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Newsgroup

                  A newsgroup refers to a forum on the Internet where people share ideas about topics of mutual interest.
                  The topics of interest may be from areas like politics, technology, sports, etc. Newsgroups, which are
                  also referred to as ‘Usenet’, are international discussion groups that focus on some topics and help in
                  gathering information from the Internet.

                  The information or articles that make up the ‘news’ are written by people interested in a specific topic.
                  Such articles are posted to the newsgroup so that others can read, reply or comment on them.
                  Most newsgroups exist on the network of ‘Usenet’ which contains thousands of newsgroups. NNTP
                  (Network News Transfer Protocol) servers manage the network of Newsgroups.

                  Each ‘Usenet’ is run by a server system called a ‘News Server’. The one who manages the system is called
                  the news administrator. Any client can send a news article to the news administrator which is kept for a
                  period of two days to two weeks. The news server regularly checks the articles and deletes the old ones.
                  Newsgroups can be broadly categorised into two types: moderated and unmoderated. A moderated
                  newsgroup will not allow individuals to post messages directly to the newsgroup while an unmoderated
                  newsgroup will allow members to post a message directly to a newsgroup for other members to read and
                  respond. There is no need to subscribe any particular newsgroup.
                  Some terms that are used in ‘Newsgroup’ are:

                    Thread: It refers to a series of articles on the same subject.
                    Post: Message in a newsgroup is called an article or a post, though normally we refer to them as news
                     or message.
                    Lurking: It means hanging around a newsgroup (especially if there is a new member of the group) to
                     see what is being discussed.
                    Flaming: It refers to sending nasty messages to people in the group.

                    Poster: It refers to the person who posts articles to the group.
                  The table shows some categories of ‘Newsgroup’ and their topics:

                             Main Category                Topics               Sample Newsgroup Name

                                                                            biz.marketplace
                           Biz                   Business
                                                                            Biz.enterpreneurs

                                                                            comp.graphics
                           Comp                  Computers                  comp.Internet
                                                                            comp.language.c++

                                                                            rec.sport.football
                           Rec                   Recreation
                                                                            rec.photo.digital
                                                                            sci.bio.botany
                           Sci                   Science
                                                                            sci.med.midwifery

                                                                            soc.culture.hawai
                           Soc                   Social issues
                                                                            soc.geneology
                                                                            talk.bizarre
                           Talk                  Debates and opinions
                                                                            talk.politics


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