549:(short for "alternative") Usenet hierarchy, under which these groups would be allowed. Over time, the laxness of rules on newsgroup creation in alt.* compared to the Big 7 meant that many new topics could, given time, gain enough popularity to get a Big 7 newsgroup. There was a rapid growth of alt.* as a result, and the trend continues to this day. Because of the anarchistic nature with which the groups sprang up, some jokingly referred to ALT standing for "
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intention of minimizing the overall amount of network traffic and resource usage. Typically, the newsgroup is focused on a particular topic of interest. A message sent for publication on a newsgroup is called a "post". Some newsgroups allow posts on a wide variety of themes, regarding anything a member chooses to discuss as
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Newsgroups generally come in either of two types, binary or text. There is no technical difference between the two, but the naming differentiation allows users and servers with limited facilities to minimize network bandwidth usage. Generally, Usenet conventions and rules are enacted with the primary
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There are a number of newsgroup hierarchies outside of the Big 8 (and alt.*) that can be found on many news servers. These include non-English language groups, groups managed by companies or organizations about their products, geographic/local hierarchies, and even non-internet network boards routed
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Back when the early community was the pioneering computer society, the common habit seen with many posts was a notice at the end that disclosed whether the author had (or was free of) a personal interest (financial, political or otherwise) in making the post. This is rarer now, and the posts must be
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Because newsgroups are widely distributed, a file uploaded once will be spread to many other servers and can then be downloaded by an unlimited number of users. More useful is that users download from a local news server, rather than from a more distant machine with perhaps limited connectivity, as
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network. When a user posts to one news server, the post is stored locally. That server then shares posts with the servers that are connected to it for those newsgroups they both carry. Those servers do likewise, propagating the posts through the network. For newsgroups that are not widely carried,
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Additionally, there was a limit on the size of individual posts so that large files could not be sent as single posts. To get around this, Newsreaders were developed which were able to split long files into several posts. Intelligent newsreaders at the other end could then automatically group such
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to server which gives the Usenet network the ability to maintain a level of robust data persistence as a result of built-in data redundancy. However, most users will access using only the client-server commands of NNTP and in almost all cases will use a GUI for browsing as opposed to command line
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Most
Newsgroups are not moderated. A moderated newsgroup has one or more individuals who must approve posts before they are published. A separate address is used to submit posts and the moderators then propagate those they approve of. The first moderated newsgroups appeared in 1984 under mod.*
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is generated primarily on their ability to offer superior completion and retention rates, as well as their ability to offer very fast connections to users. Completion rates are significant when users wish to download large files that are split into pieces; if any one piece is missing, it is
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The number of newsgroups grew from more than 100 as of 1983 to more than 110,000, but only 20,000 or so of those are active. Newsgroups vary in popularity; some newsgroups receive fewer than a dozen posts per year while the most popular can get several thousand in under an hour.
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There were originally a number of obstacles to the transfer of binary files over Usenet. Usenet was originally designed with the transmission of text in mind, and so the encoding of posts caused losses in binary data where the data was not part of the protocol's
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Creating a new group in the alt.* hierarchy is not subject to the same rules; anybody can create a newsgroup, and anybody can remove it, but most news administrators will ignore these requests unless a local user requests the group by name.
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were developed which encoded the binary data from the files to be transmitted (e.g. sound or video files) to text characters which would survive transmission over Usenet. At the receiver's end, the data needed to be decoded by the user's
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technology. In fact, this is another benefit of newsgroups: it is usually not expected that users share. If every user makes uploads then the servers would be flooded; thus it is acceptable and often encouraged for users to just
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While newsgroups were not created with the intention of distributing files such as pictures, sound and video, they have proven to be quite effective for this. As of 2022, some remain popular as an alternative to
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of 1986–1987, before which all of these newsgroups were in the net.* hierarchy. At that time there was a great controversy over what newsgroups should be allowed. Among those that the
227:. Different servers will have different retention times for the same newsgroup; some may keep posts for as little as one or two weeks, others may hold them for many years.
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hierarchy, which can be considered "more alt than alt.*". There are many local sub-hierarchies within this hierarchy, usually for specific countries or cultures (such as
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has discussion of all kinds of topics, and many hierarchies for discussion specific to a particular geographical area or in a language other than
English.
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split files into single files, allowing the user to easily retrieve the file. These advances have meant that Usenet is used to send and receive many
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which is used for email messages, NNTP allows both server-server and client-server communication. This means that newsgroups can be replicated from
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Every host of a news server maintains agreements with other nearby news servers to synchronize regularly. In this way news servers form a
193:(NNTP) which allows connection to Usenet servers and data transfer over the internet. Similar to another early (yet still used) protocol
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have a retention time of more than seven years. A number of websites exist to keep an index of files posted to binary newsgroups.
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impossible to successfully download and reassemble the desired file. To work around the problem, a redundancy scheme known as
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was created for the discussion of the humanities (e.g. literature, philosophy), and the Big 7 became the Big 8.
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Before a new Big 8 newsgroup can be created, an RFD (Request For
Discussion) must be posted into the newsgroup
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Usenet newsgroups posters and operators usually do not make money from their occupations on the platform.
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There are two main issues that pose problems for transmitting large files over newsgroups. The first is
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to aid distribution. This is typically only useful for groups that have been removed or newer
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Newsgroup servers are hosted by various organizations and institutions. Most
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399:(NNTP) (Internet standard RFC 3977 of 2006, updating RFC 977 of 1986).
