Using Newsreader and Tagging
Authored by the MATLAB and Simulink user community on the MATLAB Wiki.
MATLAB Central's new Newsreader (http://newsreader.mathworks.com) functionality was completely redesigned and redeployed in Spring 2007. This page is a quick reference for users who are getting started using the new Newsreader or who are completely new to MATLAB Central or the comp.soft-sys.matlab newsgroup.
If you have questions about using MATLAB Central (http://matlabcentral.com)'s Newsreader, please feel free to post your questions either on our support mailing list or directly on our newsgroup.
Welcome to MATLAB Central!
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What are "Newsgroups"?
Newsgroups are a worldwide forum that is open to everyone. They are used to discuss a huge range of topics, make announcements, and to trade ideas, suggestions, and files.
Discussions are "threaded," or grouped in a way that allows you to read a posted message (a "posting") and all of its replies, in chronological order. This makes it easy to follow the thread of the conversation, and to see what's already been said before you post your own reply or new posting.
Newsgroup content is mirrored at servers throughout the Internet. They are not centrally owned or run by anyone. Messages are exchanged among the various servers according to agreed technical standards. Different sites or clients offer alternative ways of viewing content or to post data.
What is MATLAB Central's Newsreader?
Use the integrated newsreader at the MATLAB Central website to read and post messages in this newsgroup. MATLAB Central is hosted by The MathWorks.
Messages posted through the MATLAB Central Newsreader are seen by everyone using the newsgroups, regardless of how they access the newsgroups.
Who can use the Newsreader to post?
Anyone who is logged in to MATLAB Central can post. Note that before posting, you need to set up a Newsreader email address in your community profile. This address will be visible to the world. To control spam, you may want to set up a separate email address, use a free email provider, or both. Another way to prevent spam is to embed some extra characters (like remove.this) in your address. Just make it clear which characters need to be deleted to make the address work.
Why should I use Newsreader instead of my old Usenet client?
The MATLAB Central Newsreader offers several advantages:
- One account: Your MATLAB Central account is tied to your MathWorks Account for easy access.
- Choice of e-mail address: The MATLAB Central Newsreader allows you to define an alternate email address as your posting address, avoiding clutter in your primary mailbox and reducing spam.
- Spam control: Most newsgroup spam is filtered out by the MATLAB Central Newsreader.
- Tagging: Messages can be tagged with a relevant label by any signed-in user. Tags can be used as keywords to find particular files of interest, or as a way to categorize your bookmarked postings. You may choose to allow others to view your tags, and you can view or search others’ tags as well as those of the community at large. Tagging provides a way to see both the big trends and the smaller, more obscure ideas and applications.
- Watch lists: Setting up watch lists allows you to be notified of updates made to postings selected by author, thread, or any search variable. Your watch list notifications can be sent by email (daily digest or immediate), displayed in My Newsreader, or sent via RSS feed.
How do I get started using the Newsreader?
Easy! Login to MATLAB Central and make sure you have a Newsreader email address specified. Then just go to the Newsreader and you can post, reply or tag!
Can I still post using other clients or interfaces?
If you wish to access the cssm newsgroup without using the MATLAB Central interface, you can do it by:
- Use a newsreader through your school, employer, or internet service provider
- Pay for newsgroup access from a commercial provider
- Use Google Groups
- Mathforum.org provides a newsreader with access to the comp.soft sys.matlab newsgroup.
- Run your own server. For typical instructions, see: http://www.slyck.com/ng.php?page=2.
What is tagging?
A tag is like a keyword or category label associated with each thread. Tags make it easier for you to find threads of interest. Anyone who is logged in can tag a discussion thread. Tags are public and visible to everyone.
Messages can be tagged with a relevant label by any registered user. Tags can be used as keywords to find particular files of interest, or as a way to categorize your bookmarked postings. You can view or search others' tags as well as those of the community at large. Tagging provides a way to see both the big trends and the smaller, more obscure ideas and applications.
What makes a "good" tag?
A good tag helps people find a Newsreader message posting. When you tag a posting, think about how you might search for that posting in the future. Try tagging a posting with several relevant terms, even if they’re unrelated to one another. For example, you might want search for a posting using either “video” or “image processing” as the tag search term, so it’s a good idea to apply both of those tags. Go ahead and experiment with tag searches -- it’s the best way to learn what tagging is all about. Try adding and deleting tags, too.
Can I use a text string of multiple words as my tag?
