On Dec 27, 11:08*pm, Ross wrote:
Just a question...What is Google Groups?

Google Groups is simply Google's name for its (mostly) Usenet server.

Generally, all of these forums a "newsgroups". Most newsgroups are
relayed to many servers throughout the world. Google Groups and MS
Discussion Groups are just two examples newsgroup servers.

However, bear in mind that many companies that maintain Usenet servers
or provide access to them also might maintain private newsgroups.
Whether or not they push these private newsgroups out to other Usenet
servers is a matter of policy. In other words, you might find that
some newsgroups are available only on one server.

How you access these servers is another issue. Google and MS provide
web access, which formats the newsgroups as web pages. Alternatively,
you can use other programs to access these newsgroups, either from the
same Google and MS servers or from other servers. For example,
Outlook provides a method for accessing newsgroups. It is important
to realize the distinction between a newsreader and a newserver: the
first simply contacts the second to retrieve postings.

To understand the problems that people have with "missing" postings,
it might be helpful to understand how newsgroups are maintain among
the many servers.

First, you post using a newsreader, be it something like Outlook or a
web page interface. Second, "a" newserver is often a collection of
systems composed of a front-end for receiving posting and a back-end
for storing and retrieved archived postings. Either the front-end or
the back-end computer -- usually the front-end -- is responsible for
forwarding new postings to some newservers in the Usenet network.

This separation of front-end and back-end functionality causes some
interesting anomalies.

First, a failure in the front-end computer can cause a posting to be
lost completely, even after it was successfully transmitted from your
computer (the newsreader) to the server.

Second, a failure in the back-end computer (or in communication
between front-end and back-end computers) can cause a posting to be
lost on the server that you posted to originally, but still
transmitted successfully to other servers.

Finally, all of this computer-to-computer communication can incur
transmission delays. That is why it sometimes takes many minutes,
even hours, for a posting to be accessible from the server it was
posted to originally. And it is possible for a posting to be
accessible from one server long before, if ever, it is accesible from
the server that it was posted to originally.

HTH.