[FAQ] How to Access Usenet Newsgroups from China (1) Introduction There are relatively few Usenet news servers in China. Among those known to exist, e.g., news.cz.js.cn, regulations are in place which restrict users from posting. Unknown to most people in China, however, is that easy web access is available for the 17 millions Internet users in China to read and post to Usenet -- the largest, oldest and truly global online community consisting of more than 30000 discussion forums, and millions of regular online contributors and readers throughout the world. The advent of the web (HTTP: HyperText Transfer Protocol) technology is making possible an integration of China's Internet users with the global online communities, on a scale which is similar to the bridge of continental divide in the late 1980s when the soc.*, talk.*, and rec.* newsgroups were brought to Europe, made possible by the emergence of TCP-based news transfer protocols such as NNTP (Network News Transfer Protocol) replacing UUCP dial-ups. About a dozen web-based news servers (mostly fee-based) are listed in a message by Barbara Pattist in: http://www.deja.com/getdoc.xp?AN=537213682 Some of the web-based news servers mentioned in the above link no longer exist. In the following, I list four of the free sites which I recommend for Chinese Internet users to read and post to the Usenet newsgroups. These are: Deja.com, InterBulletin, MailGate and NewsOne. Their Internet host addresses as well as IP addresses are listed below. Deja.com: www.deja.com 208.10.192.XXX (where XXX is any integer between 221 and 243) InterBulletin: news.interbulletin.com 212.55.215.132 MailGate: http://www.mailgate.org 212.177.105.139 Note: the IP addresses are provided only as a backup when a Domain Name Service fails. I have verified that all four host addresses can be directly accessed from China, and no proxy service is needed. For example, Deja.com can be accessed using either URL: http://www.deja.com or http://208.10.192.221 I myself have posted a message entitled "Internet: Posting and Reading from China" via deja.com when I was visiting Beijing in July 1999. It can be accessed at: http://www.deja.com/[ST_rn=md]/threadmsg_md.xp?AN=497036353 I have also seen people from China posting to newsgroups like rec.travel.asia and alt.prophecies.nostradamus via Deja.com or InterBulletin in the last few months. (2) Common Features of Web Access to Usenet The New York Times published an article titled "Old Newsgroups in New Commercial Packages" which gave a very good overview of these new web approaches to Usenet. A copy of it can be found at: http://www.deja.com/[ST_rn=md]/getdoc.xp?AN=497301197 All web-based news servers (Deja.com, InterBulletin, MailGate and NewsOne) share some common features compared to traditional Usenet news readers such as 'rn'. They usually show discussions in a threaded format which help people keeping track of follow-ups of a subject being discussed. Forums (or Newsgroups) At the homepage of Deja.com or InterBulletin [see host addresses in part (1)], a user is prompted to enter a newsgroup name (e.g., soc.culture.china or alt.chinese.text) or a keyword related a forum's name (e.g., China), then click a button. A web link to the relevant newsgroup (or a set of them) will be presented in the next page. All messages in a newsgroup are grouped together by subjects. No prior registration is required for browsing, reading and searching among the Usenet messages. Posting Registration, however, is required for the authorization to post messages to the Usenet newsgroups via Deja.com web servers. The procedures to register are straight-forward. Simply click a "Registration" link at the home page, provide a valid E-mail address for validation purpose, and fill out a form, the rest would be self-explanatory. Deja.com allows cross-posting to up to four newsgroups. Cancel a Message Compared with a traditional Usenet news reader (e.g., rn), a drawback of the web-based access is that there is no easy way to cancel a previously posted message, even by the author of the message. Deja.com, for example, states that a cancelled message would still stay in its archive, which means that the "cancel" really does not do much. So attention to details should be exercised before posting to the Usenet via the web-based news servers. (3) Special Features of Deja.com and InterBulletin Deja.com Among all web-based news servers, Deja.com is unique in that it has an almost complete archive of all (at least non-local) Usenet newsgroups since 1995. The keyword search features of the Deja.com Usenet archive is an invaluable research tool for technical people and consumers alike. For an introduction on how to search the Deja.com archive of Usenet newsgroups, check out a guide from About.com at: http://websearch.about.com/library/weekly/aa080399a.htm Another unique feature of Deja.com is the capability to view the entire discussion thread via a tree-like structure, which allows a reader to go from one message to another within the same discussion thread by a single click. This feature makes it easier to keep track of the progress of a discussion consisting of up to hundreds of messages. InterBulletin Unlike Deja.com, InterBulletin does not keep an archive of old messages on Usenet. It is currently available as a beta (experimental) version, and its features are expected to evolve. At any time on average, only recent messages of last 30-40 days can be browsed and read. It also does not have a search feature to find recent messages using a keyword. An advantage of InterBulletin is its relative fast news feed. Messages posted from other sites usually show up on the InterBulletin server in a very short time. InterBulletin also does not require prior registration or authorization for posting. However, it imposes a limit of maximum of 5 postings totally per day as an anti-spamming policy. Shortcut links to the newsgroups soc.culture.china, talk.politics.china and alt.chinese.text can be found at: http://www.gateway2china.com/community/
(An earlier version of this article was posted on USENET at: http://www.deja.com/threadmsg_md.xp?AN=538261319)