On 6/18/23 12:02 PM, cr0c0d1le wrote:
> John <john@building-m.simplistic-anti-spam-measure.net> writes:
>
>> The neat thing about Usenet is that as a server admin you can just
>> *create* groups at will, in arbitrary hierarchies, and if your peers
>> think it's a good idea, they'll carry them too.
>>
> Would these groups be public or would they be only be visible to the server?
>
> Arbitrary hierarchies are everything outside of the Big-8?

I have the same kinds of questions. It's unclear to me what the
relationship between Usenet in general and the Big-8 are.

Why is so much under alt?

And is there any way to clean up hierarchies? I see a lot of duplicates
and it makes it unclear where to post (aside from "go where the people
are"). And some of the hierarchies that aren't used make more sense to
me than the ones that are, e.g. alt.startrek is active, but
alt.tv.star-trek isn't. And why isn't it rec.tv.star-trek?

I've cross-posted to alt.usenet.newbies (is there a better place?)
because I imagine new users might have some of the same questions.

["Followup-To:" header set to alt.fan.usenet.]
On 2023-06-18, a cat <a_cat@example.com> wrote:
> On 6/18/23 12:02 PM, cr0c0d1le wrote:
> I have the same kinds of questions. It's unclear to me what the
> relationship between Usenet in general and the Big-8 are.
The Big-8 management board is in charge of what it says on the tin.
Managing the 8 big hierarchies: comp.*, humanities.*, misc.*, news.*,
rec.*, sci.*, soc.* and talk.*. They, among other things, create new
newsgroups, delete existing ones (assuming a good reason is provided)
and add/remove people from overseeing moderated groups. It is of course
still up to the individual newsserver administrators of what newsgroups
they want/do not want to carry. Usenet is the network of servers as a
whole, the same one you're using to read this.

> And is there any way to clean up hierarchies?
It depends on the hierarchy, not every one is managed by the same
people, requests about alt.* should be directed to alt.config but do
keep in mind, there is no central entity that manages alt.*.

Am 18.06.2023 um 12:26:47 Uhr schrieb a cat:

> I have the same kinds of questions. It's unclear to me what the
> relationship between Usenet in general and the Big-8 are.

Big-8 is a term for some hierarchies like comp.*.
https://www.big-8.org/wiki/Main_Page

Big-8 is a part of Usenet, but there are many other hierarchies.
https://www.eternal-september.org/hierarchies.php

In article <u6ni97$1n5g5$6@dont-email.me>, a_cat@example.com says...
>
> I have the same kinds of questions. It's unclear to me what the
> relationship between Usenet in general and the Big-8 are.

The "Big 8" are the hierarchies comp, news, misc, rec, sci, soc, talk,
and humanities. They comprise just some of the many groups available on
the Usenet network. However, they're intended to be globally-relevant
groups that most server administrators will want to carry.

> Why is so much under alt?

The alt hierarchy is not restricted to any specific subjects, and the
group creation process is relatively informal. This has led to a vast
and colourful array of groups. The Wikipedia article has a pretty good
overview of how it all works:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alt.*_hierarchy

> And is there any way to clean up hierarchies? I see a lot of duplicates
> and it makes it unclear where to post (aside from "go where the people
> are"). And some of the hierarchies that aren't used make more sense to
> me than the ones that are, e.g. alt.startrek is active, but
> alt.tv.star-trek isn't. And why isn't it rec.tv.star-trek?

Managed hierarchies (such as the Big 8) may be able to remove groups if
there's reason to think they're no longer wanted.

alt.*, on the other hand, has no central management. Someone could in
theory try to remove a group by discussing it in alt.config and then
sending the relevant control message, but in practice such a removal
request is likely to be ignored by most server administrators.

There are several rec.arts.startrek.* groups. I don't know the reasoning
for not placing them under rec.arts.tv.*, but I guess it's because Star
Trek movies, novels, games, and so forth also exist and would be
considered on-topic.

Regards,
Rayner