<<Disclaimer: Verify this information before applying it to your situation.>>
 
Usenet access to Celiac has been established as a gateway to Usenet news.
This means that all postings are echoed to the news group.  The news group
is called:
 
BIT.LISTSERV.CELIAC
 
After subscribing to our news group through your local Internet provider,
current subscribers who desire to obtain their messages only from Usenet
should send the following command to:
 
[log in to unmask]
 
SET CELIAC NOMAIL
 
Remember that this is not the same address used for posting messages.
Please do not unsubscribe, as postings to Celiac are restricted to
subscribers.  By setting your ID to NOMAIL, the LISTSERV will maintain
the subscription but will not send messages to your ID.
 
Postings from Usenet must be to the Celiac List ID:
 
[log in to unmask]
 
Usenet is a technique of obtaining messages in which a newsreader is
required to contact a server with your provider.  Normally, only the
subject lines are downloaded and then you select (mark) those message
that you are interested in.  You can also configure many newsreaders to
download the entire message, instead of the header only.  This defeats a
primary purpose of Usenet access.
 
For those of you who may have never experienced Usenet, it is a little like
a room the size of the Superdome with thousands of bulletin boards on the
wall.  People post little slips of paper on bulletin boards whose topics
interest them.  Sometimes people read and/or reply to the other slips of
paper on these bulletin boards.
 
If you are interested in more details on Usenet, there is the Usenet Info
Center at
 
     http://sunsite.unc.edu/usenet-i/home.html
 
>From the Usenet Information Center homepage you can access the Frequently
Asked Questions for almost EVERY Usenet newsgroup (but not celiac), and
you can also find out a whole bunch of information about these newsgroups
as well. One note, though: you can't use the Usenet Info Center to access
Usenet newsgroups and read articles (although the Usenet Info Center
homepage does have links to other Web services that allow you to do this).
 
What sort of information can you find?  Well, if you click on "Browse the
Usenet Groups", you can find out stuff about each Usenet newsgroup like:
 
     * What that newsgroup discusses,
     * Where you can find that newsgroup's FAQ,
     * The number people who actually read that newsgroup each day,
     * The percentage of crosspostings (if you don't know what this is,
       trust me when I say that you want this percentage to be as low as
       possible),
     * The percentage of all Internet service providers that provide that
       newsgroup, and
     * The number of messages posted to that newsgroup each day (and each
       month).
 
You will find that this information is quite valuable when you are hunting
for a Usenet newsgroup that meets your particular needs.
 
Newsreader may or may not be an option for your current email reader.
If it is not available with your mail program, a separate program is
required.  One example for Windows is Free Agent.  It is simple to
configure and operate.
 
If you encounter problems, drop me or Don Wiss <[log in to unmask]> a
note.  He has considerable experience with Usenet and may be able to set
you on course.
 
----
Michael Jones ([log in to unmask])
One of the Celiac Listowners