The Big 8 (previously the Big 7) are a group of
newsgroup
A Usenet newsgroup is a repository usually within the Usenet system for messages posted from users in different locations using the Internet. They are not only discussion groups or conversations, but also a repository to publish articles, start ...
hierarchies
A hierarchy (from Greek: , from , 'president of sacred rites') is an arrangement of items (objects, names, values, categories, etc.) that are represented as being "above", "below", or "at the same level as" one another. Hierarchy is an importan ...
established after the
Great Renaming, a restructuring of
Usenet
Usenet (), a portmanteau of User's Network, is a worldwide distributed discussion system available on computers. It was developed from the general-purpose UUCP, Unix-to-Unix Copy (UUCP) dial-up network architecture. Tom Truscott and Jim Elli ...
that took place in 1987. These hierarchies are managed by the Big 8 Management Board. Groups are added through a process of nomination, discussion and voting.
History
The original seven hierarchies were
comp.*, misc.*, news.*, rec.*,
sci.*, soc.*, and talk.*. 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 April 1995, when Usenet traffic grew significantly, humanities.* was introduced and it and the seven hierarchies created by the Renaming make up today's so-called "Big 8".
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.
See also
*
alt.* hierarchy
*
Great Renaming
References
External links
The Big-8 Management Board{{Usenetnav
Internet properties established in 1987