First of all, you could post a question to news.groups.questions (news:news.groups.questions) -- they have people who look for both newsgroups and mailing lists about any topic you're interested in.

Another thing to do would be to search for a newsgroup by the topic you're interested in by going to our Deja search engine at Deja Search Page and enter a word or two that describes your topic of choice into the "Interest Finder" box. It'll create a list of newsgroups that are most likely to discuss the topic you are interested in.

Another place to look for newsgroups is the Tile Net web site at http://tile.net/

You can begin a search for mailing lists by using the Liszt directory at http://www.liszt.com/ -- it's fully searchable!

Finally, you can begin a search for web sites by using Yahoo! It's at http://www.yahoo.com/ -- Just enter a word or phrase to search for, and that'll help you find a few web chat pages, newsgroups, mailing lists, and other sites to get started with.

For more information, please read:

• How to find the right place to post (FAQ), by Aliza R. Panitz
  • available at http://www.cs.ruu.nl/wais/html/na-dir/finding-groups/general.html
  • and at ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/finding-groups/general
  • and posted to these newsgroups:
    news.announce.newusers, news.groups.questions, news.groups.reviews,
    news.groups, news.newusers.questions, alt.config, alt.answers,
    news.answers

Before posting to a new group, it's a good idea to read at least a week's worth of postings and any FAQs for the group. This will familiarize you with the group and help you learn the culture of the group and whether your post is appropriate there. (It's much better to find that out first than to get flamed later for posting in the wrong place.) For a quick and easy way to get a week's worth of postings, and any FAQs that are cross-posted to news.answers, go to http://www.newsreaders.com/groups/groups.html and enter the name of the group in the search box at the bottom of the page. (There may be other FAQs posted to the group but not crossposted to news.answers, so look for any postings with the word "FAQ" or "Tip" or similar word in the subject.)

This individual document is maintained by: Kathy Morgan (kmorgan@aptalaska.net).
http://www.aptalaska.net/~kmorgan/ngroups.html

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Last Updated: Sunday, October 29, 2000