by Unknown 2:45 AM 0 comments

Usenet News

The first thing to understand about Usenet is that it is widely misunderstood. Every day on Usenet the ``blind men and the elephant'' phenomenon appears, in spades. In the opinion of the author, more flame wars (rabid arguments) arise because of a lack of understanding of the nature of Usenet than from any other source. And consider that such flame wars arise, of necessity, among people who are on Usenet. Imagine, then, how poorly understood Usenet must be by those outside!
No essay on the nature of Usenet can ignore the erroneous impressions held by many Usenet users. Therefore, this section will treat falsehoods first. Keep reading for truth. (Beauty, alas, is not relevant to Usenet.)

What Usenet Is

Usenet is the set of machines that exchange articles tagged with one or more universally-recognized labels, called newsgroups (or ``groups'' for short). (Note that the term newsgroup is correct, while area,base, board, bboard, conference, round table, SIG, etc. are incorrect. If you want to be understood, be accurate.)

The Diversity of Usenet

If the above definition of Usenet sounds vague, that's because it is. It is almost impossible to generalize over all Usenet sites in any non-trivial way. Usenet encompasses government agencies, large universities, high schools, businesses of all sizes, home computers of all descriptions, etc.
Every administrator controls his own site. No one has any real control over any site but his own. The administrator gets his power from the owner of the system he administers. As long as the owner is happy with the job the administrator is doing, he can do whatever he pleases, up to and including cutting off Usenet entirely. C'est la vie.

What Usenet Is Not

Usenet is not an organization.

Usenet has no central authority. In fact, it has no central anything. There is a vague notion of ``upstream'' and ``downstream'' related to the direction of high-volume news flow. It follows that, to the extent that ``upstream'' sites decide what traffic they will carry for their ``downstream'' neighbors, that ``upstream'' sites have some influence on their neighbors. But such influence is usually easy to circumvent, and heavy-handed manipulation typically results in a backlash of resentment.

Usenet is not a democracy.

A democracy can be loosely defined as ``government of the people, by the people, for the people.'' However, as explained above, Usenet is not an organization, and only an organization can be run as a democracy. Even a democracy must be organized, for if it lacks a means of enforcing the peoples' wishes, then it may as well not exist.Some people wish that Usenet were a democracy. Many people pretend that it is. Both groups are sadly deluded.

Usenet is not fair.

After all, who shall decide what's fair? For that matter, if someone is behaving unfairly, who's going to stop him? Neither you nor I, that's certain.

Usenet is not a right.

Some people misunderstand their local right of ``freedom of speech'' to mean that they have a legal right to use others' computers to say what they wish in whatever way they wish, and the owners of said computers have no right to stop them.Those people are wrong. Freedom of speech also means freedom not to speak; if I choose not to use my computer to aid your speech, that is my right. Freedom of the press belongs to those who own one.

Usenet is not a public utility.

Some Usenet sites are publicly funded or subsidized. Most of them, by plain count, are not. There is no government monopoly on Usenet, and little or no control.

Usenet is not a commercial network.

Many Usenet sites are academic or government organizations; in fact, Usenet originated in academia. Therefore, there is a Usenet custom of keeping commercial traffic to a minimum. If such commercial traffic is generally considered worth carrying, then it may be grudgingly tolerated. Even so, it is usually separated somehow from non-commercial traffic; see comp.newprod.

Usenet is not the Internet.

The Internet is a wide-ranging network, parts of which are subsidized by various governments. The Internet carries many kinds of traffic; Usenet is only one of them. And the Internet is only one of the various networks carrying Usenet traffic.

Usenet is not a Unix network, nor even an ASCII network.

Don't assume that everyone is using ``rn'' on a Unix machine. There are Vaxen running VMS, IBM mainframes, Amigas, and MS-DOS PCs reading and posting to Usenet. And, yes, some of them use (shudder) EBCDIC. Ignore them if you like, but they're out there.

Usenet is not software.

There are dozens of software packages used at various sites to transport and read Usenet articles. So no one program or package can be called ``the Usenet software.''Software designed to support Usenet traffic can be (and is) used for other kinds of communication, usually without risk of mixing the two. Such private communication networks are typically kept distinct from Usenet by the invention of newsgroup names different from the universally-recognized ones.

Usenet is not a UUCP network.

UUCP is a protocol (some might say protocol suite, but that's a technical point) for sending data over point-to-point connections, typically using dialup modems. Usenet is only one of the various kinds of traffic carried via UUCP, and UUCP is only one of the various transports carrying Usenet traffic.

Well, enough negativity.