1.   During the Christmas party incident at Cnet, one employee sent repeated, angry e-mails not just to Spam but to another company-wide message area.

2.   Leave the message area blank.

3.   The message area, found at alt.engr.explosives, is frequented by chemists and mining professionals for mundane technical topics.

4.   These message areas -- called newsgroups -- are like a computer bulletin board devoted to one narrow topic.

5.   There are message areas for every topic under the sun.

6.   Unlike the highly graphical Web, these are basically message areas.

7.   Users endlessly debate the strengths of each syndicate in a message area.