You get access to a newsgroup through your internet access provider (ISP). Your ISP lets you browse through a listing of newsgroups and you see one that looks interesting, e.g. ROOTS-L. You open the ROOTS-L newsgroup and you see a listing of all the e-mail messages that have been left there by other visitors to the newsgroup. You may read all the messages or you can read only the ones that interest you. If you want, you can reply to a message and your message is left in the newsgroup for others to read or not as they choose. Newsgroup messages do not come to you in your e-mail inbox. They sit out there in the newsgroup waiting for you to come and browse and read, if you choose.