This article is based on material authored by members of the news.newusers.questions Moderation Board and nnq-workers mailing list, particularly by Jon Bell (until 2005) and Thor Kottelin (since 2007).

Where to post test messages

Amazingly enough, this newsgroup was not originally intended to be used as a test ground for people trying to learn how to post, or checking out a new newsreader or news server.

I'm not flaming the people who are doing these things, because they're just following the plentiful examples that they see here already. I simply want to point out that there are better places for this sort of thing than news.newusers.questions. There are two of them, in fact: misc.test and alt.test.

Why are misc.test and alt.test better than news.newusers.questions for "test" postings?

1. Nobody really reads these newsgroups, so you don't have to worry about people all over the world chuckling at your blank messages and scrambled header lines and typos.
2. Several sites run software which monitors misc.test and/or alt.test and sends automatic email responses directly to your mailbox, so you can easily verify that your postings really do reach the outside world, and what they look like when they get there. If you don't get any of these automated responses, then either your posts aren't getting out, the email address in your From: line is invalid, or no autoresponders are up at the moment.

When you've satisfied yourself that this Usenet stuff really does work, then you can come back here and safely ask questions, or go over to soc.penpals and look for someone to exchange e-mail with.

If you are using Netscape, or possibly other Web browsers, you should be able to click on the links misc.test and alt.test, and go directly to misc.test and alt.test.