Introduction

USENET is a world-wide distributed discussion system that is classified hierarchically by subject and organized by topic.

The topics are called newsgroups where each newsgroup contains messages, or articles available for reading.

USENET can be accessed via newsreader client applications such as

A user can

READ messages others have posted, and
POST messages to newsgroups for others to read.

Moderated Newsgroups

Some newsgroups are moderated, that is, articles are sent to a person in charge of a given newsgroup who screens posted messages before making them available to the public.

Nettiquette

Nettiquette is the term referring to a set of understood guidelines for users of the Internet and its resources. These guidelines are designed for the courtesy of one user towards another.

Before posting to a news group, read several messages to become familiar with the type of questions and answers. New users should also look for and read the group's FAQs, (Frequently Asked Questions), which are directed towards new users. This will avoid the possibility of posting a message that others will think is out-of-line. Failure to do this can result in being flamed.

Flaming occurs when someone takes exception to a posting and lets others (and the world) know that s/he didn't care for the comments. Flaming is giving someone a verbal lashing in public when opinions about an issue differs. Often this is on a Usenet newsgroup but it could be on a Web forum or perhaps even as e-mail with copies to a distribution list. Unless in response to some rather obvious flamebait, flaming is poor netiquette. Certain issues tend to provoke emphatically stated responses, but flaming is often directed at a self-appointed expert rather than at the issues or information itself and is sometimes directed at unwitting but opinionated newbies who appear in a newsgroup.

Beware: some groups do not care for new user questions while others are very tolerant.