Nan:2012-11-17-rfd-comp.sys.apple2.comm

2013-04-03T01:37:30Z

Billhorne: Billhorne moved page Nan-2012-11-17-rfd-comp.sys.apple2.comm to Nan:2012-11-17-rfd-comp.sys.apple2.comm without leaving a redirect: Moved to Nan: namespace for consistency (ewh)

Nan:2012-12-30-rfd-comp.mobile.android

2013-04-03T01:36:40Z

Billhorne: Billhorne moved page Nan-2012-12-30-rfd-comp.mobile.android to Nan:2012-12-30-rfd-comp.mobile.android without leaving a redirect: Moved to Nan: namespace for consistency (ewh)

Nan:2012-10-26-rfd-comp.sys.apple2.comm

2013-04-03T01:35:47Z

Billhorne: Billhorne moved page Nan-2012-10-26-rfd-comp.sys.apple2.comm to Nan:2012-10-26-rfd-comp.sys.apple2.comm without leaving a redirect: Moved to Nan: namespace for consistency (ewh)

Nan:2012-12-27-rfd-misc.phone.mobile.android

2013-04-03T01:35:01Z

Billhorne: Billhorne moved page Nan-2012-12-27-rfd-misc.phone.mobile.android to Nan:2012-12-27-rfd-misc.phone.mobile.android without leaving a redirect: Moved to Nan: namespace for consistency (ewh)

Nan:2012-10-16-rfd-comp.sys.apple2.comm

2013-04-03T01:34:05Z

Billhorne: Billhorne moved page Nan-2012-10-16-rfd-comp.sys.apple2.comm to Nan:2012-10-16-rfd-comp.sys.apple2.comm without leaving a redirect: Moved to Nan: namespace for consistency (ewh)

Main Page

2013-03-28T04:47:00Z

Billhorne: Took out "prettytable" markup to clean up the look (ewh)

Category:Member pages

2013-03-26T15:06:26Z

Billhorne: Created page with "==Personal Pages of Big-8 Board Members== This is a list of Board Members' personal pages, where they each set out their vision for the future and the path to the future of U..."

==Personal Pages of Big-8 Board Members==
This is a list of Board Members' personal pages, where they each set out their vision for the future and
the path to the future of Usenet.

User:Billhorne

2013-03-26T14:50:49Z

Billhorne:

==Bill Horne==
===Professional Life===
{{NotaBene|I'm looking for a new job: if you know of any openings in the telecom sector, please let me know. Thanks!}}
Life is funny sometimes: I read in the Board's general info page something to the effect that you had to use Lynx under Sys V to really be on Usenet.

I attended Northeastern University in the early 1980's, and '''I''' used Lynx, under Sys V, to read and post to Usenet! I actually maintained an email address at my alma mater until well into the 1990's, when Northeastern retired the "lynx" machine, but if you do a search on bhorne@lynx.dac.neu.edu, you'll come up with lots of posts I made to lots of places.

In other words, ''I go back so far that we had to write on the disks with a chisel!''

I was a technician at New England Telephone & Telegraph Company during the 80's, and I helped to put in the very first "high speed" data lines that ran from M.I.T. to Bolt, Beranek, and Newman in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Those ARPANET links were quite an achievement for their time: they used specially made modems and analog copper-wire connections that were equalized to 50 Kilohertz, which was about three times higher than the "broadcast" lines that were used to carry FM programming from studios to transmitters. The modems and the equalized lines combined to deliver a data transfer speed of 50 Kilo-bits-per-second (50 Kbps).

During my time at N.E.T.&T., I also worked on microwave links used for "R" carrier, and coaxial-cable lines that were used for "L" carrier and TV Video. It's funny, looking back, how incredibly fast the data rates are now compared to then, and how fiber-optic lines have raised the capability of the public network so high that some telephone company switches are no longer needed.

Sic transit technology: the analog circuits and modems and equalizers and test equipment are now in museums, and it has become a digital world.

In the early 1990's, I left the "craft" workforce and transferred to computer programming at NYNEX, which was N.E.T.&T.'s parent company. As a programmer, and then a Systems Analyst, I coded PL/I, COBOL, Assembler, Dialog Manager, and REXX applicaitons in both IMS and DB2 environments, as well as in "Batch" processing chains. I ended that phase of my career in an applicaiton that billed over Six Billion (correct) dollars a year, but I realized (if I do say so myself) that programming would go overseas, and I sought and was selected for a postion in the NYNEX Engineering department.

