Newsgroups can be one of the most entertaining parts of your Internet experience - if you know where to look and what you want.  Your first stop on this tour should be Google's newsgroup service (formerly known as DejaNews) This company has virtually every message sent on Usenet since 1995 (and before!). This huge database is online where you can see it on the World Wide Web. The Usenet Group database works like a search engine, except it searches Usenet instead of the Web.

Type in one of your interests - perhaps you are curious about Baroque Music, Hulk Hogan, Greek Mythology, Rush Limbaugh, Britney Spears, UFOs, Windows XP, Etymology or the New World Order.  You might even want to seek out those three things Mom said to never talk about (politics, religion and sex).  Google will quickly find those Discussion Forums that most often discuss the things you are interested in.  Be sure to print or write down the names of the newsgroups you've found, since we'll be wanting to find them later.

Feel free to wander around Google and get a sense of what their web site has to offer.

Each newsgroup has a name that explains the purpose of the newsgroup.  Newsgroup names are read from left to right.  Each part of the name divides a larger topic into smaller topics.  For example, rec.music.collecting.cd  is in the general area of Recreation.  Within the area of Recreation, this group is about Music.  It specifically is about Collecting Music - and within that narrow topic, this group is interested only in discussing collecting music on Compact Discs.

There are several other not obvious portions of a newsgroup name that you may see.  A newsgroup that ends in .d is a newsgroup for making requests for someone to post something in a related newsgroup (the one without the .d).   A newsgroup that ends in .moderated is one where posts require approval before being released to the entire newsgroup.  (Not all moderated newsgroups end in .moderated)

The left portion of the newsgroup name indicates the Top Level Hierarchy (TLH).

The answer to this question is - There is no such thing as a list of ALL newsgroups.

This is not usually a satisfactory answer, but it is an accurate one.  The only list that -matters- is the list of all newsgroups that your News Server has available.  Many of the groups of groups in Usenet are designed to be of interest to a city, a university, or a business.  Each one of these is controlled by a Hierarchy Administrator, who can add and delete newsgroups as they are needed.  These are generally not of interest to the rest of the world or may contain information that is not intended for public consumption.  On a fairly frequent basis, these local hierarchies escape into Usenet, filling the list of newsgroups with names that do not actually have any traffic.

In the Beginning was "the Big 8".  The Cabal (there is no Cabal) runs the Big 8.  No new newsgroups can be added within the Big 8 without going through a lengthy approval process.  The new group is scrutinized by the Cabal (there is no Cabal) and a "vote" is held by the Cabal (there is no Cabal) to decide if the Cabal (there is no Cabal) approve of your group.

Not surprisingly, there was opposition within the Anarchist faction of the Internet to the Cabal (there is no Cabal).  Alt is the result.  While there is a very minimal review process to encourage people to name an alt newsgroup correctly, creating a newsgroup in alt requires nobody's approval.  There is no "proof" required that anyone needs or will use the group. (see History of Alt)

The result is fairly predictable.   If you alphabetize your closet, you may feel disoriented in alt.  Alt. is a little bit of this, and a lot of that and a ton of whatever.  It isn't necessarily easy to find anything here.  It is also extremely popular.  The number and size of messages in alt far exceeds all of the Big 8 put together.  While the quality content is still located in the Big 8, the quantity is in alt.

ALT is NOT a suitable place for children to wander around unsupervised.

Alt is not completely disorganized.  It has several well defined subareas:

The answer is very simple.

If we start telling people they can't talk about things that happen to offend you, they will demand that we stop you from talking about things that offend them.

Alt is carried internationally, and what is legal in one country is frequently illegal in another country.  If alt contained only information that was not illegal anywhere, it would be empty.

Engaging in activities that are illegal in your country in alt. could result in criminal prosecution.  There have been some preliminary efforts to prosecute people across International Boundaries when the criminal activity is regarded by International Agreement to be universally illegal..

Especially in the area of information, the Ethics of the Internet are very firm about the notion that Information is Free.  People or entities that want to Suppress or Control the Free Exchange of Ideas and Information are Evil.

If you can't deal with the above perspective, your best course of action is to ignore Alt.

