About Newsgroups Configuring Your FAQs Setting Up New |
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Getting started with newsgroupsUsing newsgroups is a lot like using email, so much so that most email programs now are capable of posting to and browsing newsgroups. Such programs make working with newsgroups feel exactly like working with email: individual newsgroups look like folders, and instead of sending messages to an email address you send them to a newsgroup (usually via a "Newsgroups:" header rather than the "To:" header). Just like you use email differently depending upon which email program you use, you can expect newsgroups to work differently with different programs. To learn how to use your news reader, check out its help documentation. To get started working with your news reader, see the Configuring Your News Reader section of this guide. What is the UW news server?Newsgroups live on news servers, much like email lives on mail servers. Messages posted to newsgroups are distributed to all the news servers that maintain subscriptions to those newsgroups. News servers can also serve their own (local) newsgroups. The UW maintains its own news server, named: news.u.washington.edu which is accessed via port 119 by default (this is default for most newsreaders), or 563 for secure, "SSL" encrypted connections. Who can access the UW news server?Anyone using a computer on a UW network can access news.u.washington.edu. This includes computers on the campus ethernet and computers dialing into the UW modems. The news server can also be accessed via a special "secure" connection using UW NetID authentication, which is useful for people not connecting from a UW network. Additionally, several local University of Washington newgroups in the "uwash.public" heirarchy can be subscribed to by non-UW users. For example, uwash.public.math513 can be opened by anyone at: news://news.u.washington.edu/uwash.public.math513 What guidelines are there for using UW newsgroups?USENET newsgroups may be set up for any group of UW faculty, students, or staff with a need to further their work at the university. The UW newsgroup server is a resource provided and operated with state funds and its usage is governed by federal and state laws and policies, as well as UW policies. You may create and use UW newsgroups only for activities related to UW research, education or administration. Staff ownership and use of Newsgroups is subject to the approval of their departments and supervisors. For more information read Guidelines for Use of UW Technology Computing and Networking Resources. Which newsgroups are available?The UW news server lists many worldwide USENET newsgroups in addition to many local UW-only and public newsgroups. How do I find a newsgroup for a particular topic?The following sites can help you browse and search for newsgroup information. |
