To subscribe to more newsgroups, type "y" for "yank" to get a list of all of the newsgroups available to you on the Dalhousie newsserver. You will have a lot to choose from. You can search for a newsgroup or topic by pressing the "/" key and then typing a partial string that may be in the newsgroup name or description. Unfortunately, the descriptions won't be visible as they are too far to the right to be on the screen. Once you find a newsgroup that you might be interested in, write down the name so you can look for it later. You can then press the enter key to see what is in the newsgroup. If you are sure it is one you want to return to on a regular basis, you can later (y)ank in the list, find that newsgroup, and press "s" to subscribe to it. It will then be visible to you all of the time whenever you "go news" again without your having to yank it in. The reason I caution you to avoid subscribing from curiosity is that there is a hidden file kept in your directory that keeps track of three things: 1. which newsgroups you are subscribed to. 2. which articles have expired, you have read, or you have marked as read in each newsgroup you are subscribed to. Any article NOT in the list will be visible to you. Articles in the list but not expired can be recovered for viewing by pressing "r" while viewing the thread list. 3. which newsgroups you have once subscribed to but have since unsubscribed from. The space taken by this file uses part of your disk quota so the fewer newsgroups in category 3, the better as less space will be wasted. To learn more about the newsgroups, there are FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) files available on the Internet for many of them. Reading the FAQ for any newsgroup you wish to post to (if there is one) is a good idea before posting. It may tell you what subjects are appropriate for that group and which are not. It will likely answer questions you may have that regulars have seen a thousand times before and don't want to read again. Some places to find some of the FAQs are: [Not So] Complete list of Usenet FAQs http://mailserv.cc.kuleuven.ac.be/faq/listfaq List of USENET FAQ's http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/hypertext/faq/usenet/top.html Network News (Usenet) FAQs. http://nic.zcu.cz/services/news/faq.html RTFM at MIT: By hierarchy: ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet-by-hierarchy By newsgroup: ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet-by-group By subject (more or less) ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/faqs Newsgroup Charters: (what's appropriate and what's not) ftp://ftp.uu.net/usenet/news.announce.newgroups ----------------------------------------------------------------