# A journey in the World of Newsgroups

This chapter is supposed to be glance over the World of Newsgroups and their inhabitants; someone who has never dared to go there before will encounter some strange customs, which may give you a feeling of being a lonely alien without backup; but stay calm, it is not like this. The Usenet is a meeting place for all kinds of normal and not-so-normal folks; it is here where they are distributing a lot of information but also gossip and other stuff.

References to more detailed and qualified essays on the Usenet can be found at More Resources

## What are ...

### ... online-readers?

An online-reader connects to a newsserver and gives you access to its content. &knode; is an online-reader: you are reading your News and publishing your own articles while the online-reader stays connected.

### ... offline-readers?

An offline-reader connects to the Server and fetches only the headers of new articles; then, the connection is closed and you can mark (offline) the articles you are really interested in. When you connect next time the offline-reader fetches the articles you marked and sends the articles you have written whilst offline.

There is no connection while you are reading or writing articles.

### ... newsgroups?

You can look at newsgroups as public bulletin boards and forums, where everybody is allowed to participate. Articles you have published in a newsgroup can be read by everybody subscribed to this newsgroup and, normally, everybody is allowed to publish their articles in a newsgroup.

### ... news?

News is the collective term for articles published in a newsgroup.

### ... threads?

A thread is a topic of discussion in a newsgroup.

## Online Manners

There are lot of different people meeting and talking in newsgroups; it is seen as some kind of courtesy to obey some rules of manner, the basics of which are listed here.

1. Before you ask questions be sure you have read the newsgroup's FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) and didn't find the answer.

2. If you take part in a discussion be aware of the fact that everybody can read the answer: do not say anything that you would not say to the others if you were facing them; avoid insults.

3. Try to avoid crossposting: do not ask a question in more than one newsgroup when you do not know which is the right one. Ask in one newsgroup; if it is wrong, you will be told which is right one.

4. Formulate your articles accurately; nobody likes to read an article with lots of typos, even with content worth a Pulitzer. Think of your articles as letters: your letter speaks for you; it represents you; somebody reading your article will draw conclusions about you from it, wrong or right.

5. Remember, nobody sees your grin when you are writing an ironic sentence: it may be funny for you, but it can be very serious for the person reading it. It is very difficult to include emotions in an article.

6. The most important rule: use your common sense when you are answering or publishing an article.

## The Usenet language

You will not be surprised about English being the main language on the Usenet; however, there are special trees for German (de.*), French (fr.*) and many other languages. If you are unable to determine the main language of a newsgroup the only possibility is careful listening or a possible explanation in the description of the group in the grouplist.

In addition, over the time the Usenet has developed its own language but it is easy to learn.

### RTFM and other typos

When you read news, after some time you will read some strange combinations of letters; for example, you can get a reply like:

RTFM

Nothing else. Strange, but absolutely intended; to solve the riddle: those, most of the time, are shortcuts, acronyms. It is easier to drop some letters than to write the same sentence over and over again.

But what is the meaning of RTFM? The writer is asking you to read the manual, documentation or FAQ before asking questions in the newsgroup. It stands for: (R)ead (T)he (F)...ing (M)anual; BTW this is advice you should adopt.

Wait, what is BTW now? Another often-seen acronym which means (B)y (T)he (W)ay. It is easy when you know it; to avoid you having to continuously speculate over the meaning of acronyms there is table at he end of this section containing the most-often-used acronyms.

This table does not try to be complete and is based on a list by Martin Imlau.

Acronyms on Usenet

Acronym | Meaning
--- | ---
<g> | grins
AAMOF | As a matter of fact
ACK | Acknowledge
AFAIK | As far as I know
AFAIR | As far as I remember
AWGTHTGTTA | Are we going to have to go through this again?
ASAP | As soon as possible
BFN | Bye for now!
BTW | By the way
BYKT | But you knew that
CMIIW | Correct me if I'm wrong
CU | See you!
CU2 | See you too!
CYL | See you later!
DAU | German abbreviation for the silliest user you can imagine (Dümmster anzunehmender User)
EOD | End of discussion
ESOSL | Endless snorts of stupid laughter
FYI | For your information
GOK | God only knows
HAND | Have a nice day!
HTH | Hope that helps
HSIK | How should I know?
IAE | In any event
IANAL | I am not a lawyer
IIRC | If I remember correctly
IMCO | In my considered opinion
IMHO | In my humble opinion
IMNSHO | In my not so humble opinion
INPO | In no particular order
IOW | In other words
LMAO | Laughing my ass off
LOL | Laughing out loudly
NAK | Not acknowledged
NBD | No big deal
NFW | No f...ing way
ROTFL | Rolling on the floor, laughing
RTFM | Read the f...ing manual
SCNR | Sorry, could not resist
TIA | Thanks in advance

### Smile!

Again, such a strange thing. What is this ;-) meant to be? Turn your head so the left side of your screen is on top; got it? It's a smile with a wink? This is a so-called emoticon; emoticons are an often-used possibility to express emotions, one thing missing in conversation on the Usenet (but there is a substitute, remember? ;-)

It is very difficult to express emotions in email or news; your joking comment appear to be very serious to the recipient and can lead to unmeant reactions or conflicts (flames); so use emoticons to express your intention.

There are a lots of emoticons, which express a great variety of emotions; the interpretation is easy if you turn your head and think of a face.

### PLONK!

This PLONK! looks like some comic-sound, does it not? And that is exactly what it is used for. The one who reads it knows he was just added to the killfile of a newsreader; normally this means the recipient of the PLONK! annoyed the sender. The PLONK! is meant to play back the sound of the recipients name hitting the ground in the killfile.