Interchange News Server - Decommissioning Announcement

The Interchange News service (news.interchange.ubc.ca) was retired on January 31st 2007 at 9:00am. This was due to low campus-wide usage, aging hardware and the availability of both modern alternatives as well as free public news services which would meet the needs of almost all of the existing news server customers.

Please note: This does not affect other Interchange services such as email, mailing lists and dial-up access.

The decommissioning occurred in two phases:

1. January 2nd 2007 - posting to ubc.* newsgroups was restricted.
2. January 31st 2007 - the Interchange news server was taken offline.

Other Available Options:

1. Posting to UBC Newsgroups:
   • The only UBC newsgroups (ubc.*) that are still in active use belong to the Department of Computer Science. Computer Science staff, faculty and students who use the Interchange News Server to view and post messages will have to switch to using CompSci's News Server instead. Instructions on how to set up access to the CompSci News Server are available here:
     • http://www.cs.ubc.ca/local/computing/accounts/email_news.shtml#newsgroups
       • Note: This news service is only available to those in Computer Science. If your computer is not on the Computer Science network, you will need to provide your CompSci credentials to access their News Server.
2. For those who wish to use USENET, the following options are available:

• Free Public News Servers:
• • http://dmoz.org/Computers/Usenet/Public_News_Servers/
• Shaw/Telus News Servers if you are a Shaw/Telus subscribers.
  • Shaw:
    • Setup Documents: http://support.shaw.ca/emailnews/oenews.htm
    • You must be using a Shaw connection to access the Shaw News Server.
  • Telus:
    • There are no Telus Setup documents. NNTP Server: news.telus.net   Port 119
    • You must be using a Telus connection to access the Telus News Server.
• Google Groups:
  • http://groups.google.ca
• CompSci News Server:
  • Only available to CompSci faculty, staff and students.
  • Setup Documents: http://www.cs.ubc.ca/local/computing/accounts/email_news.shtml#newsgroups

1. For those interested in discussion forums other than USENET, the following options are available:

• Yahoo Groups (http://groups.yahoo.com/), MSN Groups (http://groups.msn.com/)
• WebCT Courses - These have a discussion forums component.
• Free Discussion Forum Applications that can be installed on a webserver:
  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Internet_forum_software)

Usenet Moderators have the following options:

1. Use one of the USENET options listed above (Public News Server, Shaw/Telus News Server, etc...)
2. Use a public USENET Mail/News gateway:
   • From the USENET Moderators Handbook at http://www.landfield.com/usenet/moderators/handbook/appendixA.html#A.5 (Note: This external website is occasionally unavailable.)
   • If you do not have direct access to Usenet news, you can still moderate a Usenet newsgroup. This can be done by submitting articles to the group via electronic mail, instead of posting them directly to the group. There are a several 'public' mail/News gateways. Each one has their own ways for addressing syntax. The three most common ones are:
     • Site: cs.utexas.edu
       Syntax: newsgroup-name@cs.utexas.edu
       Example: To send to the newsgroup 'comp.compilers', address the message to
       comp-compilers@cs.utexas.edu
     • Site: newsbase.cs.yale.edu
       Syntax: newsgroup.name-news@newsbase.cs.yale.edu
       Example: To send to the newsgroup 'comp.compilers', address the message to
       comp.compilers-news@newsbase.cs.yale.edu
     • Site: pa.dec.com
       Syntax: newsgroup.usenet@pa.dec.com
       Example: To send to the newsgroup 'comp.compilers', address the message to
       comp.compilers.usenet@pa.dec.com

Unfortunately, we cannot verify if the latter solution works properly as it requires a moderator to test. The best alternative is to use the first option above (a Public News server: http://dmoz.org/Computers/Usenet/Public_News_Servers/)

If you have any questions about the discontinuation of news.interchange.ubc.ca, please contact the UBC IT Help Desk.