Big 8 (Usenet)

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The Big 8 (previously the Big 7) are a group of newsgroup hierarchies established after the Great Renaming, a restructuring of Usenet that took place in 1987. These hierarchies are managed by the Big 8 Management Board.[1] Groups are added through a process of nomination, discussion and voting.[2]

History[]

The original seven hierarchies were comp.*, misc.*, news.*, rec.*, sci.*, soc.*, and talk.*. They were open and free for anyone to participate in (except for the moderated newsgroups), though they were subject to a few general rules governing their naming and distribution.

alt.* was not part of the original seven but created separately as a place with more freedom and fewer rules than the Big 7.

In April 1995,[3] when Usenet traffic grew significantly, humanities.* was introduced and it and the seven hierarchies created by the Renaming make up today's so-called "Big 8".

Hierarchies[]

Hierarchy Description Examples
comp.* Computer-related discussions comp.software, comp.sys.amiga, comp.browsers.www
Humanities topics humanities.music.composers.wagner
Miscellaneous topics misc.education, misc.forsale, misc.kids
Newsgroup-related matters. This hierarchy was not originally intended for reporting news events. It was meant to deal with matters of Usenet in particular news.groups, news.admin, news.announce.groups
Recreation and entertainment rec.music, rec.arts.movies, rec.arts.poetry
sci.* Science-related discussions sci.physics, sci.research, sci.skeptic
Social discussions soc.college.org, soc.culture.African, soc.history.what-if
Talk about various controversial topics and discussions with no obvious categorization talk.religion, talk.politics, talk.bizarre, talk.origins

The Big 8 Management Board[]

The Big 8 Management Board was originally created in 2005 from former moderators of the news.announce.newgroups.[4] The board's mission is to:

  • creates well-named, well-used newsgroups in the Big-8 Usenet hierarchies;
  • makes necessary adjustments to existing groups;
  • removes groups that are not well-used; and
  • assists and encourages the support of a canonical Big-8 newsgroup list by Usenet sites.[5]

See also[]

References[]

  1. ^ "Big-8 Usenet - Big-8 Usenet". Big-8.org. 2010-07-26. Retrieved 2011-01-08.
  2. ^ "How to Create a New Big-8 Newsgroup - Big-8 Usenet". Big-8.org. 2010-07-07. Archived from the original on 2008-01-03. Retrieved 2011-01-08.
  3. ^ "RESULT: humanities.misc passes 508:97". 11 April 1995. Retrieved 6 February 2016.
  4. ^ "News.announce.newgroups - Big-8 Usenet". Big-8 Management Board. Retrieved 2020-05-05.
  5. ^ "Big-8 Management Board". Big-8 Management Board. Retrieved 2020-05-05.

External links[]

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