USENET was created in 1979 by some postgrad computer students in North Carolina, as a hacked-together system for sharing information about Unix programming (of all things).
From such humble beginnings, it evolved into a global network of "newsgroups" Despite their name, Usenet newsgroups usually having nothing to do with today's news headlines per se. Instead, they are online discussion groups - ongoing collections of debates, thoughts, rants and raves about particular topics.
These newsgroups are organised into main sectors or categories (which are indicated by the first two or three or four letters of their name) and further subdivided into sub-sectors. Among the main category prefixes are:
alt. (alternative)
comp. (computer)
misc. (topics that don't fit in anywhere else)
news. (using newsgroups)
rec. (recreation)
soc. (social issues)
talk. (debates)
ie. (about Ireland) etc.
These headings are then subdivided into thousands of sub-categories, ranging from alt.impeach.clinton to rec.arts.cinema and many, many other subjects.
What you need
Later versions of Web browsers such as Netscape Navi- gator and Internet Explorer have built-in newsreading capabilities, but many stand-alone newsreaders also offer enhanced functions and are available on the Web as shareware and freeware.
For Windows, FreeAgent (at http://www.forteinc.com/agent/ freagent.htm) lets you filter out unwanted subject matter and organise the newsgroups you have signed up for; it also lets you download your newsgroups and read them off-line, saving telephone bills.
For Macs, NewsWatcher (at http://wuarchive.wustl.edu/systems/mac/info-mac/comm/inet/ ya-newswatcher-216.hqx) is popular too but lacks off-line newsreading abilities, though a small stand-alone off-line newsreader is the perfectly named MacSlurp (http:// wuarchive.wustl.edu/systems/ mac/info-mac/comm/tcp/mac- slurp-15.hqx). But these are just a few examples - there are many other excellent free or almostfree programs out there.
Trying it out
First, find out which newsgroups you might be interested in. Try a searchable index of all available newsgroups, at sites such as the excellent http:// tile.net/news
Then run your Internet software (and, if required, your newsreader), and "subscribe to" (i.e. join) a specific newsgroup. This doesn't cost anything, and you don't have to send your name and address anywhere - you have simply added the newsgroup's name to a master list on your Mac or PC.
Furthermore, the newsgroup messages ("posts") aren't sent directly to your computer - they sit on your Internet service provider's computer. When you run your newsreader software, you get a list of subject headings within a newsgroup, then you read (or download for reading off-line) the particular messages or posts you're interested in. The newsgroup's discussions are grouped together by these subject headings - or as "threads" of conversation.
Read the FAQ
Now that you are reading the newsgroup's latest postings, there is the temptation to jump in straight away and add your sixpence worth. But remember: you could be joining discussions which have been going on for weeks or months (or even years)! So read the group's Frequently Asked Questions (or FAQ) document which is usually posted at regular intervals to the group. It spells out the answers to those questions most newcomers are likely to ask.
Asking a question that is already covered in the FAQ is considered a major lapse of manners on Usenet. So do read the FAQ - and try to get a feel for the group and its directions by reading say a week's worth of postings.
Last posts
Messages sent to Usenet "expire" (or become inaccessible) after a certain amount of time, from two or three days to about a week. But some Web sites such as DejaNews (http:// www.dejanews.com/) save almost all the old postings. Apart from this resource, newsgroups aren't stored in a central location - in that sense they aren't "owned" by anybody.
The new postings are circulated through a merry-go-round system. On your network, your new message is tagged on to a particular newsgroup's new posts, then these are passed to the next network, which adds its own new posts, and so on. So all these posts eventually travel from network to network all around the world. This means that while your message might pop up immediately on your own network, it might take half an hour to appear on a network in the middle of Europe, and an entire day to appear in Japan. So it's not instant.
Free speech
Since Usenet represents one of the most democratic and free-flowing parts of the Internet, it has attracted much negative publicity. It allows debates on often inflammatory topics such as racism and abortion.
The alt. category arose due to popular demand - for subjects outside the original categories. Because some of its content can be tasteless, puerile, controversial or trivial, a few sites don't carry alt. newsgroups, and the groups' activities have also led to calls for censorship of the whole of Usenet (or the elimination of newsgroups containing the word "sex" by some major Internet service providers and university servers).
Another controversy has been over "spamming" (junk postings). Bulk commercial mailers have flooded newsgroups with totally useless postings, but Usenet's users hit back by creating a 'bot (or software robot) that cruises newsgroups deleting the offending posts.
This "cancelbot" was called Cancelmoose (http:// www.cm.org/), and using it to delete spam generated very few complaints - until the alt.religion.scientology newsgroup noticed that certain postings critical of the Church of Scientology were being mysteriously deleted. What came next? Lazarus - a program which brings cancelled postings back to life!
Starting your own newsgroup
If you think the world is ready for yet another Usenet newsgroup, about anything from the use of umbrellas in Alfred Hitchcock films to Irish Eurovision winners, you could try to establish your own. To create it in one of the main hierarchies (such as soc. or rec.) you have to put an RFD (request for discussion) in the news.announce.newsgroups newsgroup. After about a month a vote is taken, and if you get 100 more yes than no votes, rec.celtic.eurovision will be up and going.
You probably won't win that vote, though, so try for an "alt" newsgroup instead, which is far easier. Go to the alt.config newsgroup and state your intentions, then if there is no overwhelming dissent you can then persuade your news administrator (at your Internet service provider or server) to run the group.
According to the Dejanews search engine, there are currently almost 28,000 messages on Usenet containing the world "Ireland", from discussions of U2 concert snaps to an American looking for quilt shops in Sligo town.With well over 20,000 active newsgroups and some 109 million articles today, Usenet has come a long way since its humble origins.