Friday, March 3rd, 2006, 2:31 pm
Newsgroups Habits
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N the last 8 days of February, I may have set a new personal record. I composed nearly 400 posts, which had been sent to various newsgroups, especially technical ones. I am admittedly somewhat addicted at this stage. I merely try to catch up and keep up appearances as a regular reader and participant.
Below is my personal take on newsgroups and in particular UseNet:
- Newsgroups are suitable for like-minded people to support each other and contribute on-topic ideas
- Newsgroups are a place for pressing, on-topic news to be raised and openly discussed. The newsgroup has a chance of having impact on the parties (e.g. companies) involved and/or being discussed.
- In UseNet, content is made eternally public owing to (or put negatively — due to) newsgroup mirrors
- Key advice: always watch newsgroup post headers. Especially when reading high-traffic newsgroups, keep all headers in sight. Headers in newsgroups can help a great deal in discerning and predicting the poster’s behaviour and his/her chance of returning to the discussion. Such habits are less important for E-mail where most typically the sender is known, assuming good spam filters operate.
Related item: Newsgroups Statistics
