Netnews, or Usenet, is the gigantic system of public discussion areas with names like {alt.culture.usenet}. (The term 'Usenet' doesn't include the "alt" groups, or the geographical groups, or several other 'hierarchies'.)
Here's an attempt to describe what the netnews experience is like:
1) Each room is labelled with a topic, and if you want to discuss that topic, that room is the one place to do it. In this way it serves as a public utility, like a library.
2) You have no way to tell who's in a room, unless they say something! This is wierd, because the Arbitron reports may claim 100,000 people are reading your message, but you're never sure it even got transmitted right, unless someone comments. And if you're met with silence, which you often are, you have complete freedom to interpret that silence as acceptance or rejection or whatever else you like. This really challenges one's self- doubts!
3) There's no official host to greet you, and make you feel welcome-- at best, you may find a self-appointed volunteer. (This is normally the first rule of social interaction, so on Usenet you really feel the lack.)
4) Talking calmly to 100,000 or more people at once is an incredibly rare privilege, and scary as hell for almost everyone. (I'm a 'blurter' myself-- sometimes my mouth just takes off and starts talking without my even thinking about the risks... but that's a real advantage here, like daring to dive into cold water...)
5) It's a lot like giving everybody who asks their own printing press and a million guaranteed subscribers! Which is a beautiful image of a democratic utopia, but brings some very serious problems.
6) These are people from all over the world, which is awesome, literally McLuhan's global village
7) But this includes all the global-village idiots, too! Picture trying to have a serious discussion in the middle of the mall, or the park. (Then picture the worst characters from the mall and the park in your living room...) I think this is the real, serious, truth-justice-and-the- American-way challenge of participatory-democracy, and it will be here that whatever solutions are found, are found first...
8) It's also like a little neutral country that shares a border with every other country, many of whom are at war, so it has to play host to every sort of international hostility (in the widest definition of 'nation'). Newgroups inevitably start being seen as the prize in territorial contests.
9) If someone's obnoxious, you can't do much to eject them. If you were really in the same room, everybody would just stare at them in horror, and that would be enough! Here, silent stares of horror have no effect.
10) When you enter the Usenet-house, you're bringing with you the mood of the room where you're reading your computer screen. So if you're at home and comfortable and totally relaxed, you can be wide open, which intensifies both the communication and the cruelties. ("Usenet, bringing the high-stress atmosphere of a city bus station right into your office and home...")
11) Flames are often the rudest sort of insult, carrying equally as much emotional pain as a slap in the face. Picture a room labelled with a topic you care about, so you're looking forward to interesting discussions and new friends, but as soon as you speak, people start coming over and slapping you repeatedly. Do you fight back, or just shut up?
12) So in this sense we're in a Wild West frontier environment, and there's a need to innovate the Usenet equivalent of a Matt Dillon... (This remark stirred up some protests.)
There's a lot of humor on netnews, courtesy its beloved bozos.
And here's some groups where netnews happens:
{news.groups}
{alt.config}
{news.admin.misc}
{control}(HUGE, no gifs) This is where cancellation
messages go, most of which are from ClariNet, but it's also where newgroup
creation messages (and rmgroups) go...
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