Introduction To Newsgroups

[Christiane]

Newsgroups, provided by an internet service called USENET and NNTP
(Network News Transport Protocol), are a sort of public bulletin
board. There are tens of thousands of newsgroups covering every
conceivable topic. Any user anywhere in the world can post a question
to a newsgroup and anyone else anywhere in the world can reply with an
answer to the original message. On Microsoft's NNTP server, there are
groups for every product in the Microsoft fleet, and many programs
have multiple newgroups, each specializing in one aspect of using the
program. Typically, you use a newsgroup reader program such as Outlook
Express or Windows Mail (provided with Windows XP and Windows Vista,
respectively), but there are many freeware/shareward readers
available. Some companies have created an HTML/Web front end for the
newsgroups and refer to the newsgroups as "communities" or "forums".
The truth is, thouugh, most of these communities simply sit on top of
the basic NNTP service.

Unlike some newsgroups, the Microsoft newsgroups are not moderated.
That means that there is no human being allowing or rejecting
messages. Microsoft does filter the groups for spam messages ("Get
Viagra Now"), but doesn't filter on content that may not be in
Microsoft's best interest.

source: http://www.cpearson.com/EXCEL/HintsAndTipsForNewsgroupUsers.aspx