Top Qs
Timeline
Chat
Perspective
Big 8 (Usenet)
Group of newsgroup hierarchies From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Remove ads
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".
Remove ads
Hierarchies
Remove ads
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
Wikiwand - on
Seamless Wikipedia browsing. On steroids.
Remove ads