News Groups

Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI) newsgroups are great places to “meet” others with typing injuries and discuss stories, ideas, methods of treatment and prevention, and more. A newsgroup is an area on a computer network (most commonly, the internet) devoted to a specified topic. To further understand what a newsgroup is, it is helpful to first know what a chat room and a web forum are and the differences between the three:

• Web forum – These are also known as message boards and discussion boards. They are available through individual websites. (in this way, they differ from newsgroups which are a separate Internet service through the web – you must know the address of a news server to access a newsgroup). Like newsgroups, replies to a message are posted as substrings, so the whole thread of a topic stays linked.
• Chat room – Whereas in a newsgroup, messages are posted and available to be read and responded to for a relatively long period of time, chat room posts are part of a real-time conversation, and they appear immediately and disappear quickly as more messages appear. A chat room can house the conversation of a great deal of people, private rooms can be used for just a few users.

Additional information on RSI newsgroups:

• Not all internet service providers (ISP) subscribe to all newsgroups. If you find an RSI newsgroup that you really want to join, you may need to use a different ISP.
• Many newsgroups require a membership (generally, this just means that you need to sign up with a username and e-mail address – most are still free).
• To find a newsgroup, you can go to your favorite search engine and search within its “groups” category or “newsgroups” category.
• If you cannot find an RSI newsgroup that you love, you can start up your own!
• Newgroups are generally regulated. Therefore, you can tell the administrator if you find some inappropriate posts, and ask him or her to take care of it.
• It is best not to use your real name or give any personal information out while using any sort of newsgroup.