USENET is a globally distributed bulletin board system that resides on the Internet, providing messaging and conferencing for Internet users. USENET does not have any central location or control. There is no system operator (sysop) who decides who can be a member, when you can have access, or how much information you can download per day. USENET is not a private information network used for the transportation of proprietary or secret data. Instead, information is placed on USENET for people to read, copy, rebut, and use in just about any way that they see fit.[1] USENET is a global community; what you and the people in your local community may consider to be "fair use" and "fair play" are not necessarily shared by your fellow USENET brethren on other parts of this great planet. Please practice tolerance and open-mindedness when browsing through the USENET global information village.
[1] Note, though, that an implicit international copyright is assigned to all information posted to USENET by authority of the Berne Convention of 1989.
Information is "posted" to a USENET newsgroup in the form of an "article." An article is just a piece of email that you send to USENET using a program called a newsreader. A newsreader is a special client program that enables you to read and post articles to USENET newsgroups. Any computer running USENET news hub server software will also have available one or more different newsreader programs, such as rn or tin.
When you post an article to one or more USENET newsgroups, your local news hub will send your article to other computers that are also running news hub software, who in turn will send it on to others. Your article will spread out over the earth--via the regional telephone companies--to be stored and made available to all of the other many thousands of computers linked to USENET.
The many thousands of newsgroups in USENET are organized as a hierarchy, with the most general grouping appearing first in the newsgroup name, followed by more specific subgroups. For example, graphics files are found in all the newsgroups in the hierarchy alt.binaries.pictures. We can be more specific and look for graphics of fine art in the alt.binaries.pictures.fine-art newsgroup. In doing so, we would see that this newsgroup contains three subgroups, one for the posting of original artwork, one for posting of scanned artwork, and one for the discussion of files posted on either of these two newsgroups. This branch of the hierarchy appears as follows:
alt.binaries.pictures alt.binaries.pictures.fine-art alt.binaries.pictures.fine-art.graphics alt.binaries.pictures.fine-art.digitized alt.binaries.pictures.fine-art.d
Don't think that fine art graphics is all that you'll find on USENET. As of January 1, 1996, no fewer than 124 alt.binaries.pictures subgroups were listed on USENET. Most of these groups are frequented by regular readers and some receive dozens, if not hundreds, of posts a day. To give you an idea of what's available, here is a very abbreviated listing of the alt.binaries.pictures.* hierarchy:
alt.binaries.pictures.animals alt.binaries.pictures.anime alt.binaries.pictures.art alt.binaries.pictures.arts alt.binaries.pictures.ascii alt.binaries.pictures.astro alt.binaries.pictures.babies alt.binaries.pictures.black alt.binaries.pictures.bodyart alt.binaries.pictures.boys alt.binaries.pictures.cartoons alt.binaries.pictures.celebrities alt.binaries.pictures.cemeteries alt.binaries.pictures.children alt.binaries.pictures.cops alt.binaries.pictures.d alt.binaries.pictures.erotic alt.binaries.pictures.erotica alt.binaries.pictures.fine-art alt.binaries.pictures.fractals alt.binaries.pictures.furniture alt.binaries.pictures.furry alt.binaries.pictures.girlfriends alt.binaries.pictures.girls alt.binaries.pictures.lingerie alt.binaries.pictures.misc alt.binaries.pictures.nude alt.binaries.pictures.nudism alt.binaries.pictures.personal alt.binaries.pictures.photo-modeling alt.binaries.pictures.rail alt.binaries.pictures.supermodels alt.binaries.pictures.tasteless alt.binaries.pictures.teen-idols alt.binaries.pictures.teen-starlets alt.binaries.pictures.tools alt.binaries.pictures.utilities alt.binaries.pictures.vehicles alt.binaries.pictures.voyeurism
The intellectual content of the images posted to these groups includes any person, place, object, or idea that may be captured with a camera, scanner, or graphics art program. You can find or request practically any image you might need or want. Such requests should only be posted to the discussion newsgroups (those ending in ".d").
Before you deem some subjects as "unsuitable" or even "illegal," remember that the Internet is a global information network. It is not owned by any one company that may set restrictions and policies, nor is it governed by only one social or cultural viewpoint. The Internet is truly the human race's first step at achieving a global community.[2] For a list of the newsgroups most often frequented by graphics programmers and others interested in graphics files, see "Internet Graphics Resources" later in this appendix.
