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Newsreaders |
We use the newsreader that comes with
Netscape Communicator called Collabara in the text. However, there
are other popular newsreaders
Collabara is similar to the others, and you'll see
that in many instances the same commands and concepts are used with
the News as used for the email and Web browser portions of Navigator
or Communicator.
Take a look at ZDNet's Help Channel
Tips and Answers about using Collabra, the name Netscape gives
to the newsreader that's included with Communicator.
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Posting an Article |
Posting an article means composing an
article-a message, a question, a great discourse on some deep philosophical
or extremely important political topic-and distributing it to a newsgroup.
Usenet is a fairly wide-open forum. There is no central control and
there are thousands of newsgroups on all sorts of topics. But some
topics are not appropriate for some newsgroups. Before you post anything,
read A Primer on How to Work with the Usenet Community. You'll
find it posted in news.announce.newusers.
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Proper Usenet Etiquette |
It's reasonable to think about the people
who use Usenet as a community of users. With such a large and diverse
community, some rules of behavior or etiquette are necessary. Many
of the sites that are part of Usenet have rules, policies, and procedures
that need to be followed as well. In some cases, not following the
rules means you lose access to a computer system.
Over the years several documents have been developed about proper
Usenet etiquette. These are regularly posted in news.announce.newusers,
news.answers, or news.newusers.questions.
Here is a list of some you ought to read:
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FAQs |
FAQ stands for Frequently Asked Questions, a collection of common
questions with answers, or a single Frequently Asked Question. Many
newsgroups have volunteers who put together and maintain a collection
of questions and answers. Most newsgroups have a FAQ and they're
very informative and useful. You can find them posted either in
the newsgroup the FAQ was created for, or posted to news.answers.
Several newsgroups hold these FAQs; you'll see them referred to
as the *.answers newsgroups. Some of these are alt.answers,
comp.answers, and sci.answers.
Be sure to consult the FAQ for information before you post a question
to a newsgroup. It may be embarrassing for you if you post a question
to a newsgroup and you get several replies (or follow-ups) letting
you (and everyone else reading the newsgroup) know that you should
read the FAQ before asking other questions. It also could be annoying
to other members of the group to see questions that could be answered
by a little research beforehand.
Some places to look for FAQs (other
than the newsgroup) are
Visit Infinite Ink's Finding Periodic Postings for information
about FAQs.
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Finding Newsgroups |
There are thousands of newsgroups. How can you find out which to
read or even which ones exist?
To find the groups that your server carries, you select Show All
Newsgroups from the pull-down menu Options in the Menu Bar
of the news window.
There are several lists of newsgroups available through Usenet.
Keep your eye on the newsgroups news.answers, news.lists, or news.groups
so you can read or save these listings when they appear (usually
monthly).
There are some sites on the WWW that provide the facilities so
you can search for newsgroups. For the sites we'll mention, click
on the name to bring up a Web page. On that page you enter a key
word or phrase, click on a button labeled Search, and then work
with the results.
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Recommended Newsgroups and Articles |
There are several newsgroups that a beginning
or infrequent user should browse. These newsgroups include information
about Usenet, lists of FAQs for Usenet and several newsgroups, and
articles that will help you use Usenet. The newsgroups are:
- news.announce.newgroups
Articles dealing with forming and announcing new newsgroups. A
place to get the lists of all newsgroups.
- news.announce.newusers
Explanatory and important articles for new or infrequent Usenet
users.
- news.answers This is where
periodic Usenet postings are put. The periodic postings are primarily
FAQs. This is often the first place you should look when you have
a question.
- news.newusers.questions
This newsgroup is dedicated to questions from new Usenet users.
There is no such thing as a "dumb question" here. You ought to
browse this group to see if others have asked the same question
that's been bothering you. Once you get some expertise in using
Usenet, you'll want to check this group to see if you can help
someone.
The articles you will want to read are posted in news.announce.newusers.
Here's a list:
Here are some hyperlinks to other resources.
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NewsReaders | Posting an
Article | Etiquette | FAQs
| Finding Newsgroups | Recommended
Newsgroups and Articles
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