news.acm.uiuc.edu -- a free Usenet News server for UIUC users
ACM@UIUC Admin
Archive-name: usenet/uiuc/news.acm
Posting-Frequency: twice monthly
Last-modified: 1 February 2008
URL: http://www.acm.uiuc.edu/news/
URL: http://www.acm.uiuc.edu/news/news.acm.txt
news.acm.uiuc.edu is a Usenet news server dedicated to offering free access
to Usenet news for all UIUC students, staff, and faculty. It carries more
than 4,500 newsgroups, all of which are available either through a
standard news reader or a web interface.
The server is run by ACM@UIUC, a student group consisting of a variety of
people with diverse backgrounds who share a common interest in computers.
The homepage for the server is here:
This document is meant to serve as an introduction to the server for
campus users.
How To Use
==========
The server is available free of charge to all UIUC affiliates. You can
access it by either of the following means:
o Point your favorite newsreader (Outlook Express, Firefox, nn, pine,
Free Agent, etc) at the server 'news.acm.uiuc.edu'
- If you are coming from a UIUC system, you should have full access to
all groups immediately.
- If you are coming from an outside system, you will have to authenticate
with the news server to access most of the groups. Details of how to
create a login and password are at http://www.acm.uiuc.edu/news/#auth .
- Details for how to configure most major newsreaders are available
at http://news.individual.net/config.html (use 'news.acm.uiuc.edu'
instead of 'news.individual.net')
o You can use the web interface through your favorite web browser.
- The simplest interface is at http://www.acm.uiuc.edu/news/news/
+ On-campus users can access this service without a password.
+ Off-campus users will have to authenticate to gain access, as
described at http://www.acm.uiuc.edu/news/#auth .
- Limited service is available at http://www.acm.uiuc.edu/news/news.public/
If you are having problems connecting to or using the server, you can
either post to a cmi.* newsgroup (such as cmi.comp or cmi.general) and ask
for help, or send mail to 'ne...@acm.uiuc.edu'.
Local Newsgroups
================
The following newsgroups should be of specific interest to campus users.
cmi.* - newsgroups discussing East-Central Illinois. This is the
"community" news service, where you can talk with the locals. A
few groups of special interest:
cmi.announce Read and post announcements regarding community
events here.
cmi.classifieds Buy, sell, and trade just about anything - except cars,
housing, and personals, which have their own groups.
cmi.general General-purpose discussion of local issues.
cmi.politics Local, state, national, and international politics.
cmi.consumer Trying to find a doctor, a lawyer, plumber, or some
other professional? Need advice choosing what to buy?
Read for help, or post to advise others.
cmi.consumer.gourmand Restaurant reviews and discussion.
uiuc.* - newsgroups dedicated to the University of Illinois at Urbana-
Champaign campus. Essentially defunct, but a few people may still
look at it from time to time. A few areas of interest:
uiuc.announce Read and post announcements regarding University-
related events here.
uiuc.general General discussion of University-related issues.
uiuc.org.* University Registered Organizations.
National Hierarchies
====================
In addition to the above local hierarchies, news.acm carries the following
hierarchies (and much more!):
The Big-8 The Big-8 hierarchies (comp.*, rec.*, soc.*, sci.*, news.*,
misc.*, talk.*, and humanities.*) are generally considered
the "meat" of Usenet. Newsgroups covering virtually every
established topic are here.
alt.* This "alternative" hierarchy contains newsgroups on more
recent and/or short-lived topics, as well as established
but more "lawless" areas. We only carry ~1,200 groups of
the existing tens of thousands; but more can be added by
request (send email to 'ne...@acm.uiuc.edu').
Policies
========
news.acm.uiuc.edu is available only to UIUC students, staff, faculty,
and official affiliates - in general, anybody with an '@uiuc.edu' email
account. Otherwise, as long as you follow the campus usage policies
(available at http://www.admin.uiuc.edu/cam/CAM/viii/viii-1.1.html), you
should be fine. Additional details:
o Users do not have access to post "approved" messages (i.e. moderate
a newsgroup) without making prior arrangements with the news manager.
However, moderating groups on this server is encouraged. Please contact
ne...@acm.uiuc.edu if you feel you need to do this.
o No morphing. No spamming. No harassing people. No abusing the
network. This is basic stuff; I don't have to remind you.
Additional Information
======================
For more information on Usenet as a whole, please read the newsgroup
'news.announce.newusers', and specifically these regularly-posted FAQs:
* Welcome to Usenet!
* Usenet Frequently Asked Questions
* What Is Usenet? (A Second Opinion)
Much more information regarding Usenet (and everything else) can be found
at the Usenet FAQ Archive, at http://www.faqs.org/usenet/ .
For help in setting up your newsreader, you may want to check Prairienet's
documentation at http://www.prairienet.org/helpcenter/newsgroups_access.php
substituting news.acm.uiuc.edu for news.prairienet.org where necessary.