[2] But note that as we write this, issues of censorship on the Net are being hotly debated in the governments and press of many countries, and by both free speech advocates and those who advocate restrictions of various kinds.
FAQ listings are specialized newsgroup postings that contain a list of answers to questions commonly asked on a particular newsgroup. If you are new to reading a newsgroup, you should obtain and read a copy of the FAQ for that newsgroup before you post any questions to the group. This will give you an immediate answer to most common questions, lower the traffic on USENET, and reduce the need for regular readers of the newsgroup to answer the same basic questions over and over again.
Over the years, FAQs have evolved from simple Q&A listings to entire treatises on a particular subject, or even (unfortunately) infomercials for a particular product. FAQs have grown to the point where they have been published as books, and fierce battles have arisen when the freely available, yet copyrighted, material available in FAQs has been used without permission in for-profit ventures.
Nearly all FAQs may be found on the *.answers newsgroups. The master newsgroup is news.answers, and all FAQs registered with the FAQ administrators at rtfm.mit.edu are posted there. Every major newsgroup category also has a *.answers newsgroup as well (comp.answers, rec.answers, alt.answers, and so on). Each FAQ may also have one or more home newsgroups to which it is also posted. For example, the JPEG FAQ is posted to news.answers, comp.answers, and comp.compression.
FAQs are usually posted at regular intervals, which can be anywhere from once every two weeks to once every few months. The information in a FAQ may change each time the FAQ is posted or may hardly change at all, depending on the discretion of the FAQ's author and its subject matter.
FAQs are authored by people known as "FAQ maintainers." Each maintainer is just another member of the USENET community. Maintainers offer their time and service to the USENET community for free by accepting the responsibility of maintaining and posting one or more FAQs that may be used by tens of thousands of people. Maintainers are regarded as the de facto Internet experts on their FAQ's subject (even if they really are not). Maintainers must answer questions, gather accurate and up-to-date information, present it in a format that is easily readable, and make their FAQs freely available to the USENET and Internet communities.
To familiarize yourself with USENET FAQs, look through the postings on the news.answers newsgroup. If graphics files are your interest, then you will want to check out James Murray's Graphics File Formats FAQ. This FAQ contains detailed information on graphics file formats, including where to find specifications, viewing programs, and source code, and on the problems and legalities of using certain formats. This FAQ is also available on the CD-ROM that accompanies this book (with links to the updated FAQ), and it also contains information on other graphics and file format-related FAQs.
There are a few rules to follow when you post articles to USENET. Because there are no USENET police, per se, no one will break down your door and haul you away in chains if you do not follow these rules. However, if you choose to ignore these rules of etiquette you are likely to receive everything from friendly advice to something close to death threats from your follow USENET newsgroup patrons.
Subject: TOSHI.JPG (01/01) "Picture of my cat, Toshi" [640x480x256]
is more descriptive than, and is preferred to:
Subject: my cat
For further information on posting to the alt.binaries.pictures.* newsgroups, read Jim Howard's alt.binaries.pictures FAQ. This FAQ contains the official information on the alt.binaries.pictures newsgroups and their netiquette, gives a listing of graphics file viewers for all popular operating systems, and provides detailed troubleshooting information.
The FAQ is available on the alt.binaries.pictures.d and news.answers newsgroups. You can get a copy via email by sending a message with the body:
send usenet/news.answers/pictures-faq/part1 send usenet/news.answers/pictures-faq/part2 send usenet/news.answers/pictures-faq/part3
All introductory information on USENET can be found in the news.announce.newusers newsgroup. Be sure to read through all of the documents posted to this newsgroup before you attempt to post messages or create a new newsgroup. A list of all the available documents may be found in the "Welcome to USENET!" FAQ , which may be obtained by sending email to [email protected] with the body "send usenet/welcome/part1". All of these documents may also be found on the World Wide Web at:
http://www.smartpages.com/bngfaqs/news/announce/newusers/top.html
This page is taken from the Encyclopedia of Graphics File Formats and is licensed by O'Reilly under the Creative Common/Attribution license.