subcategories of course subcategories are not required and categories can also be made optional if desired the poster includes a category selection to associate with message 18 message 18 is transported through news network 10 and can be filtered or sorted along with other messages based on the category by reader client 14 programmed according to programming 28 message 18 is stored along with other messages in a news database 20 associated with each nntp server 22 as explained above each nntp server 22 might not have a copy of each message as some messages might not have completed propagation through news network 10 and some messages might be in newsgroups not carried by every nntp server 22 programming 26 and 28 are shown in fig1 as removable media however it should be apparent from this description that programming 26 and 28 can be provided to their respective clients 12 14 in any number of ways such as transmission by modem or over a network connection to a file server or the internet or by original installation onto the client when sold furthermore it should be apparent from this description and fig1 that poster client 12 and reader client 14 could have their functionality combined into a single machine connected to a single nntp server 22 this is a common configuration as many usenet users can both read and post messages to newsgroups in most cases a user can post a message in response to a prior message a.