Usenet is a world-wide computer bulletin board system that allows you to read and post articles on a wide variety of topics.
Some local news groups have been created for Alachua Free-Net users to discuss topics of interest. These groups start with afn. Two groups are available to discuss the Alachua Free-Net itself: afn.system.discuss is for any general discussion about the AFN system, and afn.newsgroups.discuss is for specific discussion of newsgroups on AFN. Access either of these groups from the usenet-afn1 menu. ( The usenet-af1 menu is currently broken)
Tass is the news reader program used for a bulletin board function on Alachua Free-Net. Using it can be confusing at first, but once you learn a few simple commands you'll be able to find your way around easily. For tips on proper net etiquette, see the Netiquette menu option. See information on how to post articles below.
When you select a usenet newgroup menu option, you will initiate the Tass program and see the first screen of articles for that group. This is the index page. At the top of the page is the header with the name of the usenet newsgroup and at the bottom is a list of a few commonly used index commands:
- w write article
- q quit
- TAB read notes
- h help
Select the article you want to read by typing its number and pressing <Enter> or use the cursor to position the -> pointer by the number of the article you want, then press <Enter> to read the current article.
When reading the selected article, the <space bar> scrolls to the next page or pressing b moves you back a page. There may be "responses" to any article, the top right header of the article viewer screen shows the number of the note in the newsgroup and the response number.
Rot-13 refers to encoding the text of an article by substituting the letter thirteen characters later in the alphabet (wrapping around to "a" again after "z"). This convention is used so that articles that may be (probably are) offensive to some people are not readable without special action, giving the reader the option of decoding it or not as he or she might choose.
Use the w command to post an article to a newsgroup at the index screen. Use the r command to respond to the article you're reading (use R if you want to include the referenced document in your post). In either case, you're placed in the editor for you to compose your note. After you've written your note, exit as usual (^X), taking the default options to save the buffer to the .article file. Tass then gives you the option of aborting without posting, editing again, or posting your note.