As you read this, hundreds of thousands of people around the world are posting messages to thousands of topic-oriented Usenet newsgroups. A small percentage of those netnews messages recommend html pages and other web resources.

PHOAKS reads messages posted to few thousand such Usenet newsgroups in order to tally and summarize web resource recommendations that appear in those messages. PHOAKS' pages here reflect the results. To see an example immediately click here: rec.music.dylan.

Our index method mimics exactly the hierarchical structure of Netnews. After each index name, we list the number of web resources PHOAKS has encountered, followed by an "r". PHOAKS filters out spurious and signature references, so in general the number of recommended resources will be quite a bit less than the listed number. PHOAKS does not read .announce .answers or .binaries groups since these specialized types of groups are not sources of recommendations.

If you would like to read about the feasibility studies leading up to the creation of this site or the software that maintains the site, read our CSCW'96 paper or our CHI'97 paper (html).

Navigate up newsgroup tree: PHOAKS Entry Page :