To make our examples easy to follow, we strongly recommend that you download and install FreeAgent.  If you are one of the 5% of personal computer owners who still use a Macintosh, do the best you can, since FreeAgent is available only for Windows.  Folks using Unix(tm) already know everything there is to know, so they aren't reading this page.

As of 2006, it appears that Forte no longer offers FreeAgent for download from its own web site, however it is still available Here

When prompted what to do with the file, select "Save to Disk" (MSIE) or "Save as" (Netscape).  When the download completes, double-click on the program you've just downloaded.

FreeAgent's installation program is very easy (and the UNinstall program is also easy, if you decide that this program isn't for you).

Once the installation is complete, you'll need to type in the name of your Internet Provider's News (NNTP) Server.   The name of your News Server should have been provided for you when you opened your account, or in most cases is somewhere on the Web Pages for your internet provider.  In most  cases, the name is just

   news.yourisp.net 
(where yourisp.net is the name of YOUR ISP!) ;)

For the Mail (SMTP) Server, type in the name of your ISP's SMTP Mail Server (SMTP is used for Sending Email, POP3 is used to Read Email).  In most cases, this server is named either mail.yourisp.net or smtp.yourisp.net.

Note: As of early 2005, AOL no longer offers usenet access - if you use AOL for your internet access, you'll need to subscribe to a third party Usenet serivce (see our list below).

Enter your email address (normally something like  myuserid@yourisp.net) and you should probably leave your real name blank for now.

Before you can do anything more, FreeAgent will ask to download to your PC the entire list of names of news groups that may be available on your News Server.  This will take a while - especially if you are on dialup.  Do NOT interrupt the process.  It may take as long as 15 minutes for this to finish.  Fortunately, you only need to do this one time.  (and update it with only the new groups once a week, or so)

While the download is occurring, look over the layout of the screen.  The Upper Left portion of the screen is where the list of newsgroups will appear.  On the right side of the top half, the list of messages in a specific group will appear.  The actual text of the messages appears in the bottom half of the window.  Like other windows programs, you can resize the windows using your mouse.  Pressing Z will Zoom the current Pane to take up the entire Window.  Once in Zoom mode, you switch between Panes by either Clicking on the tabs at the top, or be pressing the Tab Key.  Pressing Z again switches back the normal mode.

Remember that list of interesting newsgroups you got from Google?

Use the scroll bar, and move up and down until you find the first group in the list (the list should be in alphabetic order).  Each News Server has a different set of newsgroups, so it is possible that you'll not find a specific group - more on that later.  Make sure you have the correct group (sometimes there are typing errors or similar names).  Double-Click on the name of the news group with your left mouse button.

Since the group is currently empty (No messages have been sent to you yet), you'll get a list of choices.  Select Sample Messages to see what kind of messages you'll find.  A list of message topics should arrive in quick order.  Double Click on a message that looks interesting.  That message is now downloaded.  View several messages, and see if this looks like what you expected.  If you like what you see, click once on the group name again in the upper left corner, and hold the Ctrl key and press the S key.  This action [S]ubscribes you to this newsgroup.  From this point on, you'll receive all the messages that appear in this newsgroup (until you Unsubscribe by pressing Ctrl S again.

Above where the list of Groups appears, the tab says All Groups.  Click on that.  The list changes to only those groups you subscribe to.  Click it again.  You'll see New groups (There won't be any New groups, since you just downloaded all the groups.  Click again, and you return to All Groups.

If you would like to just automatically download every message, click on Group then Default Properties, then the Retrieving Tab.  Click on Retrieve Bodies for all new messages.

Now Explore the Menu Bar at the top.  Making sure that your first group is selected, select Online then Get All Headers in Selected Groups.  You'll now get every message that your Internet Provider has.  Depending on the quality of your Internet Provider, you may get anywhere from 1 day to perhaps 2 weeks worth of messages.

Happy News reading!

But DON'T "Post" anything  until AFTER you read the next section!

Usenet has a long-standing code of behavior that you are expected to know about (and respect).  Since you have chosen a good newsreader, you're less likely to make the most obvious kinds of mistakes - however, there are a number of things that you should avoid doing.  If you ignore this list, one of several things is going to happen.