While an engineer at NYNEX, I worked on several different aspect of the "back room" operations that make the telephone network function:

* SS7
* E911
* 800-number portability
* Local Number Portability

During that time, I shared responsibility for the E911 network with a partner in New York, and I was also a member of the RFP (Request For Proposal) teams that selected Tekelec, Digital, and other vendors for LNP and similar data-processing tasks.

NYNEX became Bell Atlantic, which became Verizon, and I accepted an early-retirement offer from Verizon in 2002.

The next phase of my career was as an independent consultant: I started William Warren Consulting in 2002, and have kept at it pretty much continuously since then. I'm a Sole Proprietor, and my customers are mostly small firms which hire me to improve their network security.

===Personal Life===
I've been married to the former Susan Saunders since 1987, and our son Henry is now Twenty-Two: he overcame severe neurological impairments and became an Eagle Scout before choosing a career as a plumber.

My hobby is Ham Radio: I hold an Extra Class Amateur Radio license, and my call sign is W1AC. I'm active on two meters and 70cm, and 80 and 40 as well. I'm currently restoring a Class-E AM transmitter for use on 75 meter phone.

You can see my blog at http://billhorne.com/, and my consultancy's home page is at http://www.william-warren.com/.

;Contact info
:E. William Horne
:43 Deerfield Road
:Sharon MA 02067-2301
:339-364-8487
:email bill at horne dot net
[[Category:Member_pages]]

User:Billhorne

2013-03-26T14:49:54Z

Billhorne:

User:Pschleck

2013-03-26T14:48:01Z

Billhorne:

{|
|Paul W. Schleck
|}
{|
|[mailto:pschleck@novia.net pschleck@novia.net]
|}
----
I have participated on Usenet newsgroups since 1990. My first exposure
to Usenet was the Stupid People's Court (aka, rec.humor.spc), created by
Jeff Meyer. I currently host
[http://www.novia.net/~pschleck/spc/ the most complete direct archive].

The Stupid People's Court, or SPC, was a satire of the TV show People's
Court (an early reality show that emulated a small claims court) that
attempted to make net-etiquette offenders on the early Usenet "stand
trial" for their offenses, and receive humorously ironic punishments.
It was a brilliant send-up of unproductive on-line behavior, and was an
early influence on my participation on-line.

Other more serious groups that I have regularly followed since then are
rec.ham-radio (later rec.radio.amateur.*) and comp.dcom.telecom.

I served on the editorial board for a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
list for rec.radio.amateur.* from
approximately 1991 to 1995 (FAQ is now defunct after last chief editor
gave it up, and is arguably superseded by the outstanding resources
available for amateur radio at the
[http://www.arrl.org web site of the American Radio Relay League]
).

I created, maintained, and posted to the Usenet newsgroups from 1991 to
2000, another information resource called the "Amateur Radio Elmers
Resource Directory," which was a list of mentors, experts, and gurus for
amateur radio on the net. The term "Elmer" in amateur radio refers to
an expert, usually older and wiser.

I was a co-moderator for the *.answers newsgroups, working with chief
moderator Jonathan Kamens and the rest of his team.

I also previously served as a Usenet Volunteer Votetaker, conducting
votes for comp.sys.psion and sci.techniques.microscopy.

In 1993, I helped Mark Salyzyn create and maintain rec.radio.info,
initially serving as guest moderator, and currently as chief moderator.

In 2007, I was the proponent for rec.radio.amateur.moderated, organizing
its moderation team, setting up an instance of
[http://www.algebra.com/~ichudov/stump/ Secure, Team-Based Usenet Moderation Program]
or STUMP, and currently serving as chief moderator.

I have also assisted several other moderation teams set up their own
instances of STUMP to moderate their own newsgroups.

I wish to share my experience and knowledge of Usenet with others and
ensure Usenet's long-term survival as a personally and professionally
useful information resource.
[[Category:Member_pages]]

User:Sbonine

2013-03-26T14:47:24Z

Billhorne:

;Steve Bonine

By creating this page, modifications that I make won't be flagged in red and thus stand out like a sore thumb.

