For the complete novice how to get set up for mail in gnus

[Don Saklad]

How might the complete novice figure out how to get set up to
initiate mail in gnus knowing very little to nearly nothing or
nothing about the usual preliminary steps to step one?...

It needs to be a less wordy explanation in a better layout
for those of us with symptoms of attention deficit disorder.

The stuff at
http://www.google.com/search?q=mail+gnus
doesn't hit the mark of clearing up the
many ambiguities about backends.

How do you explain backends in a manner that the complete novice
can go about identifying their predicament and figure out their
respective next steps without the current struggle of the
steep learning curve?...

Some day in the future we'll have real computers and won't have
to know this stuff.