• You'll be FLAMED, and told that you're a worthless piece of crap
• People will write you using email and tell you what you did was wrong
• People will decide that you jumped in before you understand what's going on, and they'll ignore all future messages from you (see Kill Filters)
• If you -really- did something bad, they'll write a note to your ISP's news administrator, and ask / demand that the ISP sanction you, which may mean anything from writing you a warning letter up through canceling your account.

• Posting a "Chain letter" or a "Get Rich Quick" scheme.  Don't even -think- of doing it.
• Posting "Off-Topic" - especially don't post advertisements unless the group CLEARLY permits them in the Group Charter
• Tacking on a pointless one-line critique of a post that adds no new facts or ideas to the conversation - while quoting the entire text of the original message - for instance "I agree" or "You suck!"
• Attempting a "Group Flame" - as in "I can't believe there is an entire newsgroup that discusses ______"  or "You people need to get a life!"  or "You people are sick!".  It's been done 1000 times before.   If you aren't interested in the topic, just Unsubscribe.  The world doesn't care if you are not interested.
• Posting a binary file to a text newsgroup. Binary files take a long time to download and take up the space of hundreds of text messages. For this reason, the newsgroups are split into those that allow binary files and those that don't. Don't publish a picture of your cat into a text group talking about cats
• Posting in HTML - there is very strong resistance within the Usenet Newsgroup community to using HTML. Some news reader programs default to doing all posting in HTML. Even though HTML can communicate ideas much more effectively than plain text, not everyone has a news reader that understands web page formats and HTML is considered a "waste of bandwidth". You might be tempted to ask - isn't the billions of bytes posted into the mp3 newsgroups every day a waste of bandwidth? That is a hard question to answer.

Usenet works using a technique called flooding (no relation to Ping Flooding).  When the author of a Usenet article posts the message to their news server, that news server shares that new article with each of its peers.  As each new article arrives at each server, the message is again shared (or offered) to each news peer.   This process is repeated over and over until the message has arrived at every news server in the world that is interested, or until the article has expired, whichever occurs first.

For this technique to work, there are two very important, very simple rules.  Rule #1 is that every message must be identified by a unique Message Identifier or MSGID.  Rule #2 is that a news server should never send a message back anywhere that the message has already been.

This process can take up to several days before your messages have been seen by everyone, and their replies return.  This makes Usenet different from BBS Systems or Online Services, where everyone sees what everyone else posts right away.  Keep this in mind before concluding what a person knew or should have known when they entered their message.  Always look at the timestamp in the headers.  Your messages may have crossed in the 'Net.

Once a message starts on this journey, what happens if you decide you made a mistake?  If you click on Post then Cancel Usenet Message, a special message is inserted into the newsgroup called control.cancel.  This cancel message now chases the copies of your message, and if it catches up, the message is removed from Usenet.  The degree to which a cancel works is highly related to how quickly you send the cancel request.  It is much better to take a moment to double-check your message before clicking on Send, than to hope the cancel catches up with the original messages.  Also, if anyone replies to your original message, your cancel will not remove their reply, which probably quoted the thing you wanted to retract!

Things that are generally accepted as being Net Abuse:

• Posting a Binary message to a non-Binary newsgroup
• Attempting to cancel someone else's messages
• Posting a message under someone else's name and email address, trying to make readers think the message came from the other person
• Messages that are not related to the topic and/or charter of the newsgroup
• Messages that are cross-posted to many unrelated newsgroups
• Continually changing your From: address to evade other people's Kill filters
• Threats to do physical harm  (which is more than just net.abuse)

• Jokes you find offensive
• Articles in an alt.fan.* group that criticize the namesake of the group
• Personal insults / Flames
• Differences of opinion on controversial matters

First, look through Google Groups.  Millions of people read the newsgroups each day, and someone has probably already created a newsgroup based on the topic you're interested in.  Asking to create a news group that already exists will just result in flames.  If the millions of people  who have been here for years haven't yet thought of your idea, it may be that very few people have interest in it and the newsgroup will not be active enough to justify its existence.

