Problem with newsgroups

[Barry Karas]

Blank14:23 6/27/2006

There seems to be a problem with newsgroups in general. Many newsgroups have
mostly or all nonsense messages.

For example, if I have a question about an application/program, I go to a
specific as possible newsgroup. But when I review the messages they are all
or mostly junk.

The insights and experiences of PC users are invaluable. What can be done to
preserve newsgroups?

Thank you,

Barry Karas

 

[Guest]

Hope this helps, more in the Help Section if needed......

About discussion groups
A discussion group (also known as a newsgroup) is a place on the Internet
where people interact by posting and reading messages about topics that are
of interest to them and the rest of a community. Each discussion group
contains a number of discussion threads, or a series of related messages.
Each individual message either responds to an earlier message, or addresses
the overall discussion group topic in some way. In contrast to e-mail
messages that are sent to specific individuals and visible only to them,
messages posted in a discussion group are visible and available to anyone and
everyone.

There are more than 100,000 discussion groups, and more are added all the
time. Each discussion group covers a particular topic, often alluded to in
its name. For example, people who use Microsoft Excel can visit and
participate in microsoft.public.excel.charting.

Microsoft created Microsoft public discussions covering many Microsoft
products, technologies, and topics because of the value of finding out what
your peers think and getting information from people who use the same
products and technologies you use. The Microsoft public discussions have been
available to anyone on Usenet for a number of years. Thousands of Microsoft
customers at all levels of expertise post in these groups today, creating the
content, sharing information and contributing ideas. There are currently over
2,000 public discussion groups dedicated to discussing Microsoft products.

 

[Vanguard]

Blank14:23 6/27/2006

There seems to be a problem with newsgroups in general. Many
newsgroups have mostly or all nonsense messages.

For example, if I have a question about an application/program, I go
to a specific as possible newsgroup. But when I review the messages
they are all or mostly junk.

"when I review the messages, they are all, or mostly, junk". That is
supposed to detail to us what YOU see? Got an example post that is
"junk" to you? Does that mean you don't like their content? They are
too old? They aren't old enough? They appear in jibberish (i.e.,
random characters), are blank, or some other format that you cannot
read? They are ROT13 encoded in whatever UNNAMED groups you happen to
visit? They are yEnc encoded attachments (for porn since that is yEnc's
vast majority of usage)? They are MIME encoded attachments? They are
in a different language than you have configured in your Regional applet
in Control Panel? They are HTML-formatted messages rather than
plain-text posts? You configured your NNTP client to only read in
plain-text so all the HTML, if present, looks like code to you?

The insights and experiences of PC users are invaluable. What can be
done to preserve newsgroups?

Preserve newsgroups? Outside the retention interval for the NNTP server
to which you connect, you'll have to visit an archiving service, like
Google Groups, for older posts.

--
How to post:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555375
http://www.newsreaders.com/guide/netiquette.html
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/usenet/emily-postnews/part1/