A journey in the World of Newsgroups
This chapter is supposed to glance over the World of Newsgroups and their inhabitants. Someone who never dared to go there will encounter some strange customs, wich 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 acces to its content. 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 offline mark the articles, you are really interested in. When you connent the next time, the offline-reader fetches the articles you marked and sends the articles you have written 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 evereybody 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 her articles in a newsgroup.

... news?
News are articles published in a newsgroup.

... threads?
A thread describes a discussion of one topic 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, Some basics are listed here.
Before you ask questions be sure you read the newsgroups FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) and didn't find the anwser.
If you take part in a discussion, be aware the fact, everybody can read the anwser. Say nothing you wouldn't say to the others when you were facing them. Avoid insults.
Try to avoid crosspostings. Do not ask a question in more than one newsgroup when you don't know which is the right one. Ask in one newsgroup. If it is wrong, you are told which is right one.
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.
Remember, nobody sees your grin when you are writing an ironical sentence. It may be funny for you, but it can be very serious for the one reading it. It is very difficult to include emotions in an article.
The most important rule: Use your common sense when you are anwsering or publishing an article.

The Usenet language
You won't be surprised about English beeing the main language on the Usenet. There are special trees with 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 listenening or a possible explanation in the description of the group in the grouplist.
In addition over the time the Usenet developed his own language, but happily 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 writing the same sentence over and over again.
But what is the meaning of RTFM? The writer demands you, to read the manual, documentation or FAQ before asking questions in the newsgroup. Clearer: (R)ead (T)he (F)ucking (M)anual. BTW an 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. Now, for you not to be continously speculating over acronyms there is table at he end of this section, containing the most often used aconyms. ;-)

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? You spot the smile with a wink? This is a so called emoticon. Emoticons are an often used possibility to express mimic. One thing missing in conversation on the Usenet. (But there is a susbstitute, remember? ;-)
It is very diffcult to express emotions in emails or news. Your joking comment can be very serious for 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. You will see, the interpretation is easy if you turn your head and think of a face.

PLONK!
This PLONK! looks like some comic-sound, doesn't it? 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! ticked off the sender. The PLONK! plays back the sound of the recipients name hitting the ground in the killfile. The sender turned his back to the recipient.

Often used acronyms
When you are reading your news with , you will really soon see some strange combinations of letters in the articles. For a novice user it is difficult to guess the meaning of all the acronyms used. That's why we provide you a list of the most often used acronyms. This table is in no means complete. ;-) It is based on a list originally provided by Martin Imlau.

Acronyms on Usenet
Acronym	Meaning
<g>	(user) 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
BYKT	But you knew that
CMIIW	Correct me if I'm wrong
CU	See you
CU2	See you too
CYL	See you later
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 loud
NAK	Not acknowledged
NBD	No big deal
NFW	No fucking way
ROTFL	Rolling on the floor, laughing
RTFM	Read the fucking manual
SCNR	Sorry, could not resist
TIA	Thanks in advance