More information on this topic can be found
in Chapter 11 of the textbook.

Unit 9: Usenet and Discussion Groups

Email is the most popular use of the internet. Many people who use the internet only have email and text-based communication. They rely on email for most of their internet exposure; they can't view world wide web pages.

Using email, you can create a virtual circle of friends that do nothing but discuss specific topics of interest. You can subscribe to a mailing list that will echo any mail you send to the list to all the list members (and theirs to you), which will let you listen in on, and participate in, ognoing discussions through email. Newsgroups are similar, but they're more like a bulletin board -- when you post something to a newsgroup it stays in a public area of the internet, where many mailing lists are private, members-only lists.

Email Discussion Groups: Mailing lists

You can search for a mailing list on any topic that interests you, and subscribe for the service online. You are not required to participate if you don't want to...you may just want to listen in (lurk) until you feel comfortable with the regular posters and feel that you have something to contribute.

Email Discussion Groups: Usenet Newsgroups

Over 250,000 messages are posted to Usenet each day and millions of people around the world read it. Generally, users post questions and others within the Usenet community respond -- exchanging everything from recipes to software tips. Usenet is a system for exchanging messages (articles) arranged in specific categories called newsgroups. You may have a newsgroup reader included with your email package and your ISP, but you can always refer to www.dejanews.com to read newsgroups online even without a newsgroup reader.

Online Etiquette:

Like everything else, there are expected rules of conduct that govern online mail and communication (known as "netiquette"). If the mailing list you want to join has a FAQ, you should read it before posting to the list; many times the listowner will have outlined several dos and don'ts and will usually use the FAQ to list important information such as the location of any online list archives.

http://www.theistudio.com/netiquette/

Also, see the Core Rules of Netiquette:
http://www.albion.com/netiquette/index.html

Test yourself on this unit