Yes! As an example, instead of howto in the example above, we could also use "how to." Note that these are seen as completely separate tags.
Can I add multiple tags?
Just separate your tags with commas.
Can I use other characters such as numbers, capitals or such in my tags?
Use letters (any case), numbers, and spaces. Don't use commas, because commas separate individual tags. If you use a comma in a tag, the tag will be split into two tags at that point.
You can use spaces to separate words in a multiword tag. Most other punctuation and other non-alphanumeric characters are removed. The underscore character is accepted, but there is little point in using it because you can separate words with spaces.
How do I remove a tag that I have applied to a thread?
Look at the thread. In the right column, you will see all the tags for the thread. Go to the section Tags I've Applied and click on the - (minus sign) to remove it.
What is a tag cloud?
A tag cloud is a visual display of tags that have been applied by all community members. The more often a tag is applied, the larger its font in the cloud. By default, clicking on >> See all tags from the search box will display a list of the top 50 tags from the past year. You can click on cloud to change from list view to cloud view. Click on Week, Month, Year, or All Time to specify the time period covered by the list.
How does Newsreader help to prevent spam?
The MATLAB Central Newsreader application requires that users log in to post messages, replies or tags. Once logged in, community members define what is spam. In addition, if five or more users have clicked on the "Flag as spam" option in the thread view, Newsreader will automatically remove it from view.
What is the difference between Flagging and Tagging?
Tagging is a tool to allow sorting and retrieval of messages. You create the tag for use by you and others. You can find a message or thread and join the discussion. A Flag, on the other hand, is a way you can vote to have pages removed as spam. Five votes are required to prevent inadvertent removal of content.
What is a Watch List?
A watch list allows you to be notified of updates made to postings selected by author, thread, or any search variable. Your watch list notifications can be sent by email (set delivery to Daily digest or Immediate), displayed in My Newsreader (set email delivery to "Never"), or sent via RSS feed.
How can I use Advanced Search commands?
Advanced searches, also called "advanced directives", are ways that you can perform very targeted searches through newsreader threads. You can search through threads by words, tags, authors or even by tagger. If you have an idea of when the discussion happened, you can select time periods of all time, last week, last month or last year. Once you have defined what you are looking for, you can sort the list by date or by frequency of occurance.
Once you have created and executed your query, you can save it to use again by:
- bookmarking the results page
- add the page to your watch list
- add the RSS feed to your favorite feedreader
How can I execute an advanced search?
When you are first using advanced directives, the easiest way is to click on "Advanced Search" and fill in the fields. Once you are used to what types of data, you can also execute advanced directives in the search box by preceding the search with the data type and a colon.
Examples:
- Searching for an auther whose name is Helen becomes Author:Helen
- Searching for a tag GUI becomes tag:GUI
Using Newsreader and Tagging. Note: Remember that these searches are literal and case specific, so GUI is not the same as gui.
What are the dots doing in my tag?
If you post a long tag, Newsreader displays the tag in lists in a truncated format to save space. The three dots tell you that this is a partial tag being displayed. If you hover your mouse over the displayed link, the full tag will be displayed.
Example: a tag entered as "matrix multiplication" will display in the tag list as matrix multipli... but you can see the full tag name on mouse over.
How do I get an RSS feed for multiple tags?
Just put a watch on all the tags you'd like to follow. Then set up your RSS feed using the URL of the RSS feed from your Newsreader profile.
Can I display Newsreader feeds on my site?
Your RSS feeds can be used to automatically generate content for your site. Many tools such as blogs or portals (such as iGoogle) allow you to directly incorporate content. If you would like to incorporate an RSS feed into an HTML page, you will need to use a feed converter such as BlinkBits or FeedDigest.
How can I quote the original message?
Quoting is easy! Just reply and the original message will appear in the reply window. Note that for effective communications, it is very helpful to only include parts of the original message that you are referencing in your reply. So don't forget to delete the extra pieces!
Searching by subject
If you want to search just the subject lines, you can do this easily using the advanced directive subject:"subject line".
Example: To search for all messages with in the subject MATLAB Compiler, go to the MATLAB Central landing page (http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/newsreader/). Enter subject:"MATLAB Compiler" into the search field in the search box in the middle of the page.
Where can I find MATLAB product information?
If you want to look for information about MATLAB before you post, see MathWorks.com (http://www.mathworks.com/support/) or our wiki (http://matlabwiki.mathworks.com/MATLAB_FAQ) page.