> Why would I want to do that?
Because using news is like using email. You need to configure your email
server address, port, and so forth in your mail reader in order to use email,
don't you? It is the same with a newsgroup setup, minus userid/password
requirement - you don't need it for Gmane. A newsgroup is not like a www site
that you can casually point your newsreader to. For that kind of use there is
the web-forum already.
> And you're telling me that I need to create a special account for that, and
still use an email account anyway?
Not a "special" account, but just a definition of the news server you will
use. And your email is needed for posting authorization / confirmation.
Again, a news server is not a web server you casually browse by. It is more
like a mail server.
What I'm having difficulty in understanding is that, people can go through
loops in order to use a mailing list (getting a mail account, subscription
hassles, getting unwanted mails force-funneled into their thoats, having to
sort out incoming list mails to relevant directories, creating the
directories in the first place, thread nesting going awry every now and then,
local mail spool growing out of bounds, etc.). But when it comes to solving
all these drawbacks with a superior technology (that is particularly designed
from ground up to solve these issues with mailing lists) there is, more often
than not, a curious resistance to new things, even so far as to present the
superior technology as "backward".
I think this might have something to do with inherent human attitude against
change - resistance to new and unknown.