 |
IC :
BDSM Dictionary : Usenet : history
A,
B,
C,
D,
E,
F,
G,
H,
I,
J,
K,
L,
M,
N,
O,
P,
Q,
R,
S,
T,
U,
V,
W,
X,
Y,
Z
This entry is part of the BDSM Dictionary hosted
by Informed Consent.
Usenet
Usenet is a distributed Internet
discussion system that evolved from a general purpose UUCP network of
the same name. Users read and post email-like messages (called
"articles") to a number of distributed
newsgroups, categories that resemble bulletin
board systems in most respects. The medium is sustained among a large
number of servers, which store and forward messages with one another.
Usenet is of significant cultural importance in the networked world,
having given rise to, or popularized, many widely recognized concepts
and terms such as "FAQ" and "spam".Introduction
Usenet is one of the oldest computer network communications systems
still in widespread use. It was established in 1980 following
experiments in the previous year, over a decade before the general
public was admitted to the Internet and the
World Wide Web was introduced. It was
originally conceived as a "poor man's ARPANET", employing UUCP to offer
mail and file transfers, as well as announcements through the newly
developed news software. This system, developed at Duke University, was
called USENET to emphasize its creators' hope that the USENIX
organization would take an active role in its operation (Daniel "et al",
1980).
Today, almost all Usenet traffic is carried over the Internet. The
current format and transmission of Usenet articles is very similar to
that of Internet email messages. However, whereas
email is usually used for one-to-one communication, Usenet is a
one-to-many medium.
The articles that users post to Usenet are organized into topical
categories called newsgroups, which are
themselves logically organized into hierarchies of subjects. For
instance, news:sci.math sci.math and news:sci.physics sci.physics are
within the sci hierarchy, for science. When a user subscribes to a
newsgroup, the news client software keeps track of which articles have
been read.
When a user posts an article, initially it is only available on that
user's news server. Each news server, however, talks to one or more
other servers (its "newsfeeds") and exchanges articles with them. In
this fashion, the article is copied from server to server and (if all
goes well) eventually reaches every server in the network. The later
peer-to-peer networks operate on a similar principle; but for Usenet it
is normally the sender, rather than the receiver, that initiates
transfers. Some have noted that this seems a monstrously inefficient
protocol in the era of abundant high-speed network access. Usenet was
designed for a time when networks were much slower, and not always
available. Many sites on the original Usenet network would connect only
once or twice a day to batch-transfer messages in and out.
Today, Usenet has lost importance compared to mailing lists and weblogs. The
difference from mailing lists, though, is
that Usenet requires no personal registration with the group concerned
(subscription is necessary only to keep track of which articles one has
already read, and that information need not be stored on a remote
server), that archives are always available, and that reading the
messages requires no mail client, but a news client (included in most
modern browsers).ISPs, news servers, and newsfeeds
Most Internet service providers, and many other Internet sites, operate
news servers for their users to access. In early news implementations,
the server and newsreader were a single program suite, running on the
same system. Today, one uses separate
newsreader client software, a program which
resembles an email client (and is often integrated with one) but
accesses Usenet servers instead.
Not all ISPs run news servers. A news server is one of the most
difficult Internet services to administer well, because of the
complexity and data throughput involved. Some ISPs outsource news
operation to specialist sites, which will usually look just the same to
a user as if the ISP ran the server itself. Many sites carry a
restricted newsfeed, with a limited number of newsgroups. Commonly
omitted from such a newsfeed are foreign-language newsgroups and the
alt.binaries hierarchy which largely carries software and
erotica and, in the 21st century, accounts for
over 99% of the article data.
For those who have access to the Internet, but do not have access to a
news server, Google Groups (http://groups.google.com) allows reading and
posting of text news groups via the World Wide
Web. Though this or other "news-to-Web gateways" are not always
as easy to use as specialized newsreader software - especially when
threads get long - they are often much easier to search. Users who lack
access to an ISP news server can use Google Groups to access the
alt.free.newsservers
newsgroup, which has information about open news servers.
There are also Usenet providers which specialize in offering service to
users whose ISPs do not carry news, or which carry a restricted feed.
One list of such providers is available at
Jeremy
Nixon's list of Usenet providers. There is even a newsgroup for
the discussion of news providers specialized in the binary
newsgroups—<tt>alt.binaries.news-server-comp arison</tt>.External links
(This entry in the BDSM Dictionary incorporates text from the
Usenet
article in Wipipedia.)
This entry is published under the terms of the
GFDL. People with profiles on
Informed Consent can improve
this entry: see the BDSM Dictionary
help page for details.
|
|
Donate!
