NNTP is actually the name for the protocol used by Usenet news. Think of "NNTP is to Usenet" as "HTTP is to the World Wide Web". Usenet is a collection of message boards located in thousands of locations around the world on the Internet, allowing folks to post messages on local machines and have them propogated around to all the others. Essentially, it functions like a very large BBS, but with a much greater stability in terms of messages (they're copied in many places and so harder to lose) and a more "industrial quality" in the programming. It has survived for decades, even as other parts of the Internet have changed and adapted to different technologies, often being discarded in the process.

Usenet news has had a great variance in reputation among Internet users; at one point it was nearly unparallelled in quality of posting and depth of conversation, as the Internet was stocked with college students and professors, as well as engineers and other technical folks. An etiquette expectation and ban on commercial advertisements meant that one could generally expect a very pleasant environment. At least, until two of these intelligent and technical folks disagreed with each other, at which point it would all get out of control.

The Usenet reached a low depth in the late 1990s, as spammers, trolls, and just plain vandals ran roughshod throughout it, acting as they wished. Eventually, even the best efforts of the self-appointed guardians of etiquitte and behavior couldn't hold the tsunami at bay. On the other hand, this has worked out well as more and more usenet-reading clients (newsreaders) have added industrial strength filtering and navigation to counter them.

The Usenet continues to this day, and its users have adapted to the less-than-pleasant modern world the best they can, filtering out the bozos and keeping up conversations in the more obscure corners of the groups, which now number in the tens of thousands.

This BBS is basically a Usenet server that is not connected to the Usenet, only serving a collection of local groups. This gives the BBS the bulletproof and time-tested aspects of Usenet without most of the rest of the mess. Also, it means that you can use any Usenet newsreader to read the messages on the BBS, arrange the messages in a way you find pleasing, and post with the speed and comfort of your local machine.

The most common newsreader out there is, surprisingly, Microsoft Outlook, which has support for newsgroups built right in. On UNIX machines, most have or can easily install a newsreader, such as trn, rn, or many others. Often, if you simply click on the nntp://bbs.bbsdocumentary.com link, your default newsreader will work.

Doing a web search for "Usenet Newsreader" will help you if you can't easily find a client.

Once you have a client and have to put in information on your newsserver, here is the information you might need:

News Server Name: bbs.bbsdocumentary.com
Port: 119

In recent years, there have been a lot of amazing scripts and interfaces written for NNTP to do things like turn them into webpages, insert them into handheld devices and cell phones, and generally make accessing them and doing neat things with them a breeze. No doubt some of these options will become available over time. Until then, enjoy the BBS and have fun.

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