H O M E




Tidbits
and
Odd Pieces
of Info





History




Creation
and
Voting
Rules





alt.discuss
.no-rules
Creation
Rules





Usenet




Club
WebTV
Column

1 9 9 8

September




August




July




June







news.alt.discuss

by robin-of-lox

Assorted tid-bits of information, history, and archive of the "welcome to alt.discuss" ClubWebTV column.



U S E N E T

Usenet are the newsgroups that are available to the whole wide world. Computer users and webtv users can access them. There are thousands of groups, and our server only accesses some of them, but we can still get into hundreds.

To see which groups are available, go to your HomePage, click "Community" on the Sidebar and the click on "Discuss". Check out "all groups" and you will find hunderds and hundreds of them.




Many people want to know about How To Create a Usenet Group, and lots of other things about Usenet. Here are a number of links to different sites that may have the info you are looking for.


The largest and best site I have found is the FAQs for the alt.discuss.internet.usenet newsgroup. Though within our webtv firewall, this alt.discuss group is the place to get your questions answered and to understand Usenet. The FAQs can be found HERE . This is the first stop if you have a question about newsgroups.




Master List Of Newsgroup Hierarchies


Browse Groups: Toplevel Hierarchy


Search For Groups


News.NewUsers.Questions Official Page


List Of Usenet FAQs


So You Want To Create An Alt. Newsgroup




Found this post in alt.config. It has a huge amount of info in it.


Group: alt.config
Date: Fri, Oct 23, 1998, 9:10am (MST+7)
From: deleted

"TIP" WHERE TO FIND OUT HOW TO CREATE A NEWSGROUP

One of the more frequently posted questions is "How can I create a new newsgroup?" Briefly, creating a new newsgroup in the comp, humanities, misc, news, rec, sci, soc or talk hierarchies involves first proposing the newsgroup in news.announce.newgroups, then conducting a "vote" among those Usenet readers who have an opinion on the proposed group. The entire process can take up to three months.

Creating a new newsgroup in the "alt" hierarchy involves proposing it informally in alt.config, then (if the response is favorable) getting someone to send out a "newgroup control message" for the group if you don't know how to do it yourself.

Other hierarchies have different procedures, or perhaps no formal procedure at all. If you want to create a new newsgroup in the (hypothetical!) podunk hierarchy, you might look for a newsgroup called podunk.config or podunk.general, and ask there about the proper procedure.

For more details, see the following articles. You can find copies of (or links to) all of them at the following Web address:         

http://web.presby.edu/~jtbell/usenet/ newgroup/

(1) "How to Create a New Usenet Newsgroup", by David Lawrence
         (a) in one of the following newsgroups: news.admin.misc,         news.announce.newgroups, news.announce.newusers, news.answers, news.groups
         (b) by sending e-mail to mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu, with a blank         "Subject:" line, and with the following command in the message         body: send usenet/news.groups/How_to_Create_a_New_U senet_Newsgroup

(2) "Guidelines on Usenet Newsgroup Names", by David Wright and Mark Moraes
         (a) in one of the following newsgroups: news.announce.newusers,         news.groups, news.admin.misc, alt.config, alt.answers, news.answers
         (b) by sending e-mail to mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu, with a blank         "Subject:" line, and with the following command in the message         body: send usenet/news.groups/Guidelines_on_Usenet_ Newsgroup_Names

(3) "How to Format and Submit a New Group Proposal", by Russ Allbery
         (a) in one of the following newsgroups: news.announce.newusers,         news.answers, news.groups

(4) "How to Write a Good Newsgroup Proposal", by David Lawrence and Una Smith
         (a) in one of the following newsgroups: news.announce.newusers,         news.answers

(5) "So You Want to Create an Alt Newsgroup", by David Barr
         (a) in one of the following newsgroups: alt.config, alt.answers,         news.answers
         (b) by sending e-mail to mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu, with a blank         "Subject:" line, and with the following command in the message         body: send usenet/alt.config/So_You_Want_to_Create_ an_Alt_Newsgroup
         (b) by pointing your Web browser to:                 
http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/~barr/ alt-creation-guide.html

(6) "How to Write a Good Newgroup Message", by Brian Edmonds
         (a) in the newsgroup alt.config
         (b) by pointing your Web browser to:                 
http://www.cs.ubc.ca/spider/edmonds/ usenet/good-newgroup.html

These articles are posted periodically (usually at least once per month) in the indicated newsgroups. If you don't find them there, that simply means that the most recent copies have "expired" on your news server. New copies should be posted eventually.

Finally, the following Web addresses contain collections of information on creating an "alt" group, including the "So You Want to Create..." article, and a description of the actual newgroup control message.
http://www.faqs.org/usenet/alt/

Note: for beginner's information on newsgroups, check out http://www.geocities.com/ResearchTriangle/Lab/6882/