Why does my address appear as part of my name 2513

I don't know for certain what you mean by "on Google". Is that using some Google-supplied software? Or do you just mean that you've pointed a browser at some part of Google's website (which - if Google provide their own software is probably all it is anyway)?

If you're using a browser then what's happening is that Google are taking the textual part of their archived copies of Usenet news posts, and merging the text with standard HTML to give HTML web pages which have the Google 'look and feel'. Those are then sent out to you to view in your browser.

Nowadays when many people have a fast & permanently on internet connection that sort of thing is acceptable to use, but in the past when connections were slow and only on some of the time (and you paid by the minute) no-one in their right mind would want all the extra stuff that Google and others wrap around the text itself sent to them. If you look at n news posts you get the extra sent to you n times. What a waste!

Maybe when you read email you also use a browser - ie the web server at your ISP is taking the text of mails you've been sent and wrapping it up in HTML and sending your browser the merged contents. If so, that might explain why you don't seem to understand the difference between "screen" (what you look at), "mailbox", "newsgroup" etc...

Instead of you using a browser to look at pages created elsewhere containing either your emails or news posts you are interested in, the older and underlying method of doing all of this is as follows:

for email: when someone connects to their ISP the text files containing their incoming mail are sent out to them. Their computer typically then disconnects from the ISP (to save the phone bill) and reads the text files that just arrived. It chops them up into individual email messages and presents them (on a screen) for the user to read and reply. Replies and brand new messages are held in files on the user's computer until they next connect to the ISP whereupon they are sent out into the big wide world, and the next set of incoming stuff is acquired. This is known as "offline mail". As time goes on the user ends up with a large set of text files containing incoming mails, and copies of outgoing mails, on their computer. In some OSes 1000 mails would be held in 1000 separate files; in other systems they'd be held in one enormous file. In a good email client (that is, the program that lets a user read already-collected mails, and write new ones) you can search all the existing mails, display them in various ways etc and - most importantly - do all of that without ever going online. What's more, since handling text files is really very easy, programs like these are normally faster than graphics-intensive things like browsers. Again, on today's PCs, that's not much of an issue, but ten or twenty years ago, it was. Handling text-only mails on a feeble processor is easy and graphics stuff is hard and very slow.

mailbox: the meaning varies. In some cases it's conceptually the place on your ISP's system where incoming mails that will one day be collected by you are stored until you fetch them. Sometimes it really is the physical place on the ISP's system, and might have a size limit. Sometimes it is just the logical place on the ISP's system - ie they know they will accept mail for you, but there's no fixed location on their disks. Most people probably think of a mailbox as a place on their own computer (eg a folder that's visible in a browser, or their email program) which when they click on it, appears to contain their mail. But really, what's happening is that when they click their computer is - perhaps - asking their ISP for details of what the ISP is holding in the 'actual' mailbox.

around the world. If you read them via Google then Google is finding the texts and sending you their HTML wrapped around that text. If you read them with a newsreader then your computer asks the news server for (typically) the latest posts in the newsgroups you're interested in. Those text files are sent to your computer. Later on your computer chops those files up and displays them to you in much the same way as email is processed. After a while, the user ends up with a copy of all(1) the discussions that are going on in each of the newsgroups they are interested in, stored on their own computer. They can then read through those in their own time, without having to be online.

1 - many newsreaders allow you to be a bit more selective, eg not downloading discussions with certain subjects, or those involving certain people. That's broadly similar to filtering mails based on content-author.

In Google terms, the display of the "original message" is still sent to you as an HTML page, but the HTML formatting is simpler, and the stuff they show you is the whole of the original news post, not just the 'meaningful' part.

All news posts start with lines that describe which computer system they originated on, which other systems it has pbutted through on its way to you, when it was written, who by etc etc. All emails also have a similar set of lines. They're called "headers".

In a 'real' newsreader or email client program the headers are usually only one-click away. It's by looking at the headers that the email program is able to show you who sent a mail, when etc.

Of course. This is what a "maillist" is. Most people only know the ones provided by YahooGroups or SmartGroups etc, but there are others. My email client program (ie the program on my computer which chops up incoming emails and displays them for me to read, and lets me write replies) can run a maillist. All I do is tell it the name of the mail list and basically what it then does is identifies incoming mails that (although they've been sent to me, are really for that list), and then it sends out copies of that mail to each of the subscribers to the list. It also maintains a list of subscribers (so that email messages saying "SUBSCRIBE mylist" or "RESIGN mylist" from people automatically maintain the list.

On many mail lists newsgroups, there's no reasons to buttume that most people are anonymous. For example, they may post with corproate email addresses (and the messages tend to end with corporate legalese).

One doesn't have to read every line of every posting - it's like browsing through a newspaper - you just read the stuff that looks interesting.

-- Jeremy C B Nicoll - my opinions are my own.