Usenet

Usenet, or Internet newsgroups, are not (in the biased view of the writer of this piece, at least) of immediate academic value. Unlike mailing lists, which are devoted to discussion of a specific, usually academic topic and whose use is generally restricted to registered users (i.e. you have to subscribe to the list and, in some cases, have your credentials vetted by the list owner before you can post messages to the list), newsgroups accept postings from everybody and anybody. While this openness, considered by some to be one of the cornerstones of freedom of speech on the Internet, certainly promotes spontaneity, it does tend to mean that contributors are careless of such things as 'correct' spelling and indeed the usual norms of language. You should therefore not be surprised to come across invective and abbreviations/phonetic spellings in equal measure in many postings. Another major difference between mailing lists and Usenet is that newsgroups are passed around the Internet from news server to news server, with new messages being added all the time, whereas mailing lists work on the basis that a user sends in a message to a list server which then sends it out to all those who have subscribed to the list. This means that it is much less clear from where news group posts originate, and this has had some unfortunate legal consequences. Is an Internet Access Provider (IAP) responsible for the newsgroup content that its news server receives from another server and makes available to its users before sending the whole lot off to the next server in the chain? The British IAP Demon has recently fallen foul of a judgement making it responsible for defamatory material posted on its news server; in 1995, the boss of the German division of CompuServe was convicted for publishing pornography after paedophile newsgroup postings were seized by Bavarian police during a raid on the Munich offices of the company (the conviction has recently been reversed). Such legal problems, along with the frequently pornographic content of the <alt.sex> newsgroups (which often contain photographs in binary format), have understandably caused some nervousness among IAPs (including universities). It might be objected that newsgroup material could be screened prior to publication on an IAP's news server. This is impossible (quite aside from any considerations of free speech vs. censorship!) because of the huge scale of today's newsgroups. The best way to assess this scale is to take a look at Usenet yourself.

There are two ways of exploring Usenet. The first, and more obvious, is to obtain some news reading software; fortunately a news client is built into both MS Outlook Express and Netscape's Communicator suite. Once you have configured your news client software (this entails entering the address of your university's news server, usually something like <news.rummidge.ac.uk>, tell it to display the full list of newsgroups. There should be 15,000 or so; your university may block access to certain groups, or indeed restrict access to the news server to users with a registered IP (Internet Protocol) address. Of these 15,000 groups, few will have an academic bent; many will have a recreational (but not always US) bias. Scroll through the list (this takes some time) to see what's available. If you want to discuss the X-Files, this is the place to do it! (Your university may not like this, though.) I spent a few happy moments at <alt.beer> in the interests of researching this piece, but you may prefer to head for the <soc.culture> groups; most European nations have their own group. Once you have downloaded the current messages (old messages are regularly purged from the system, but see below), you can read the 'threads' (strings of posts on a given topic) that interest you, and contribute if you feel brave enough. (WARNING: inappropriate posts, advertising or other breaches of 'netiquette' are likely to result in swift punishment in the form of 'flames', abusive and intemperate messages sent by Usenet's self-appointed guardians of standards. NOTE: if you are interested in reading a few flames, check out the <alt.flame> newsgroups.) To give you some idea of the sorts of things discussed on Usenet, recent threads on the <soc.culture.french> newsgroup have included: 'Pourquoi dit-on 'une peur bleue'?', 'Dans quelle couleur rêvez-vous et en quelle langue?', 'How do you say 'f*** off' in French?', and 'Recent Chechen history' (?). The threads are generally a mixture of non-technical linguistic debates, useful hints and tips for American visitors, political polemic and so-called 'cross-postings' (i.e. things that have nothing whatsoever to do with the subject of the list). It is, I think, unlikely that students will derive very much academic benefit from the use of such newsgroups.

The second, less time-consuming way of accessing Usenet is to scour its archives. As mentioned above, old postings are periodically flushed to prevent the news feed from reaching unmanageable proportions, but they are recorded for posterity at what used to be called the <Dejanews> site. A visit to the renamed <www.deja.com> reveals what appears to be yet another commercial web portal or shopping site, but a peek beneath the revamped service reveals a searchable database of old news posts. Just type in your search term to the 'Quick Search' box on the home page and you will be given a list of relevant (and not so relevant) Usenet posts. Otherwise you can browse the (non-academic) categories given on the home page, remembering that in Deja.com-speak newsgroups are called 'Discussions'. Good luck!

It may be that your students do not even have access to Usenet. One unnamed British university famously banned it from campus PCs because undergraduate use of football groups was clogging up the whole campus network. All in all, then, Usenet is one for the home, not the 'Classroom'. But don't take my word for it!

last updated 15th December 1999

Author:David Cowling