[W/K] :: Usenet

  USENET
       USErs' NETwork (Internet)
       
       

  Usenet /yoos'net/ or /yooz'net/ n. [from `Users' Network'; the original
     spelling was USENET, but the mixed-case form is now widely preferred] A
     distributed bboard (bulletin board) system supported mainly by Unix
     machines. Originally implemented in 1979-1980 by Steve Bellovin, Jim
     Ellis, Tom Truscott, and Steve Daniel at Duke University, it has swiftly
     grown to become international in scope and is now probably the largest
     decentralized information utility in existence. As of early 1996, it
     hosts over 10,000 newsgroups and an average of over 500 megabytes (the
     equivalent of several thousand paper pages) of new technical articles,
     news, discussion, chatter, and flamage every day (and that leaves out
     the graphics...).
  
     By the year the Internet hit the mainstream (1994) the original UUCP
     transport for Usenet was fading out of use (see UUCPNET) - almost all
     Usenet connections were over Internet links. A lot of newbies and
     journalists began to refer to "Internet newsgroups" as though Usenet was
     and always had been just another Internet service. This ignorance
     greatly annoys experienced Usenetters.
  
  

  Usenet
       
           /yoos'net/ or /yooz'net/ (Or "Usenet news", from
          "Users' Network") A distributed bulletin board system and
          the people who post and read articles thereon.  Originally
          implemented in 1979 - 1980 by Steve Bellovin, Jim Ellis, Tom
          Truscott, and Steve Daniel at Duke University, and supported
          mainly by Unix machines, it swiftly grew to become
          international in scope and, before the advent of the
          World-Wide Web, probably the largest decentralised
          information utility in existence.
       
          Usenet encompasses government agencies, universities, high
          schools, businesses of all sizes, and home computers of all
          descriptions.  In the beginning, not all Usenet hosts were on
          the Internet.  As of early 1993, it hosted over 1200
          newsgroups ("groups" for short) and an average of 40
          megabytes (the equivalent of several thousand paper pages) of
          new technical articles, news, discussion, chatter, and
          flamage every day.  By November 1999, the number of groups
          had grown to over 37,000.
       
          To join in you originally needed a news reader program but
          there are now several web gateways such as Deja
          (http://www.deja.com/).  Several web browsers include news
          readers and URLs beginning "news:" refer to Usenet
          newsgroups.
       
          Network News Transfer Protocol is a protocol used to
          transfer news articles between a news server and a news
          reader.  The uucp protocol was sometimes used to transfer
          articles between servers, though this is probably rare now
          that most sites are on the Internet.
       
          Stanford University runs a service to send news articles by
          electronic mail.  Send electronic mail to
           with "help" in the message body.
          [Still?  URL?]
       
          http://www.openmarket.com/info/internet-index/current-sources.html).html">(http://www.openmarket.com/info/internet-index/current-sources.html).
       
          Notes on news
          (http://www.ifi.uio.no/~larsi/notes/notes.html) by Lars Magne
          Ingebrigtsen .
       
          [Gene Spafford , "What is Usenet?",
          regular posting to news:news.announce.newusers].
       
          (1999-12-17)