The best way to keep posts on-topic is for news users to be more aware of their choices when they decide to post. Included in this article are descriptions of several of the uva newsgroups with the most broad appeal. There are about 400 uva newsgroups. Many of these are associated with specific departments and courses, but some have topics which may appeal to a cross-section of the UVa community. If you thought that the only uva newsgroups were uva.general and uva.want-ads, you are probably not familiar with using your newsreader software to subscribe to new newsgroups.
Documentation is available from the Wilson Help Desk for the major newsreaders.
The most basic tenet of Usenet is that the users of the system should take care to choose the newsgroup most appropriate for their article. This ensures that people who are interested in the topic will view the article, and keeps off-topic articles from cluttering newsgroups. Usenet Usage at UVa More and more of UVa's faculty, staff, and students are using the news system. As the volume of news articles grows, it becomes more noticable when large numbers of users use uva.general as the only uva newsgroup. If users subscribe to the newsgroups whose topics interest them and post appropriately, it will be easier for everyone to participate in the news system.