I worked at a rather large company that did this and the newsgroups turned into total chaos. Posting to the newsgroup didn't have the same social stigma attache

I worked at a rather large company that did this and the newsgroups turned into total chaos. Posting to the newsgroup didn't have the same social stigma attached as sending a mass email or hitting "reply to all." This led to people posting rants, the latest chain messages, and some pretty off color things. Of course, management went ape over this and decided to just scrap the entire system instead of fixing the cultural problems.