KB 31

USENET, overview

Article:31
Created:1999-09-01 16:39:54
Categories:
  General Concepts

Question or Symptom

What is USENET or "net news"?

Resolution

Usenet is a world-wide distributed discussion system. It consists of a set of "newsgroups" with names that are classified hierarchically by subject. "Articles" or "messages" are "posted" to these newsgroups by people on computers with the appropriate software -- these articles are then broadcast to other interconnected computer systems via a wide variety of networks. Some newsgroups are "moderated"; in these newsgroups, the articles are first sent to a moderator for approval before appearing in the newsgroup. Usenet is available on a wide variety of computer systems and networks, but the bulk of modern Usenet traffic is transported over either the Internet or UUCP.

You can find this and other useful information about Usenet, in the newsgroup news.announce.newusers

Usenet news has largely been replaced with blogs, and special interest web sites, but occasionally it can be useful.

Related URLS

 news:news.announce.newusers
 news:nm.general