Newsgroups vs Forums

[RScotti]

I know Rock would know this?
Can you please tell me what the difference is between a forum and a newsgroup.
I had a discussing in the Vista N/G and they keep saying these MS NG's are also forums.

 

[R. McCarty]

Newsgroup is associated with USENET, a Forum in it's most general
use is a "Meeting Place" which could encompass both a forum (Web)
and a NG.

Windows XP General is at it's core a Newsgroup that is also accessible
from a Web browser interface So to some degree it's the method you
access the community that determines it's name.

Clear as Mud isn't it.

 

[David H. Lipman]

From: "RScotti" <[email protected]>

| I know Rock would know this?
| Can you please tell me what the difference is between a forum and a newsgroup.
| I had a discussing in the Vista N/G and they keep saying these MS NG's are also forums.

Forums are based upon web pages via http, TCP port 80.

News groups are based upon Usenet via a news client and NNTP, TCP port 119.

There are many web based http services that act as a front-end to Usenet groups and they are
not nearly as good as directly accessing those same groups via a news client such as yours,
Forte Agent.

 

[Synapse Syndrome]

I know Rock would know this?
Can you please tell me what the difference is between a forum and a
newsgroup.
I had a discussing in the Vista N/G and they keep saying these MS NG's are
also forums.

Look here:
http://tinyurl.com/yvkr9


There are lots of other web based forums that interface with these groups.
A lot of users from those forums do not realise that these are actually
newsgroups, and think that everybody else is accessing in the same way.

ss.

 

[RScotti]

Right now the only differences I can see is:
You can get a NG in a newsreader like my Forte Agent and you use a different address like
NEWS.MICROSOFT.COM although you can also access it from the web address.

Is there any other differences?

 

[Synapse Syndrome]

Right now the only differences I can see is:
You can get a NG in a newsreader like my Forte Agent and you use a
different address like
NEWS.MICROSOFT.COM although you can also access it from the web address.

Is there any other differences?

Well, you know what a web based 'forum' is, right?

And you know what a newsgroup is.

They are two similar things, that are accessed in different ways. It is
just these microsoft.public.xxx newsgroups happen to be accessed in both
ways, by different people.

ss.

 

[David H. Lipman]

From: "RScotti" <[email protected]>

| Right now the only differences I can see is:
| You can get a NG in a newsreader like my Forte Agent and you use a different address like
| NEWS.MICROSOFT.COM although you can also access it from the web address.
|
| Is there any other differences?
|

You mean like...
Seeing Full Headers
Browsing posts even though the PC is offline.
Rules and filters to block spam
The ability to post and view attachments (of course in NGs that allow attachments)
Direct access to 10's of thousands of NGs

This is a sampling of what a news client can do.

 

[RScotti]

David,
Thanks, these are the things I needed to know!

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Right now the only differences I can see is:
You can get a NG in a newsreader like my Forte Agent and you use a different address like
NEWS.MICROSOFT.COM

You can always access a newsgroup with a newsreader.

although you can also access it from the web address.

Maybe. It depends entirely on the newsgroup. Some (like this one) have
web access. Others don't.

A forum always has web access, but not all have newsreader access.

Is there any other differences?

Again it depends on the forum. Some let you upload and download files,
others don't.

Newsgroups permit offline access, forums don't. Even if you're reading
newsgroups online, in a newsgroup you can read one message while
others are downloading; in a forum you generally download each message
just before you read it, so you have to wait for it and it's much
slower.

Newsreaders have filtering capability that lets you avoid wasting time
reading messages from trolls and spammers. Conversely, it lets you
mark the messages of posters you especially want to read, so they are
highlighted.

Newsreaders let you sort messages in the order *you* want to read them
in.

Newsletters let you mark a thread you're interested in, so you can
quickly see any new messages in that thread.

Newsreaders generally have spell checkers; forums generally don't.

And so on. Try both and you should quickly see the many differences.

 

[PA Bear [MS MVP]]

Most forum interfaces are not available using an NNTP newsreader. MS
Community newsgroups are not forums. These are Vista forums:
http://forums.microsoft.com/TechNet/default.aspx?ForumGroupID=204&SiteID=17

 

[Gerry]

Ken

I find my posts made in the Microsoft newsgroups ending up in forums all
over in the web. Many of these I have never heard of. Whether these
forums add any value has to be questionable?


--
Regards.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[Thee Chicago Wolf]

Right now the only differences I can see is:

You can get a NG in a newsreader like my Forte Agent and you use a different address like
NEWS.MICROSOFT.COM although you can also access it from the web address.

Is there any other differences?

The standards to which Usenet has to adhere to for things like
encoding and message propagation is different from the Web. Usenet is
sometimes referred to as being "8-bit perfect / clean" which is just
saying it doesn't have a lot of the problems that web pages suffer
from when viewed in browsers that don't adhere to standard (or that
create their own proprietary ones *cough* IE *cough*).

Usenet is technically 7-bit but works well when machines and programs
adhere to the standards specific to it and 8-bit TCP
(http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc977.txt). Want a good read? Check out the
RFC850 specification (http://rfc.net/rfc850.html ). It's from 1983!

- Thee Chicago Wolf

 

[RScotti]

Thank you very much.
I will forward this to the persons who think they are the same thing.