subscriptions - Default recommended subscriptions

The pathetc/subscriptions file contains a list of newsgroups that is returned by the NNTP command LIST SUBSCRIPTIONS.

Clients that support this command and send it the first time they connect to a new news server use the returned list to initialize the list of subscribed newsgroups. The subscriptions file therefore should contain groups intented for new users, for testing, or that contain FAQs and other useful information for first-time Usenet users.

The syntax of the subscriptions file is trivial; it is a simple list of newsgroup names, one per line. The order of newsgroups may be significant; the news reading client may present the groups in that order to the user.

A typical subscriptions file may look like:

    news.announce.newusers
    news.newusers.questions
    local.test
    local.general
    local.talk
    misc.test
    misc.test.moderated
    news.answers
    news.announce.newgroups

This gives the client the FAQs and question newsgroup for new users first, then a local newsgroup for testing and various commonly-read local discussion groups, followed by the world-wide test groups, all the FAQs, and announcements of new world-wide newsgroups. If there is a local new users group, one might want to list it first.

Written by Bettina Fink <laura@hydrophil.de> for InterNetNews.

nnrpd(8).