These are purely suggestions. You are always free to do as you wish.
1) There are a few reasons why RamFAQs does not list news servers. Here is one of them...
I shall quote what I previously mentioned, "A few months ago when several of us began leading people by the hand, the traffic into free news servers caused some problems for the rest of us." This is why I do not post public news servers out in the open. If you decide to post news servers, post them in a large quantity so as to distribute traffic among them. Keep in mind that some people work hard to search for these servers, and it is a shame to see them die out due to overcrowding.
One good server allegedly closed its doors due to irresponsible public use. This resulted because the news server was posted onto a message board, and those who used that server attracted unwanted attention from the administrators of the server.
Countless other servers have closed their doors due to overcrowding. A list several pages long can be made of just the ones that have died out in the past few months. As described in part a, overcrowding resulted because a few news servers were repeatedly posted, which concentrated traffic on only those few servers.
I don't use free servers anymore, so I think it would be better if others who did were to compile the list.
2) There are several reasons why modem users might want to use 2-3 threads with Newsbin instead of all 6.
Typically speaking, if you download two files at the same time, your computer will often end up downloading each file at half speed (which would be the same efficiency as downloading them one by one).
This is not always the case, but for modem users using a good connection, this is normally true.
Note that if there is a speed gain from this, such a speed gain is normally insignificant in comparison to the speed gain that SBNews gets because of its headers menu.
Perhaps one example would be where someone who had an ISDN line was downloading less efficiently than I was, even though they used all six threads.
This was because they were unfortunately using a slow server and also didn't have the features of SBNews available to them.
With SBNews, I was able to reject any spam I found (before SBNews ever got there), quickly skip posts that had no attachments, and reject any series I didn't like before I downloaded it.
3) Another reason for not using too many threads is netiquette.
Some news servers have a maximum user limit, and if you use six threads, you count as six people even if you are downloading about as fast as one person alone.
This became a problem with a number of news servers, and today those servers have either closed their doors to the public or fortunately were able to upgrade (and increase user capacity).
I have seen the effects of such cases first hand, where a minority of users were using the majority of the resources and the server was forced to reduce access dramatically.
General Terminology
Newsgroup
A particular group on usenet that serves as the forum for posting and reading posts relevant to the name of the newsgroup.
News Server
A computer that collects posts from a selected list of newsgroups and allows posting, reading, or both to any who open a proper connection.
Public Server
A Server that for whatever reason allows anyone who can to connect. Non-Public servers require permission (such as a password or specific type of connection).
News Reader
A program on your computer that organizes and allows you to read or view newsgroup posts.
News Robot
A term I use to describe a News Reader that automatically downloads posts, particularly those that download only files.
