rules and lingo, take a look at this site: EFF's Extended Guide to the Internet 3. Are there any newsgroups just for WebTV users? Yes, there are many. The only newsgroup run by WebTV, though, is webtv.users, a moderated discussion about all WebTV-related topics. To get to that newsgroup, choose Community from the Home page, then Discuss, then webtv.users. There are also many other newsgroups that only WebTV users can access. They all begin with the "alt.discuss" prefix. To get a complete list of these groups, go to Discuss as described above, then type in "alt.discuss" in the search blank on the bottom of the screen. This will display the full list, and you'll find a wide range of topics to discuss with your fellow WebTV users. 4. How does newsgroup naming work? A typical newsgroup name would be something like: rec.arts.movies.reviews Each part of the name is part of a "path." The most common major paths are alt, soc, rec, and talk. The example above starts out on the rec path, takes a turn at rec.arts, goes to rec.arts.movies, and finally reaches the specified newsgroup at rec.arts.movies.reviews. 5. What do the three dots at the right side of the screen mean when I'm looking at a list of groups? Those three dots mean that this link is to another list of groups further down the path, all of whom have that part of their name in common. For instance, there are a large number of groups listed under the path of alt.binaries, so selecting that link would take you to a listing of the groups that fall under the heading alt.binaries. 6. What does "RE:" mean in the title of some postings? News articles are sorted by thread. A thread is a series of postings that all have the same topic. RE: means is that this particular message is in response a previous post on that topic. 7. How are postings in newsgroups displayed? Each post is sorted by topic, also called a "thread," with the postings listed chronologically. The order in which the threads are displayed is based on how recently something was added to that thread. More recent posts will be displayed earlier in the list. This means that old but still active threads will be shown before new threads in which there is no recent response. 8. How do you reply to the author of a post, instead of the entire newsgroup? When reading an article, you are given a choice between Mail to and Respond. Mail to sends a reply to the author of the article. Respond sends a posting to that newsgroup in response to that article. 9. What does "moderated" mean? In a moderated group, a person or a number of people will read each post before allowing it to be added to that newsgroup. Articles posted to moderated groups will almost always take longer to appear than those articles posted to unmoderated newsgroups. The purpose of moderation is to filter out off-topic or inappropriate messages. People of all types participate in newsgroups. Heated discussions often arise leading to "flaming." Flaming is when someone writes an attack on another person in a newsgroup, often without provocation. Flaming is an everyday part of newsgroups, and is the result of many people with many opinions talking together. Flaming may be irrational and unfair, but you should either ignore the comments or respond in a non-inflammatory way. 11. Can I keep my children from accessing the newsgroups? Many newsgroups are of an adult nature, so we did make it possible to restrict access to them. Access to newsgroups is denied to accounts with any access restrictions such as Surfwatch, Kid-Friendly, or blocked email. Please put one of these in place on your children's accounts if you are concerned about them finding inappropriate material in Usenet. To activate these restrictions, login as the primary user, choose Setup and then WebTV Users if you're using a Classic, or Using WebTV and then Additional Users if you're on a Plus. Then select the user name you would like to restrict and you will be taken to the User information screen. You can add passwords, block email or chat, and activate Surfwatch or Kid-friendly on this page. 12. What's so bad about TYPING IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS? When writing online, it is generally seen as poor Netiquette to type a message in all capital letters. In Internet style, that is seen as SHOUTING and should be used sparingly. It often makes your message more difficult to read and can anger other Internet veterans. 13. Can I create my own newsgroup? If you want to create a newsgroup in Usenet, you will need to go out onto Usenet and find exactly what you need to do. The newsgroup news.announce.newusers has information about Usenet, how it works, and also will tell you what you need to do to create a group. It is not an easy process, and can be very time consuming. You can find more info on creating alt newsgroups at http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/~barr/alt-creation-guide.html. If you want to create a newsgroup within the alt.discuss hierarchy (which is only accessible by WebTV users), you can propose a new newsgroup by emailing advotes@vote.munitions.com with the subject line "propose alt.discuss.groupname" such as "propose alt.discuss.knitting". Do not put quotes around the subject. In the email body you should describe what the group will be about — this will be the group charter and will be posted with the proposal in the newsgroup alt.discuss.config. Once proposed, people will vote for or against it and if it gets enough votes, the group will be formed. You can get more information on this process by emailing nobody@votes.munitions.com or by going into the newsgroup alt.discuss.announce for more information. |
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