Report 1: Social Psychology of USENET Newsgroups

Exploring News On The Internet

Bodyart(rec.art.bodyart) & Pets (rec.pet.dogs.breeds)

As you read through my report, you will get an idea of what it's like to join a newsgroup and what my own personal experience was like. After reading the first part of my paper, the first thought that may come to you mind might sound something like this...
"Newsgroups sound confusing and this person has no clue to what's she's doing"!!!

When the assignment was first handed out, I didn't know what it was, where to find it, or how to find it. Basically, I was lost. With the help of others, I learned how to access the newsgroups and learned what it was. A newsgroup is a group of people with a common interest, sharing thoughts and ideas, or questions over the internet. I didn't know what kind of experience I would have and it was quite frightening at first due to this uncertainty. However, as I began to read through the newsgroups, it was fun to read what other people wrote and quite an experience to be able to respond. In the following sections of my paper, I will be explaining in more detail about the different aspects of newsgroups and some differences between the two groups that I chose.

In the beginning, it was difficult for me to get into the newsgroups because I wasn't sure about how to find them. Finally, with the help of a friend who is very familiar with newsgroups, he suggested that I click on "Destinations" which led me to Ne ts cape Destinations. From there, I clicked on Netscape Search, which led me to newsgroups. Now that I found out how to get to the newsgroups, I had to figure out where I was going to search and what group I was going to join. Although this took a while to do, it turned out to be an interesting experience. I decided to search through DejaNe ws because it said that they had the "largest collection" of archived Usenet News. After typing in a few different interest that I have, I joined rec.arts.bodyart which talked about tattoos and body piercing. For my second newsgroups I chose dogs and joined rec.pets.dogs.br ee ds .

The newsgroups that I chose were fairly long so I read the most of the messages that dated back to January. Some messages were not of interest to me so I tended to use the "Next Article" button quite often. As for analyzing the messages, that was easy for me because people were mainly asking basic questions or giving comments. If I happened to be interested in that particular subject, I would click on the "View Thread" button and read the responses as well. Then if I wanted to reply or e-mail a particular person, I would click on "Post Reply", "Post Article", or "E-mail Reply". DejaNews is quite easy to use because all you have to do is click on a button. By reading what others wrote, it helped me to get an idea of what I could respond to.

In both of my newsgroups, I noticed two common formats used in posting. Majority of the participants quoted a specific sentence that they wanted to respond to. Here is an example:

ARogueAnt wrote:
>I need some advice about tattoos. I am planning three tattoos
>based on Aztec and Mayan design. What do I need to know?
>Can anyone recommend an artist in Long Beach or L.A. area?
>Any help would be much appreciated.
I would recommend either Steve or Art "Gadoy" (I think I spelled it wrong) they work at the L.A. Tattoo at Venice Beach. Between the two of them they will definitely hook you up with what you are looking for.
Duran
Big Brother Tattoo

The quote was indicated by this symbol ">" and the reply followed after that. By doing it in this manner, it made it easier for the reader to understand what's going on. The second format that was used didn't quote a specific sentence. Instead, the person responding would use the original header from the message that he or she is responding to. Here is an example of that format:

Subject: RE: WOMEN AND TATTOOS=QUESTIONS
From: gt794a@prism.gatech.edu
Date: 1997/01/10
Message-Id: <32D6642E.7C8E@prism.gatech.edu>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.bodyart
I have no tattoos, but I do have a couple of piercings...I have gotten responses ranging from "the navel isn't meant to be pierced (a male tattoo artist actually said that rather nastily)", to "cool", to "that's just weird". My parents & boyfriend are so conservative that they think anything other than one earlobe pierce is "weird".

Of the hundreds of messages that I read, I would have to say that approximately 95% of the members did follow the brevity rule. In my opinion, I feel that a newsgroup is more successful when one topic is discussed at at time. However, I did find one person in rec.pets.dogs who was talking about one issue and then started to complain about getting flamed. As I looked through past messages, I couldn't figure out what she was talking about.

Perhaps the topics of my newsgroups were boring but I didn't get the chance to read any postings that elicited flaming. The closest I got was the previous message that I discussed but it had no direct relationship to "flaming" itself. Another reason why I may not have experienced flaming is because DejaNews recommends that you not "flame" anyone because you may regret it,

because in Deja News, your post will live forever!

The threads in both of my newsgroups were not fairly long unless it was a topic of great interest. As I browsed through the messages, I clicked on the "View Thread" button and noticed approximately four other responses. Usually a person would ask a question regarding places that they can go to get a good tattoo or questions about what they can do to prevent their dog from chewing everything up. Usually, if a person responded to a message and another person didn't agree or had a better idea, they would simply add in their thoughts explaining what they felt was right or not. There are also many new threads that are started and many of them do not have responses. In rec.arts.bodyart, there are currently 5555 messages and people are still adding new messages everyday.

Talk about being a nervous wreck, that's what I was in the beginning. Being that it took me a while to get into the hang of everything, it took me a while to actually post something. I felt that being a new member of a newsgroup was quite stressful because I was so concerned about sounding stupid when I posted. I read all the messages in my newsgroups that dated back to January that were interesting to me and I needed to decide which message I wanted to reply to. Time was running out so I finally took that big step.

Participating In Rec.Pets.Dogs.Breeds
Actually, the first time I actively participated, I replied directly to the person that asked a question. She had a question about her puppy that had a biting problem and I though I could help her. I thought I was posting a reply so that everyone could see but apparently, I click on the wrong button. I realized this occurred when she had e mailed a message to my mother. I was doing all my work from home and I didn't realize that my mother's address was on all the messages that I sent out. She suggested that I post not only to her but to everyone else. Even though I made this mistake, it gave me more courage to post again. The next thing I decided to do was start a new thread because I had a question about buying a new dog. I already have a dog and I wanted some information about how I can prevent the two dogs from fighting. To my surprise, I had so many replies. I couldn't believe it.

When I first started participating, I was so nervous. However, as you get more practice, the nervousness goes away and it seems so natural to do. The most exciting part about posting is when someone actually replies to you. In the beginning, no one replied to me and I felt quite stupid because I thought my questions must have sounded stupid to everyone else. I also think that it's great that some people actually e-mail me personnally. When I checked my email, I was wondering who some of these people were because I usually get mail only from my classmates. Overall, I felt that participating in newsgroups was a good experience. I learned a lot from asking questions and hopefully I'll start joining other ones as well.

By using Excite, I began to search for other articles that related to etiqutte in newsgroups. As I had stated earlier, I was really concerned about posting for the first time. This is why I chose to search for articles about etiquette. One of the articles that I found was called Netiquette which explained different terms relating to newsgroups. Another page that I found was called Newbie Page. This was a simple yet helpful page especially for beginners.

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