After joining a mailing list, all messages sent to the mailing list address will automatically be sent to you. Sending a message to the mailing list is as simple as sending an email to the mail list's address. A newsgroup is a discussion about a particular subject consisting of notes written to a central Internet site and redistributed through Usenet, a worldwide network of news discussion groups. Newsgroups are organized into subject hierarchies, with the first few letters of the newsgroup name indicating the major subject category and sub-categories represented by a subtopic name. Many subjects have multiple levels of subtopics.
Users can post to existing newsgroups, respond to previous posts, and create new newsgroups.
Some newsgroups are moderated by a designated person who decides which postings to allow or to remove. Most newsgroups are unmoderated. You will need a Newsgroup reader to be able to access newsgroups on the Internet. Related groups have related names. The first part of a newsgroup name is called its hierarchy.