Q. Explain Usenet and Newsgroups?

In Internet there exists another way to meet people and share information. One such way is through Usenet newsgroups. These are special groups which are set up by people who want to share common interests ranging from current topics to cultural heritages. There are presently thousands of Usenet newsgroups.

Usenet can be considered as another global network of computers and people, which is interwined with Internet. Though Usenet doesn't operate interactively like Internet, instead Usenet machines store the messages sent by users. Unlike mail from mailing lists, news articles don't automatically fill your electronic mailbox. For accessing information on news net, one needs a special type of program known as a newsreader. This program help in retrieving only the news you want from Usenet storage site and display it on your terminal. Usenet is like living thing, New newsgroups gets added, groups which have too much traffic get broken up into smaller specialized groups, groups even can dissolve themselves. Although, all of this occurs based on some commonly accepted rules and by voting. For Usenet, there is no enforcement body; it completely depends on cooperation of its computers users and owners.

Newsgroups are actually meant for interaction of people who share your interests. You can post your own questions and your answers to the questions of others, on the Usenet. One thing, which is worth mentioning here, is that when one is interacting with people on Internet certain mannerism must be adopted. These rules are sometimes known as 'netiquette'. In a face-to-face conversation you can always see a person's facial gestures and hand movements and can determine whether he is teasing or is being sarcastic or sometimes even lying. Though in on-line interaction one can't see the person one is interacting with. Rules of netiquette may help to compensate some of these limitations of this on-line environment.