- Big 8 (Usenet)
The Big 8 (previously the Big 7) are a group of
newsgroup hierarchies established after theGreat Renaming , a restructuring ofUsenet that took place in 1987. These hierarchies are managed by the [http://www.big-8.org/ Big 8 Management Board] . Groups are added through a process of [http://www.big-8.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=policies:creation nomination, discussion, and voting] .History
The original seven hierarchies were
comp.* ,misc.* ,news.* ,rec.* ,sci.* ,soc.* , andtalk.* . 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 the mid-1990s, when Usenet traffic grew significantly,
humanities.* was introduced, and with the seven hierarchies created by the Renaming, comprises today's so-called "Big 8".Hierarchies
ee also
*
alt.* hierarchy
*TheGreat Renaming External links
* [http://www.big-8.org/ The Big-8 Management Board]
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