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370:. Because anyone can download the backup files, the data is typically
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refers to the hierarchy defined by the prefix before the first dot.
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top-level Usenet hierarchy, where the asterisk (*) is defined as a
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based client-server communication specified in the NNTP protocol.
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groups. Crossposts between hierarchies, outside of the Big 8 and
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500:— Discussion of recreational activities (e.g. games and hobbies)
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Partly because of such long retention times, as well as growing
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30:"News group" redirects here. For the newspaper publishers, see
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Transmission within and at the bounds of the network uses the
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931:"Usenet storage is more than 60 petabytes (60000 terabytes)"
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October 2020 screenshot showing 60 PB of usenet group data
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687: – Discussions (mostly) local to England, see also
681: – Discussions about Ecuadorian culture and society
672: – Discussions about bad governance related to the
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read more skeptically, as with other media. Privacy and
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speeds, Usenet is also used by individuals to store
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software is used to read the content of newsgroups.
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67:. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.
956:Gregersen, Erik; Hosch, William L. (2022-02-17).
636: – Discussion in the San Francisco Bay area
359:, or uBackup. While commercial providers offer
982:"Retention Increase to 2600 Days at NewsDemon"
623:into NNTP. Examples include (alphabetically):
545:This situation resulted in the creation of an
506:— Socialising and discussion of social issues.
219:posts. The news admin (the administrator of a
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711: – "From Japan," discussions in Japanese
8:
747: – Discussions about Microsoft products
735: – Hewlett-Packard internal news groups
723: – Discussions (mostly) local to Hawaii
455:The most commonly known hierarchies are the
368:manually select, prepare and upload the data
155:from users in different locations using the
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905:"Usenet / A Bulletin Board for Unix Users"
660: – Discussions about the Chicago area
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127:Learn how and when to remove this message
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1034:Alphabetical list of Usenet hierarchies
850:
480:— Discussion of computer-related topics
786: – Discussions (mostly) local to
777: – Discussions on matters in the
717: – Discussions about GNU software
418:sometimes a carrier group is used for
235:issues have also risen in importance.
861:Network News Transfer Protocol (NNTP)
7:
189:Communication is facilitated by the
65:adding citations to reliable sources
903:Emerson, Sandra L. (October 1983).
494:— Discussion of scientific subjects
444:Newsgroups are often arranged into
430:hierarchies, are prone to failure.
984:. Newsdemon.com. 28 September 2015
163:and are not devoted to publishing
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1286:rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated
696: – Discussions routed from
642: – Discussion in California
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937:from the original on 2020-05-21
387:, "Hobbes' Internet Timeline".
52:needs additional citations for
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741: – Discussions in Italian
630: – Australian news groups
522:These were all created in the
397:Network News Transfer Protocol
191:Network News Transfer Protocol
1:
858:Feather, CDW (October 2006).
759: – Norwegian news groups
705: – Discussions in French
666: – Discussions in German
598:, which is then discussed in
486:— Discussion of Usenet itself
263:to share and download files.
729: – Hong Kong newsgroups
648: – Canadian news groups
459:. So for instance newsgroup
793:Additionally, there is the
654: – Chinese news groups
182:Before the adoption of the
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1281:news.admin.net-abuse.email
1029:The Big-8 Management Board
816:List of Usenet newsreaders
771: – Taiwan news groups
765: – Polish news groups
461:rec.arts.sf.starwars.games
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404:Internet service providers
355:data in a practice called
324:. The business of premium
29:
1004:"usenet backup (uBackup)"
753: – Dutch news groups
333:(PAR) is commonly used.
27:Repository within Usenet
1358:Cryptography newsgroups
962:Encyclopedia Britannica
596:news.announce.newgroups
608:Big-8 Management Board
604:Big-8 Management Board
364:online backup services
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600:news.groups.proposals
536:recreational drug use
267:may be the case with
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151:system, for messages
32:News Group Newspapers
1322:religion.scientology
1178:Usenet Death Penalty
378:Moderated newsgroups
61:improve this article
1163:Sock puppet account
674:Dictator's Handbook
618:Further hierarchies
450:top-level hierarchy
147:usually within the
933:. binsearch.info.
911:. pp. 219–236
811:List of newsgroups
469:wildcard character
457:Usenet hierarchies
313:of files per day.
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76:"Usenet newsgroup"
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117:November 2012
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72:Find sources:
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50:This article
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1148:Godwin's law
1138:Crossposting
1010:February 14,
1008:. Retrieved
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986:. Retrieved
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965:. Retrieved
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939:. Retrieved
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913:. Retrieved
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528:Usenet cabal
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420:crossposting
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408:news servers
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391:Distribution
381:
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338:news servers
335:
326:news servers
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269:peer-to-peer
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54:verification
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1410:NewsBin Pro
1388:Newsreaders
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1445:Newsgroups
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1268:Newsgroups
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915:31 January
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670:dictator.*
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1153:Kill file
1133:Cleanfeed
1128:Cancelbot
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721:hawaii.*
385:RFC 2235
331:Parchive
290:Uuencode
288:such as
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157:Internet
1371:Clients
1312:atheism
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1036:at the
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1091:(1987)
1075:Usenet
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538:, and
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510:talk.*
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199:server
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822:alt.*
715:gnu.*
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587:alt.*
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504:soc.*
498:rec.*
491:sci.*
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990:2016
943:2020
917:2015
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584:The
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