Big 8 (Usenet)
Group of newsgroup hierarchies
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Through Hierarchy
History
The original seven hierarchies were comp.*, misc.*, news.*, rec.*, sci.*, soc.*, and talk.*. They were open and free for anyone to participate with (except for the moderated newsgroups), though they were subject to a few general rules governing their naming and distribution.
alt.* is not part of the original seven but was created separately as a venue with more freedom and fewer rules than the Big 7.
During April 1995, a time when Usenet traffic had increased significantly, humanities.* was introduced and it and the seven hierarchies created by the Renaming comprise the present so-called "Big 8".
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Hierarchies
The Big 8 Management Board
The Big 8 Management Board was originally created in 2005 from former moderators of the news.announce.newgroups. 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.