Google Groups

Google Groupes is a service of newsgroup suggested by Google and which gives access in particular the services of messages Usenet. Its file contains more than one billion consultable messages since 1981.

The users have the possibility of taking part and of reading the discussions by email.

Google Groupes allows to find groups in relation to their centers of interest or to even create their own group.

History

In February 2001, Google repurchases the company Deja News , which provides an search engine of the files of Usenet. Consequently, any user could reach these files since the new interface of Google Groupes. At the end of the same year, this file was supplemented by discussions dated starting from the May 11th 1981. Little time after, Google put on line a new version allowing the users to create their own group.

In February 2006, Google added many options with its service Google Groupes like a personalized interface, single profiles and a classification of the messages.

Groups Google interns and Usenet

Google proposes to two types of Groups, called “traditional Usenet Groups” and “Groups Google interns”, which are accessible only starting from Google.

These two types of groups are different: Usenet is a public resource, in which nobody has exclusiveness; Google is used just as interface of reading. Google Groups, as for him, belongs only at Google.

The user interface and the documentation of Google do not explain this point in a very clear way. No term distinguishes the two services, however the creation of new Groups Google “interns” is encouraged, but not that of Usenet groups.

Options

Search for Groups

Google Groupes allows the user to simply carry out research thanks to Google starting from a research field placed in top of the page. The request will return to the messages which correspond best to research, and if no result is found, Google returns to the directory Google Groupes.

There exists also an option which seeks the group in real-time, supposed to avoid the recurring subjects by proposing a list of subjects in bond with the title.

Profile

The users can create a public profile which posts their name, pseudonym, city, title, profession, Internet site/Blog, quotation, biography and the messages most recent which they posted. Their profile is accessible by no matter whom who clicks on “Posting the profile”, associated with each message.

To join a group

To join a group offers the following advantages:

the person who subscribes to a group will be informed by e-mail of all the new messages posted in the group.
the majority of the groups require a subscription to be able to take part in it and some to be able to read the messages.
the person who subscribes to a group is authorized to choose her pseudonym which will be posted under each one of its messages. If a user sends a message while not being connected or being registered, it is its address e-mail which will appear, which is likely to benefit the unwanted messages.

There exist four types of subscription:

No e-mail : the subscriber will not receive any e-mail of the group. He will be constrained to go to consult the group on Internet site.
E-mail - partial Summary : the subscriber will not receive more email per day, allowing to obtain a daily summary.
E-mail - complete Summary : the subscriber will receive on average a message per day, according to the activity of the group. This e-mail gathers up to 25 new complete messages.
E-mail : the subscriber receives as much e-mail than of messages sent on the group, progressively of their publication. This method can quickly block one limps of transport, if the group is particularly active.

To see a file/List of subjects

There exist two options to read a list of subjects: " List sujets" and " Summary of the sujets".

Two postings show the title of the subject, the date and the hour, the author the number of new messages and the full number of message.

" List sujets" post the author of the last message and the number of different authors having taken part in the subject as well as the note.

" Summary of the sujets" post an extract of the discussion, in addition to the author and date.

To take part and read a subject

In the standard view, Google Groupes shows the messages of a subject in a page of 25 messages. However, in the view in the form of tree structure, Google Groupes posts the messages in pages of 10 messages. So of new messages are posted after the last actualization of the user, when he clicks on the title of the subject, he will land directly with the last message not read, if not on the last message read.

Above each message a field indicating is the pseudonym of the author, the note, the date on which the message was posted, and a bond “Other options” allowing to remove the message (only if the user and the transmitter of the message, a regulator or the owner of the group), to announce the message at Google, to seek the messages of this author, to print the message, to answer the author, to transfer the message to a friend, to send an individual message, to post the original.

To note messages

A user can note a message while giving from one to five stars, according to his relevance, for example.

The final note of a message is an average of the notes given by the users, who cannot note their own messages.

To note subjects

In the list of the subjects, there is a star beside each title. Once clicked, the star becomes yellow, which means that it is recorded in your favorites, the user can then go in the part “Favorites”. A user is limited on 200 favorite subjects.

E-mail masking

In order to secure scammers or spammers which can recover the addresses e-mail of the not registered users, Google masks the addresses by replacing the three last letters of the name of user by three points. To see the complete address, it is enough to click on the three points of the address and to fill a code of checking making it possible to prove that the user is not a robot. After this stage, the address is posted.

To note that the address is masked only during the reading through the site. When you receive the messages by e-mail or a Agrégateur Usenet, the addresses are not truncated.

