Posting Messages to Groups

After you've explored some online groups, you may be ready to post your own messages--either a comment to something you've read or some totally new question or thought. While the procedure differs depending on the program, the general outline is always the same.

In order to post messages from a newsreader, you initially need to enter some sort of personal information, such as your name, company, and e-mail address. These elements are required in every posting. Of course, some people make up names and e-mail addresses (a good reason for doing so follows in a moment), but this is not sufficient to protect your company affiliation. (The header in your posting identifies which server it came from.)

Generally it is good netiquette to provide a real name and e-mail address where you may be contacted. That way, if someone has an answer to a question you pose, it can be sent to you directly. Some companies that send out spam e-mail have started using software robots to mine newsgroups for e-mail addresses. They then send unsolicited ads. To prevent this, some people now provide return e-mail addresses in a form such as "johnsmithNOSPAMcom."

At the bottom of their postings, via the signature that most newsreaders create automatically, they explain that anyone who has a legitimate reason to contact them can do so by replacing the NOSPAM in the e-mail address with the @ symbol.

Once you have configured your newsreader, you may want to make sure you can post a message. In most newsgroups, it is considered bad form to post a message that is merely a test. However, a number of test newsgroups exist (they have the word "test" in their name). You can use any of these to verify that you can post successfully. Be advised that some test newsgroups (such as alt.test) automatically send you e-mail when your posting appears. This is a convenience, but it means that posting to such a group will generate e-mail from around the world as your message gets forwarded from news server to news server.