Moderated groups come in many forms. A brief description of the major types follows. Announce groups are generally specified as low-volume newsgroups that all readers interested in a specific topic may subscribe to. Some announce groups serve as a collecting point for FAQs and announcements for a set of related newsgroups, such as rec.music.info . Moderators of announce groups should make the charter as specific as possible, and should keep the focus on the value to the readers rather than the posters.
Binary groups exist to distribute software.
Normally binaries are distributed only for systems where many users do not have development or compilation facilities, such as personal computers of various types. Moderators of binary groups should take particular care to prevent the distribution of software containing viruses. Because UNIX executables tend to rely on the site-specific configuration, they should never be posted to the net. In preparing a digest, the moderator packs all accepted articles into one file, and posts it to the newsgroup. Articles are edited to remove unuseful mail headers, excessive signatures, and other noise.