Usenet

Notice: The Usenet news server usenet.stanford.edu has been SHUT DOWN PERMANENTLY as of September 1, 2020.

To our knowledge there is no longer a Usenet server running at Stanford.  So long, and thanks for all the fish.

Historical Overview

The previous Usenet news server on news.stanford.edu was retired by Stanford on September 1, 2009.

The Computer Science department provided a replacement server — usenet.stanford.edu — which was shut down on September 1, 2020.

Usenet (also known as netnews or sometimes just news) is an online discussion system, similar to a computerized bulletin board but much larger in scope. Introduced in the early 1980s, Usenet has thousands of discussion areas, known as newsgroups, about everything from computers to politics to recipes.

Newsgroups local to this area have su (Stanford University) or ba (Bay Area) at the beginning of their names. The su newsgroups are (were) used by students, staff, and faculty to exchange information and opinions about university-related matters.