Newsgroups

The Internet provides opportunities for people with similar interests to communicate regardless of the distances involved. For example, people with an interest in river fishing can join newsgroups where others share their enthusiasm. Messages can be posted to the newsgroup listings – and other members of the newsgroup will have the opportunity to read and respond to the message. This is very useful, for example, when using a new piece of software that has no instruction manual or help file – posting questions in the newsgroup can often attract an answer from other users of the software.

A newsgroup is a discussion group. People on computers all over the Internet connect to each other to ask questions and discuss specific topics. Anyone is allowed to participate. Some newsgroups have completely free and open discussions and some are moderated by a person who reviews and posts the articles for discussion. Newsgroup discussions may continue over weeks. One does not have to be on line every minute.

A chatgroup is a real-time conversation between anyone who is on line at the same time. People come and go and the topics tend to be social rather than academic.

Newsgroups and chat groups are different from Email in that newsgroup and chatgroup postings are sent to one central newsserver, which sends them out to thousands of other servers for anyone to read and discuss. E-mail is sent from one person to another, just like a letter.

Newsgroups can be useful for research. If you find a group related to your research topic, you can post questions and get answers. Posting a question to a group may result in a lot of new information.

There are newsgroups related to almost any imaginable topic. Newsgroups' names indicate the topic. For example, computer groups include comp. in their names and business groups use biz.

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