Crossposting is the act of posting the same message to multiple forums, mailing lists, or newsgroups. An, or message board, is a Bulletin board system in the form of a discussion site A mailing list is a collection of names and addresses used by an individual or an organization to send material to multiple recipients A newsgroup is a Repository usually within the Usenet system for messages posted from many users in different locations This is distinct from multiposting, which involves posting multiple identical messages, each to a single forum, newsgroup, or topic area. Excessive crossposting is considered bad form because it multiplies traffic without adding any new content. In the extreme case, if all messages were crossposted to every group, then every group would look exactly the same. A crossposter can minimize this problem by specifying that all responses be directed to a single group.
Crossposting can be helpful if the message is of interest to a larger audience. Brooklyn Book Festival crowd by David Shankbonejpg|thumb|An audience at the Brooklyn Book Festival in New York City. However, crossposting to groups that are irrelevant to the message posted could be considered spamming. Spamming is the abuse of electronic messaging systems to indiscriminately send unsolicited bulk messages
Crossposting in Usenet
In Usenet, the destination newsgroup(s) for a particular message is indicated in the "Newsgroups:" header. Most commonly the header will indicate that the message is intended for one newsgroup only. For example;
Newsgroups: sci. space
However it is possible to specify that the message is intended for more than one newsgroup.
Newsgroups: sci. space,comp. simulation
In this case, the message will be visible both in the sci. space and comp. simulation newsgroups. Despite appearing in two separate places, only one message has been posted. This has several advantages.
- A crossposted message takes up less server storage space, and creates less network traffic, than if individual messages had been posted to multiple newsgroups.
- Usenet reader software can intelligently track whether or not the user has already viewed the message in one newsgroup, even though they might currently be looking at another newsgroup. If multiple individual messages had been posted (i. e. the message's content was multiposted), each would appear to be a new unread message in each newsgroup.
- Replies to crossposted messages will be, by default, also crossposted, and so conversations can occur between readers of the multiple newsgroups without any confusion, so long as nobody "breaks the thread" by changing the groups they post their reply to.
- It avoids the fragmentation of replies which tends to occur with multiposted messages. It helps to avoid time wasted on writing a reply which has, in essence, been posted on another newsgroup but which the replier hasn't seen because he doesn't read that newsgroup or hasn't yet looked there.
Crossposting is usually practiced when material is relevant and of interest to the readers of more than one newsgroup. However sometimes it is used maliciously to begin a thread between newsgroups whose readers are likely to have violently differing opinions, in the hope of provoking a conflict. This is a form of trolling. An Internet troll, or simply troll in Internet slang, is someone who posts controversial and irrelevant or off-topic messages in an online community such as an
Crossposting to more than a small number of newsgroups is likely to be counterproductive. A commonly suggested limit is three newsgroups.
Other meanings
A second meaning has evolved on some internet message boards. Crossposting (also known as x-posting) occurs when two persons post responses to the same message thread at almost the same time, often rendering the slightly later post irrelevant, funny, meaningless or inappropriate.
A third meaning involves posting the same material to two or more different blogs.
External links
- Why and how to crosspost
- Advice about crossposting
- Multiposting vs Crossposting
- How to find the right place to post (FAQ)
- Zen and the Art of Internet - Usenet News
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