New to Newsgroups...

[bob]

Hi,
I been using this Microsoft posting thing for a while
and everyone is saying that I should be using a real
Usenet reader. My question is, are all the servers
linked, like if I posted something on news.optonline.net,
would it show up on news.verizon.net? Also, do any of you
prefer particular servers (least problems)?

 

[Ken Blake]

In

I been using this Microsoft posting thing for a while
and everyone is saying that I should be using a real
Usenet reader. My question is, are all the servers
linked, like if I posted something on news.optonline.net,
would it show up on news.verizon.net?

Yes.


Also, do any of you
prefer particular servers (least problems)?

I'm happy using the one my ISP provides.

 

[Al Bundy]

On my desktop I have a cable connection...Cox...and use that server. Never
had any problems with it. I have a laptop as well which use Microsoft
servers...they are down sometimes,. much to the frustration of some people.
I think the ISP's are more reliable.

 

[EGMcCann]

The only time it won't show up is if it's a private server (some companies,
for instance, have news servers and keep the articles there - Stardock
Systems is, or was, like this. Not sure if they still do it.) For the MS
groups, you tell your newsgroup reader to go to msnews.microsoft.com and
subscribe to the groups there.

For an overall general answer though, yes, it will. Assuming, of course,
they carry the group. For instance, I check the rec.models.scale newsgroup -
it's shown up on my old news server in Florida, in Wisconsin, and here, all
different servers.It's on USENET, designed for sharing... well, newsgroups.

 

[Alex Nichol]

I been using this Microsoft posting thing for a while
and everyone is saying that I should be using a real
Usenet reader. My question is, are all the servers
linked, like if I posted something on news.optonline.net,
would it show up on news.verizon.net?

Any 'server' on the Usenet (thousands of them around the world) may have
quite a lot of machines, replicating the data, so as to handle the
large number of people trying to access them. Troubles with the
Microsoft setup in the last few days have arisen because these were not
staying in sync with each other. Then a post made on any such server
system in the world gets passed 'from hand to hand' between servers, so
should show up anywhere within a short period (might be up to an hour
if it takes the long way round). Feeds of that sort are better into
some servers than others, and the responsiveness of different servers
varies. So one that I can use seemed to manage to drop a lot of
messages coming from the microsoft ones (though posts made on it went
the other way reliably); another has a reliable feed both ways, but was
glacially slow too much of the time to be usable. So I do my posting
direct on the microsoft one. Which will work best for you is something
you will need to experiment with

But - outside the troubles of the past week - it is better to use a
newsreader program than the 'web' interface, because it is much easier
to find your posts and replies, and the structure (threading) of
sequences is clear