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Method of Study Results of the Analysis What It's Like to Participate Annotated Index to Social Forces in Newsgroups |
Newsgroups are a powerful tool in the world of cyberspace.
This paper is an in depth study on my personal feelings about
newsgroups and what its like to participate in a newsgroup. Until
recently, I hadn't had any experience in using newsgroups. My
initial reaction was a sense of awe, as I realized how many newsgroups
existed. I thought I'd never be able to explore all of them, and
I was right. I did find two different newsgroups which interested
me, however, and the report which follows will outline my experiences
in dealing with these newsgroups. I am happy to say that I am
now a newsgroup user and I hope that after reading my report,
if you aren't already a user, you will become one too.
Until I enrolled in Dr. James' class, I'd never even heard of newsgroups. After a few classes, however, the subject came up and there I was, faced with my first and complete listing of newsgroups.
It was simply overwhelming. I mean there were newsgroups for just about any topic I could think of. I'd just type in a certain topic and WHAM, I'd be there, staring at a potential newsgroup to subscribe to.
The browser which I was introduced to newsgroups on, and which I still am using, is the newsgroup reader in PINE. Although I've tried using Freeagent, I prefer the browser in PINE because most times I'm already using PINE to read e-mail, so I might as well just use that browser.
As I said earlier, there were a vast number of newsgroups to which I could subscribe, but rather than subscribing to all, I chose two specific newsgroups: alt.games.video.nintendo-64, and alt.drugs.pot.cultivation. I chose these two over numerous others because they caught my eye. I wondered what they talked about in newsgroups such as these.
After following these two newgroups for about two weeks, I've been able to do many different things. Since I was right in PINE, I treated the newsgroups as I would my own personal e-mail account. When there were messages I wanted to save, I'd just export them to a folder specified for either nintendo or pot. So I wouldn't get confused, I deleted messages after I read them, unless I wanted to save them of course. It wasn't difficult getting started or even learning about the newsgroups because of its similarity to reading e-mail.
The difference, however, was in posting to the different
newsgroups. There are different techniques when posting to newsgroups
and I had to get used to picking up on these techniques. For example,
I had to be able to recognize when someone was flaming another
person or when spamming was occurring. Flaming is a response to
someone which ridicules or demeans another person's message. Spamming
is when people simply flood the newsgroup with a pile of postings,
all saying the same thing. I found that flaming is something which
I could use in the future. It is an interesting concept and one
that I enjoy because I like to "talk shit." Spamming,
on the other hand, is something which I can't appreciate just
yet. I mean too many people writing the same things? Sorry, that's
not for me.
Now as for the messages themselves, as far as the two newsgroups that I've been following so far, its pretty easy to get used to the format. What usually happens is that someone will post a message asking a question on a particular topic. Since my two newsgroups are ones that are mostly for information purposes rather than a forum type newsgroup, most of the messages are questions. The responses are usually all in the same format, meaning that when answering, the person will repeat the question first. For example, in the alt.drugs.pot.cultivation newsgroup, mofo (login name) responded by starting off like this,
>I've decided to start growing some plants and need advice.. I've been
>trying to find all the information I can on the net, and this is what
>I've come up with...
He went on to finish the first person's posted question and then wrote down what he thought. Most of the responses in both the alt.drugs.pot.cultivation and alt.games.video.nintendo-64 newsgroups follow this same format.
Most of the postings also follow the brevity rule pretty well too. The brevity rule simply means whether a person just uses one topic at a time, or whether that person goes off on a number of topics. A person following the brevity rule will try to keep the message short and simple, and to also stick to only one topic. In the alt.games.video.nintendo-64, for example, Marc Bjorkman posted the question,
>Help!
>
>I can not for the life of me figure out how to get the 8 red coins in
>Level 9, Dire Dire Docks. I have seen the cheats that say there are
>"Automatic Poles" in the second world (the one with the submarine) but
>have no idea how they are activated. I can get the first red coin by
>climbing up the temporary steps created by the switch, but I am lost
>after that!
>
>HELP ME PLEASE!!!
As you can see, the posted message was short and Marc stuck to the topic pretty well. Now I don't know if this holds true for all newsgroups, but as for these two, the brevity rule is well in effect.
In class, we also discussed the art of flaming. As stated earlier, flaming is simply an aggressive retort to a person's posted message. Although I haven't witnessed any such acts in my newsgroups, I do have an idea of what sort of messages would elicit flaming. For example, if I were in a newsgroup about the Dallas Cowboys and posted a message on how they aren't as good as another team, or why they simply suck, it would probably elicit a response which one could be considered a "flame." It is these types of postings which go against the beliefs of the newsgroup that I think would elicit flaming.
People start new threads all the time. Why? Well, my feeling is because either they don't want to talk about a certain topic anymore, or they just simply have a new topic to discuss. Some threads last a long time and so the real meaning of why it was started sometimes gets lost. Rather than keep posting follow-ups on the same thread, especially if there is something else which the person wants to say, a new thread can be started. If they do have something relevant to say on the topic, however, then a follow-up would be more appropriate.
