Usenet newsgroup
Newsgroups [ nju ː z ˌ gru ː ps] ( engl. " news groups " ) are virtual Internet forums (formerly also off the Internet into self-employed (mailbox ) networks ) exchanged, in which a defined thematic area text contributions (including news, articles or postings called ). Published a user an article in a newsgroup, it is sent to a news server. This can then make the item available for its users and forward them to other servers, which in turn provide it to their users.
Technology
Technically, the format of e- mail is used for newsgroup postings, with only a few other types were introduced by header lines. The RFC 1036 ( Request for Comments, Standard for Interchange of USENET Messages) sets out the details.
Worldwide existed for decades, various news systems. The best known is the Usenet, which combines a variety of news servers around the world. Often newsgroups are distributed but also purely regional, or they are placed in intranets available. It often comes the NNTP protocol to use, UUCP in earlier times especially.
The access to newsgroups through newsreader designated as special computer programs or web interfaces such as Google Groups. Often news reader as part of the program in general, e- mail programs (eg Mozilla Thunderbird) or included as an add -on for web browsers such as Mozilla Firefox available. Also " mail2news gateways " ( Gmane ) to facilitate the work on Usenet. But they do work compared with specialized software only with restrictions.
Structure
A newsgroup is characterized by a hierarchical name. Through these hierarchies Usenet is divided into thematic blocks. Most newsgroups are thereby allocated to the nine largest hierarchies. These are comp. *, Talk. *, Soc. *, Sci. *, Humanities. *, Misc. *, News. *, Rec. * And ( the so-called Big Eight ) old. *. They also usually has a brief description, english ( and technically in the narrower sense) called tagline, which can be viewed by many newsreaders. A longer description can be found in the optionally present Charter.
An example:
Other names
In some networks, such as FidoNet, Z - net or MausNet newsgroups are sometimes referred to by other terms. For this reason, the acronym FORKS (Group, Area, Board, Echo, list, network) is also sometimes used ironically as a more general term.
Types of groups
In general, two different types can be distinguished:
- Unmoderated groups in which each contribution ( posting) is immediately visible to all;
- Moderated groups in which each contribution first in one / several Moderator (s) and runs until enabled by this is available for all. This is, for example, spam can be prevented.
Development
The newsgroups are more and more replaced since the 2000s of web forums, so that its practical significance decreases continuously. However, newsgroups, professionals are often still appreciated for the response quality and expertise obtained there, outstanding, most of which clearly stands out from the web forums.