To create a group of mailing list

Google Groupes allows the users to create their own groups. During the creative process, are required the name of the group, the address e-mail, description, the parameters of access and the addition or the invitation of members to the group.

Management of the groups

A regulator or an author can modify the noun of a group, description, the address e-mail, add or remove categories, modify the parameters of access (access to the members, the guests, the files and the directory), to modify the parameters of answers and sending (privileges of messages and moderation…), to modify the dependant groups and to traverse the list of the members (to invite, add, exclude or désinscrire from the members, to amend their (to manage, owner) and to modify their type of sending.

Addition and invitation of members

The members of a group with privileges can invite or add novel members in the group. The novel member will receive a notification by e-mail. The people not having a Google account could be invited or added but it is necessary to have a Google account to accept the invitation and to take part in the group.

To create and update pages of group

In the beta release of October 5th, 2006, Google announced a new interface Web 2.0 and the options of pages available for all the groups. It is thus an editor WYSIWYG, written in AJAX which makes it possible to create pages of groups and which can be modified by a group of members or managers. Each page can be dependant between them and Google keeps a version of each page, an exit of Wiki. The comments added to the bottom of each pages also appear in the categories of discussion of the group. The phase of test of this version finished the January 24th 2007.

Official Google groups

Google created several groups of official assistance for some of its services, like Gmail. In these groups, the users can put questions or answer it, according to the Google service concerned. Each official group has a Google representative, recognizable with the symbol G of green color in their pseudonym, which comes to answer the put questions from time to time.

The official groups are divided into three sub-groups or more. The nonofficial groups created by the users cannot be divided kind, although this functionality is claimed not many users.

The official groups have only two types of subscription: " E-mail - Summary partiel" and " No E-mail" , and it is not possible for two members to have their same pseudonym. There exists a filter which replaces any address e-mail in a message by e-mail. However it is relatively simple to circumvent this filter while adding to it of spaces or by posting a message and to be in " mode; To answer in citant".

The address e-mail of the users of these groups is not visible by the others, nor in the advanced options or their profile. Indeed, these members have a separated profile in which addresses to them does not appear and where only the official groups are listed.

Some of the official groups:

Gmail Help Discussion - Group of assistance relating to Gmail.
Google Groups Guides - Group of assistance relating to Google Groupes.
Blogger Help Group - Group of assistance relating to Blogger.
Google Talk Help Discuss - Group of assistance relating to Google Talk.
Google Base Help Discussion - Group of assistance relating to Google Base.
Google Page Creator Group Discussion - Group of assistance relating to Google Page Creator.
Google Web Search Help - Group of assistance relating to Google seeks.
Google Webmaster Help - Group of assistance for the Webmaster S.
AdWords Help - Group of assistance relating to Google AdWords.
Google Maps - Group of assistance relating to Google Maps.

Google uses also Google Groupes to lodge Google Friends and Google Page Creator Updates, two groups which are used as groups of advertisement and where only the regulators can poster their messages.

Technique

Addresses and addresses e-mail of a group

When a user creates a group, it must specify the name of the group which will belong to URL and of the address e-mail of the group. The name of user could be changed thereafter (in the management of the groups).

The URL from Google Groupes is http://groups.google.fr/groups/ followed by the name of the group.

The address e-mail of a Google group is the name of the group followed by @googlegroups.com .

For example, if the name of the group is “MinorsMajor”, the URL will be http://groups.google.fr/group/MinorsMajor and the address MinorsMajor@googlegroups.com. e-mail.

Google Groups vs. Usenet

Google Groupes proposes also an access to the Usenet newsgroup.

When AOL adopted its service of Usenet, it recommended to the place Google Groupes.

Google Groupes has the field " X-No-Files: Yes" who allows the search engines not to index the Usenet messages mentioning this text or who removes these messages of his file after 7 days.

The URL to reach the Usenet newsgroup is http://groups.google.fr/group/ followed by the hierarchy suitable for the group.

For example, if the Usenet group is “alt.games.neopets”, the URL will be http://groups.google.fr/group/alt.games.neopets

With certain easy ways Google Groupes can seek in the relative newsgroup for a given subject.

Criticisms

Google Groupes is often shown carelessness concerning safety. Many a trolls, spammeurs and flamers joined Google Groupes without being identified. There is the case of people who join a group, ask to reach more privileges and remove then the whole group before making in the same way on another group. The recent installation of profiles made it possible to dam up these problems partly.

The October 16th 2003, John Wiley and Fils sent a letter to Google after having discovered that a text subjected to the royalties drawn from a book which they had published was freely available in remote loading on Google Groupes.

References

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