Threads keep going because of interest in that particular topic. There might be a thread on a new game that will last for months (as long as its a good game) or there could be threads that die after posting. It all depends on how much interest the thread provokes.
Responses to messages can also be extremely predictable.
Since most of the messages in both my newsgroups are mostly questions,
the prediction of a response to the question would be fairly feasible.
In this sense, responses to messages in my particular newsgroups
are extremely predictable. A good example would be the response
to this question, posted in the alt.games.video.nintendo-64 newsgroup:
Does anybody know of a web site where I can purchase
a nintendo 64 over the Internet??
If one were to predict what types of response were to follow, then it would seem pretty obvious that information regarding the question would follow.
In my two newsgroups, there are hardly any matters of disagreement. In the alt.drugs.pot.cultivation newsgroup, almost all of the people agree on the matter that pot is okay to smoke. In the alt.games.video.nintendo-64 newsgroup, almost everyone agrees with the idea that the nintendo-64 system is the system of choice. There are, however, some deviants from the norm. There are those who disagree with the idea that the nintendo-64 is the best system there is. Those people are few and far between, though, and they usually only post a message to elicit flaming (or at least that's what I think they're doing). In the pot cultivation newsgroup, there are some disagreements as to what is the best way to grow a plant, but even these responses are scarce. Most of the people who post suggestions usually are expert growers who just want to share their thoughts.
When someone does post a message which breaks the
norm in my two newsgroups, however, the responses to their messages
are usually disagreement, but not in the way of flaming. They'll
usually just explain to the person why they think they're right
and the person is wrong. If it were a flaming response, the originator
of the message would get ridiculed or attacked. This doesn't happen
in my two newsgroups… the people are, for the most part,
civil.
In my first few weeks of participation, I had to learn the etiquette of this aspect of cyberspace. It wasn't that hard, seeing as how most of the people in my particular newsgroups were friendly and helpful. Any questions I had were accepted with open arms and a willingness to help.
It was because of this hospitable atmosphere that I posted my first message by my second session of browsing the newsgroups. I had no fear in posting to these groups because of the nature of the people in my newsgroups. They seemed like an inviting bunch and so I jumped right in.
Now, I visit my newsgroup just about every three days. I constantly check what new messages have been posted and I usually will look at most of the postings that seem attractive or interesting to me. I then check that message, and if it seems interesting within the first few lines, then I'll continue reading. If its something that I've already read, however, then I usually just go on to the next one.
As for posting messages, I only post when there's something that I definitely need to say. I'll also post if there's a question that I want to be answered and I'm lazy to look up. It's like having a big library that I don't really have to look in… just ask. I enjoy posting what little messages I do because I like getting responses which are useful to me. I've probably posted about 15 messages thus far, and almost all of them were for a good reason. Some were just to get information for this paper (like flaming), but for the most part, my postings are brief and right to the point.
After posting a message, I'm usually waiting for the next few days in eager anticipation. I wonder whether or not people will reply to my message or just pass it by. I usually will check my messages every three days, but sometimes, depending on the message I've posted, I'll check it every day for a week after posting. I've received many follow-ups to my messages and I'll usually write back to that particular person, rather than the entire newsgroup, and thank them for responding. Sometimes I'll ask that person for more information also. It's a pretty cool way of making new friends.
By participating in these newsgroups, I've been able
to learn a lot on things which are of interest to me. I enjoy
the interaction with the people in my newsgroups and consider
everyone of them my friends. I'll probably start subscribing to
more newsgroups in the near future, but as of right now I'll be
sticking to these.
After searching the Internet for articles which would relate to my own, I decided upon three links which I think might be of some relevance to my own interpretations of using newsgroups. I used the search engine yahoo, and ran a search for the words: "newsgroups", "articles on", and "psychological". Of the matches that popped up, these three seemed to be the most relevant:
The first one, Intro to Newsgroups, talked about the basics of starting to use newsgroups. It was a fairly comprehensive article and it discussed such things as flaming and basic netiquette guidelines. This, I thought, was the best of the three links which I found.
The second link which I found, Usenet Newsgroups, talked more about the social factors involved in using newsgroups. It talked about how to some people, newgroups were their only real knowledge of the Internet. It also talked about what newsgroups are all about and also about how people access newsgroups. This was an interesting article and one that warrants attention.
The last link, Usenet Newsgroups: Resources, was "a collection of net resources for learning about newsgroups and news readers." This was basically an outline, or a list of links which would be able to tell you more about newsgroups. There was a section in that paper called, "Some Newsgroups that Discuss Newsgroups." This was a collection of six links to newsgroups which might help in furthering your knowledge of newsgroups.
These were the three links which I thought were the
most relevant to my paper. Check it out, and let me know what
you think.
If you have any comments or reactions to my paper, feel free to
e-mailme. I will take
in to consideration all suggestions to further enhance my report.