Group of newsgroup hierarchies
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.*
|
Humanities topics
|
humanities.music.composers.wagner
|
| misc.*
|
Miscellaneous topics
|
misc.education, misc.forsale, misc.kids
|
| news.*
|
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
|
| rec.*
|
Recreation and entertainment
|
rec.music, rec.arts.movies, rec.arts.poetry
|
| sci.*
|
Science-related discussions
|
sci.physics, sci.research, sci.skeptic
|
| soc.*
|
Social discussions
|
soc.college.org, soc.culture.African, soc.history.what-if
|
| talk.*
|
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:
- create well-named, well-used newsgroups in the Big-8 Usenet hierarchies;
- make necessary adjustments to existing groups;
- remove groups that are not well-used; and
- assist and encourages the support of a canonical Big-8 newsgroup list by Usenet sites.[5]
See also
References
External links