How To Use Newsgroups

Newsgroups are like a big Bulletin Board - basically, whatever messages are posted there by a user of the system can be read and replied to by all of the other users. As such, it's a great way to exchange ideas, conduct debates, and share information within the MINDS> community. Take the time to learn how to use the newsgroups - for one thing, they'll be the only way the committee will be posting internal announcements over the year (we believe that spamming members with unsolicited mail is both unfair and unnecessary).

The program you'll be using to access the newsgroups is called 'slrn'. It's quite similar to 'mutt' (the mail reader) in its use, so don't worry too much about the learning curve.

Reading the Newsgroups

When you type 'news' at the prompt:

MINDS> news

You'll see a list of the news groups we have here on minds, with a little explaination beside each one.

For example

->     0  minds.babble General postings

You can type '?' to see some help files written by the slrn guys, but here are a few basic things you'll need.

You can read the postings on a particlar group by hitting return while the arrow is pointed at that group (you can move the arrow with the arrow keys on your keyboard). When you hit return you'll see a list of the articles you haven't read yet (when you've read them all you'll get a list of all the ones you *have* read, with a 'D' beside them).

Again, you can move the arrow up and down to select the posting you want to read and press return when you've selected one.

Followup

Now, if you find the posting interesting, you can "followup" to it, by pressing 'f'. You'll be asked if you're sure you want to followup, if you hit 'n' or 'c' at this point you go back to reading postings, but if you hit 'y', you get dropped into pico where you can edit the message. The message you're replying to is automatically included in your message. There's no need to edit any of the "headers" (the four lines of text at the top of the message), if you do, and you make a mistake, slrn won't be very happy. But as always, if you want to know more about what they mean, post a question on minds.help, or ask a committee member.

When you're following up to a posting, be careful to delete any lines you're not replying to, it's good netiquette, and some veteran users may get quite irate if you don't do this.

When you've finished writing your message, exit pico (hold down control and hit 'x'), and accept the filename pico offers you. Then slrn will ask you if you want to post the message. This is almost your last chance to change your mind. Remember, a lot of people are going to read this message, so think about the content carefully.

You are given four options at this point. If you hit 'y' the message will be posted. Hit 'n' and it just disappears. If you hit 'e' you get to go back and make some changes to the message. And if you hit 's' the message is postponed. (All of these options are printed with the question "Post the message?")

If you choose to postpone the message, you can come back and finish it later. (To do this, you have to select a newsgroup, then hit escape, then 'P', that's a capital P)

Posting a new message

There are two ways of doing this, you can hit 'P' (capital p) in one of the newsgroups, or you can hit 'p' (small or capital) in the list of newsgroups. After that, it's pretty much like following up.

Good luck,
and enjoy

Cian, pooka@minds.cs.may.ie
Margaret, lovelace@minds.cs.may.ie
Wed Oct 13 19:09:36 IST 1999