Okay, you have checked that there is no group that currently discusses your interest, and you're sure that when you point out the oversight that tons of folks will want to join in.  What's the next step?

The important decision to make is whether this newsgroup should be in alt.* or somewhere in the Big 8.  Discussion about new alt.* groups take place in the news group alt.config.  Subscribe to this news group, and read for a while.  See what a new group proposal looks like, and read the FAQ for creating a new alt newsgroup.  See the reasons why some new groups are not created and avoid the common mistakes.

Once you understand the process, craft a new group proposal.  Triple check the spelling and grammar.  Emphasize that no group currently exists and that you are certain that this group is valuable because (enter your rationale here).   Wait a week and see what happens.  If there is general agreement, or at least no serious opposition, someone will send out a message in the control.newgroup message using the correct format.  This is best done by asking for someone experienced to help you do it correctly.  Ask for help, and you'll probably get it.

If you want the status and benefits of a Big 8 news group, the process is much more involved.  The reasoning is that if the creation process is extended and involves many people, the likelihood that the newsgroup will actually serve a useful purpose is greatly improved.

Creating a Big 8 news group begins with making a formal proposal for the newsgroup.  The information about this process can be found in news.announce.newsgroups.  The actual process occurs in news.groups.  First, a new newsgroup is formally proposed in a document called a Request for Discussion (RFD) - followed in perhaps a month or two with a Call for Votes (CFV).  The vote generally lasts for three weeks.  Any person who follows the news group creation process can vote Yes or No (or abstain) on your RFD/CFV.  If the vote passes with the required margins, the new newsgroup is created by the hierarchy administrator.

One important thing to know is that if you see one of these messages, do NOT respond to it in the newsgroup with something like "Get this crap out of here!".  Especially if you reposted all of the original text, the net effect of doing this is to help the noise evade the cancel mechanisms, since they won't generally cancel your followup.   If you feel strongly, you can report the message as net abuse, but understand that determining where a message comes from is quite complicated, and the serious abusers are highly skilled in providing misleading information.

Unless you want to make fighting this stuff your life's work, the best defense is a news reader with kill filters.  Agent has these, but FreeAgent doesn't.   Here are a few of the Agent filters that have proved effective to cut out most of the junk:

subject: free and (list or phone or pager* or send or receive or product* or program* or file* or opportunit* or trial* or web or fast or easy or simple or new or newsletter* or free )

subject: (mlm* or lott* or advertis* or financ* or marketing or (long dista*) or merchandis* or jackpot* or bulk)

subject:( business) and  subject: (easy or fast* or build* or grow* or new* or home or internet or profit*)

Another method that gained popularity during the late 90's is a moderated newsgroup.  A moderated newsgroup forces all messages to pass through a human and/or computer moderator, who filters out all messages that violate the terms of the moderation process.  In most cases, the moderator is not supposed to remove messages based on their content.  So long as the posts are relevant to the news group, and don't violate the rules, the messages will appear.

While moderation can filter out much of the noise, they have serious disadvantages.  Moderation delays the processing of messages even more than normal newsgroups.  When you attempt to post to a moderated newsgroup, the message is sent using e-maili to the moderator's mail box.  At some point, the moderator reviews the email, and then they post the approved messages to the newsgroup, and the outbound process begins.

Moderation is also a time-consuming chore with somewhat intangible benefits.  Often the moderator tires of the process, and the approval process stops, leaving a derelict newsgroup that is not postable. 

Once again, the unpleasant reality is that there is no such thing. Running a news server costs a LOT of money.  If there was such a thing as a great, free news server, the influx of people wanting something for nothing always rapidly exhausts whatever capacity the server had.

While you may find some servers that allow you to read news, there are virtually no news servers that will allow you to post outbound messages anonymously.  The reasons again are very logical.  If someone uses a public server to conduct newsgroup disruption, or to engage in illegal activities, the operator of that news server can quickly have significant problems on their hands.

Here is a resource if you don't believe us, and want to explore this option yourself:

• Usenet Support

Well, it is about the eternal conflict between DevilBunnies and Elmer Fudds, of course.
Read the alt.devilbunny FAQ here for additional insight.