How to use newsgroups

Usenet is like a giant newspaper with few editorial standards; public messages ("articles") are posted and propogated to all newsservers world-wide.

Given that a newspaper with millions of "reporters" would be an unusable mess, Usenet is divided into newsgroups which cover various topics, just as a newspaper is divided into various sections. While your local newspaper may have a few sections, Usenet has tens of thousands of newsgroups.

ISPs (internet service providers) run newservers for their customers. These carry the newsgroups the ISP chooses and usually have time-limitations on articles due to newserver space limitations.

You access Usenet using a piece of client software called a newsreader which connects to your ISP's newsserver. Newsgroups that you read regularly can be "subscribed" to so you can see new messages every time you logon.

Google Groups runs a web-based interface for reading and posting to Usenet news as well; the link to ASH directly is http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&safe=off&group=alt.suicide.holiday.

Advantages

Audience - You have a world-wide audience. The majority of Usenet users do not post; we call them "lurkers". Because the number of lurkers is unknown, thousands, tens of thousands or more may read your words.

Lack of moderation - Though some newsgroups are moderated, the ASH newsgroups are not. Anyone may post anything with no one else's permission. there is an absolute lack of any type of censorship whatsoever.

Archives - All posts are archived by Google for an indefinite period of time. Individuals may also save articles they are interested in. Your words will be available forever.

Disadvantages

Audience - You probably don't want your mother reading your ASH posts, but unless she is suicidal, she's unlikely to be reading ASH. You can post from an anonymous account to minimize the risk of someone reading something you don't wish real-life friends and family to read. However, posts with real identifying information and/or specifying specifics of planned attempts should be posted with caution.

Lack of moderation - Spammers (people posting advertisements and "make money fast" schemes), interventionists (people who wish to save ASHer's with annoying cliches) and trolls (people posting for the purpose of getting a rise out of newsgroup members) can post as easily as you can.

Archives - Someone searching for your email address and/or name on Google will bring up all of your posts, including ASH posts. Again, using an anonymous email address is suggested. Also, adding the following line to your posts will prevent them from being archived. This must be the *first* line of your post and nothing else must be on it:
x-no-archive: yes

Keep in mind that people who quote you when following-up to your posts may cause your words to be archived even if you post as above.

You may already have a newsreader. Both MS Outlook and MS Outlook Express have functions to allow you to read news.

Some ISP's provide newsreaders with their software packages. Check the disk your ISP sent you if you installed their software on your machine.

Many shareware newsreaders can be downloaded from Tucows. I recommend Free Agent in particular.

Regardless of where you get your newsreader from, you will need to configure it to talk to your ISP's newsserver. Your ISP can give you the information necessary to do this.

If you prefer a web-based interface to Usenet, Google runs a web-based interface that does not require a newsreader.

Most ISP's will not find it strange if you ask them to carry a newsgroup on the topic of suicide. They already carry much weirder stuff. So don't be shy to request a newsgroup if it is not already carried.

This may not apply to those in countries with stricter censorship. Please use your discretion.

If you prefer to use a newsprovider other than your ISP, you can use Giganews Newsgroup Service - which carries newsgroups without censorship.

Another option is to search for public news servers which carry the newsgroup you want.

And again, Google is always an option.

The Google help page is located at http://groups.google.com/googlegroups/help.html.

To add a newsgroup to this list, email the webmistress.