Great Renaming
TheGreat Renamingwas a restructuring ofUsenet newsgroupsthat took place in 1987.B Newsmaintainer andUUNETfounderRick Adamsis generally considered to be the initiator of the Renaming.
Motivation
[edit]The primary reason for the Great Renaming was said to be the difficulty of maintaining a list of all the existing groups.[1]
An alternative explanation was thatEuropeannetworks refused to pay for some of the high-volume and low-content groups such as those regardingreligionandracism;this resulted in a need for categorization of all such newsgroups.[2][3] The suggested category for the newsgroups less popular among European networks wastalk.*
History
[edit]Pre-renaming
[edit]Before the Renaming, the newsgroups were categorized into three hierarchies:fa.*for groups gatewayed fromARPANET,mod.*formoderateddiscussions, andnet.*for unmoderated groups. Names of the groups were said to be rather haphazard.[4]
While reorganization discussions had occurred earlier, software limitations prevented the adoption of a consistent organizational scheme. Improvements introduced by Adams during 1986 withB Newsversion 2.11 removed the requirement for moderated groups to use the "mod." prefix, allowed posting to moderated groups usingnewsreadersrather than separatee-mailprograms, and eliminated the flat storage method, which required that the first 14 characters of all newsgroups be unique. With this added flexibility and transparency, it became practical to perform the effort.
Renaming
[edit]Thebackbone providers,thebackbone cabal,were instrumental in this reorganization of Usenet since they had great influence with respect to supporting a new newsgroup. Some suggest that members of the cabal had interests in bundling certain newsgroups into thetalk.*hierarchy, so that they would not be objected to by their supervisors.[1]
These newsgroups were categorized into a series ofhierarchies,to make it easier for newsgroups to be created and distributed. The original hierarchies werecomp.*,misc.*,news.*,rec.*,sci.*,soc.*,andtalk.*.
These hierarchies, known collectively as the "Big Seven",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.
Several other popular hierarchies remained on Usenet as well, such as thek12.*hierarchy, which covers topics especially relating toeducation,schools,andcolleges.
Post-renaming
[edit]An additional hierarchy,alt.*,was also created soon after the Renaming. Thealt.*hierarchy was meant to be completely free from centralized control, and it was not subject to the formalities of the Big Seven.
The prefix "alt" designated a hierarchy that isalternativeto themainstream(comp, misc, news, rec, soc, sci, talk) hierarchies. As free form discussion on alt.* contrasted with the more academic tending formal hierarchies, the "So You Want to Create an Alt Newsgroup"FAQjokes that the name "alt" is anacronymfor "anarchists, lunatics, and terrorists", though this is actually just a humorousbackronym.[5]
In April 1995,[6]when Usenet traffic grew significantly, particularly in academia, thehumanities.*hierarchy was introduced to better cover the additional kinds of topics being discussed, and with the seven hierarchies created by the Renaming, compose today's so-called "Big 8".
Further reading
[edit]- Gene Spafford(17 September 1986)."Comments on Reorganization".Newsgroup:net.news.Usenet:[email protected].Retrieved5 December2014.
References
[edit]
- ^ab"Modern Usenet Newsgroup Hierarchies History".livinginternet.com.Archivedfrom the original on 22 July 2012.Retrieved24 September2012.
- ^"Hardy, History of the Net".Rs79.vrx.net. 28 September 1993. Archived fromthe originalon 22 May 2011.Retrieved31 August2009.
- ^"Controlling the Virtual World".Cse.stanford.edu. Archived fromthe originalon 27 May 2009.Retrieved31 August2009.
- ^"The Great Renaming FAQ".Linux.it.Archivedfrom the original on 22 July 2011.Retrieved31 August2009.
- ^"So You Want to Create an Alt Newsgroup".12 July 2008.Retrieved27 May2007.
- ^"RESULT: humanities.misc passes 508:97".11 April 1995.Retrieved6 February2016.