When you connect to the USENET system, you connect with a news reader. This is a specific piece of software that allows you to hook into what is usually termed the server's news feed. It provides the means by which you download articles, download attachments and by which you upload both of those items, as well.
Seasonal ailments are oftentimes hot topics on Usenet. The service is excellent for getting info on these conditions.
Anybody familiar with Internet slang will understand a great deal of USENET slang. For example, abbreviations and acronyms are oftentimes used to make it easier to type common expressions. LOL, for instance, is used as ubiquitously on the USENET system as it is on the Internet.
On Usenet, the largest categories of information are referred to as hierarchies. These hierarchies let you know what type of information is contained in the newsgroup in the broadest terms.
Modern computer networking is largely a decentralized affair. For instance, a major outage in one ISP services does not bring down the entire Internet, which is one of the primary strengths of the system.