
           Introduction to Usenet news via the menu system

Usenet News is a Bulletin Board like system for people to discuss a
large variety of topics.  This introduction describes the facilities
available through the menu system.  This description is quite brief;
for an introduction to Usenet and details on how to use the news
readers, refer to the UCLink Gopher.  From the menu system, type "g" to
start up the UCLink Gopher.  Then select "Using UCLink" and then
"Usenet News".

UCLink has several interfaces available for Usenet news.  The more
general interface programs allow you to both read articles and post
articles.  The ones available on UCLink are "tin", "rn", and "trn".  We
recommend "tin", and this is the default for new accounts.  If you want
to switch your selected newsreader, you can do so in the
"Customization" menu.

There are over 4,000 newsgroups (bulletin-boards) within Usenet news
(as of August, 1994).  There are often 5 to 10 new newsgroups in a
day.  If you want to start up a newsreader quickly, read a few
articles, and quit, it can be quite annoying to be wait and have to
respond to whether or not you want to subscribe to the new newsgroups.
For this reason, you have the choice here of starting up a newsreader
with or without hearing about new newsgroups.

Even if you limit the news reader to groups you already subscribe to,
starting it up takes some time.  For this reason, there are special-
purpose menu entries for reading a single news group and for posting an
article without reading.

Finally, news reader control files take up room.  The last entry in
this menu invokes a program which cleans up your control files by
deleting information about newsgroups which you are not subscribed to.

For further information, see the UCLink Gopher which contains the
following articles in the "Using UCLink"/"Usenet News" sections:

Usenet News - What It Is and How It's Organized
	An introduction to Usenet news.  It explains the meaning of
        newsgroup names, how to get started, and what software
        is available to read news.

tin - Getting Started with Tin
	A guide to using tin, an easy to use full-screen newsreader.

tin - Moving Around and Searching
 	Ways to move around in tin and also search for interesting
        topics, newsgroups and articles.

tin - Finding and Browsing through More Newsgroups
	Describes how you can find, browse, read and search through the
	newsgroups with tin.

tin - Posting Messages
	How you can post a message to a Usenet newsgroup with tin.

tin - Saving Messages
  	How to save interesting articles in your home directory.

tin - Why Use Tin?
	Discusses some of the advantages of using tin.  This is also
	a quick way for experienced trn/rn aficionados to quickly learn 
	enough to give tin a whirl.

trn/rn - Information on the trn/rn News Reader
	Describes the steps for getting started reading news with the
	"trn" or "rn" command.

"news.announce.newusers"
	A roadmap to the news.announce.newsusers newsgroup; the first
	newsgroup that you should read. 

Creating New Newsgroups
	How you can create a new newsgroup.

Clean Up your .newsrc File to Save Disk Space
        Describes the clean_newsrc command, which you can use
        to decrease the size of your .newsrc file so that it takes
        up less disk space.
