Big 8 (Usenet)
{{short description|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.{{cite web|url=http://www.big-8.org/ |title=Big-8 Usenet - Big-8 Usenet |publisher=Big-8.org |date=2010-07-26 |accessdate=2011-01-08}} Groups are added through a process of nomination, discussion and voting.{{cite web |url=http://www.big-8.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=policies:creation |title=How to Create a New Big-8 Newsgroup - Big-8 Usenet |publisher=Big-8.org |date=2010-07-07 |accessdate=2011-01-08 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20080103091457/http://www.big-8.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=policies%3Acreation |archivedate=2008-01-03 }}
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,{{cite web|url=http://ftp.isc.org/usenet/news.announce.newgroups/humanities/humanities.misc|title=RESULT: humanities.misc passes 508:97|accessdate=6 February 2016|date=11 April 1995}} 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
| class="wikitable" | ||
| 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.{{Cite web|last=|first=|date=|title=News.announce.newgroups - Big-8 Usenet|url=https://www.big-8.org/wiki/News.announce.newgroups|access-date=2020-05-05|website=Big-8 Management Board}} 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.{{Cite web|last=|first=|date=|title=Big-8 Management Board|url=https://www.big-8.org/wiki/Big-8_Usenet|access-date=2020-05-05|website=Big-8 Management Board}}
See also
References
{{reflist}}
External links
- [http://www.big-8.org/ The Big-8 Management Board]
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