At some point, I might put something useful here.
[[Category:Member_pages]]

User:Kmorgan

2013-03-26T14:46:48Z

Billhorne:

== Kathy Morgan ==

I'm a retired dispatcher for the Alaska State Troopers, currently working seasonally at the Snowshoe Fine Arts & Gifts store and occasionally teaching math classes (when there are enough students) for the local University of Alaska center.

What I particularly like about being retired is that I have the time to volunteer at a number of organizations, including the Tok Community Library, Tok Dog Mushers' Association, and Tok Community Umbrella Corporation, in addition to the Big 8 Management Board.

Contact information:

Kathy Morgan 
[mailto:kmorgan@spamcop.net] 
Box 342 
Tok, AK 99780
USA
[[Category:Member_pages]]

User:Jeremy

2013-03-26T14:46:14Z

Billhorne:

I've been on Usenet since sometime in the early '90s. I was a news administrator at an ISP, and later at Supernews, a large Usenet service provider that no longer exists. I wrote the first widely-used spam filtering software, and was active in the anti-spam community in the 1990s.
[[Category:Member_pages]]

User:Billhorne

2013-03-26T14:45:15Z

Billhorne:

User:Billhorne

2013-03-20T15:41:56Z

Billhorne:

Announcements

2013-03-19T04:05:40Z

Billhorne:

==Recent Announcements==

* 2013-03-18: [[Nan:2013-03-18-rfd-comp.sys.mac.vintage|2nd RFD: comp.sys.mac.vintage]]
* 2013-03-16: [[Nan:2013-03-16-result-rec.radio.noncomm|RESULT: rec.radio.noncomm will be removed]]
* 2013-02-23: [[Nan:2013-02-23-rfd-rec.radio.noncomm|3rd RFD: Remove rec.radio.noncomm - LAST CALL FOR COMMENTS]]
* 2013-03-16: [[Nan:2013-03-16-rfd-comp.sys.raspberry-pi|2nd RFD: comp.sys.raspberry-pi - LAST CALL FOR COMMENTS]]
* 2013-01-10: [[Nan:2013-01-10-result-comp.mobile.android|RESULT: comp.mobile.android will be created]]

==See also==
'''[[Archived Announcements]]'''

[[Category:Big-8 Management]]
[[Category:Group Creation]]
[[Category:Group Removal]]

Nan:2013-01-10-result-comp.mobile.android

2013-03-19T04:04:38Z

Billhorne: moved Nan:2013-01-10-resutl-comp.mobile.android to Nan:2013-01-10-result-comp.mobile.android

<pre>
From: board@big-8.org (Big 8 Management Board)
Newsgroups: news.announce.newgroups,news.groups.proposals,comp.mobile.ipad,alt.comp.google
Subject: RESULT: comp.mobile.android will be created
Followup-To: news.groups.proposals
Date: Thu, 10 Jan 2013 08:32:29 EST

RESULT
unmoderated group comp.mobile.android

The Last Call for Comments (LCC) on 3 January 2013 initiated a five-day
period for final comments. Following this comment period, the Big-8
Management Board has voted to create unmoderated newsgroup
comp.mobile.android

NEWSGROUPS LINE:

comp.mobile.android Discussing Android devices / OS.

CHARTER:

comp.mobile.android is an unmoderated group for the users of
Android OS: users of smartphones, tablet PCs, netbooks, other devices,
including, but not limited to, software problems, hardware problems,
discussing ideas of what program is suitable for chosen purposes, and
what hardware is suitable for using specific software written for
Android OS and which OS version (firmware modification) is suitable for
chosen program / task / device.

Posters are expected to abide by normal Usenet standards of decorum,
and to ignore any articles intended to disrupt the newsgroup. Spam is
PROHIBITED. Advertising is NOT allowed. Newsgroup is text only. (That
means: no binaries.)

DISTRIBUTION:

This document has been posted to the following newsgroups:

news.announce.newgroups
news.groups.proposals
comp.mobile.ipad
alt.comp.google

PROPONENT:

Evgenii Sputnik elsputnikoo@gmail.com

CHANGE HISTORY:

2013-01-09 RESULT
2013-01-02 LAST CALL FOR COMMENTS
2012-12-31 2nd RFD. Name changed to comp.mobile.android. Charter
changed - advertising is NOT allowed in comp.mobile.android now.
2012-12-27 1st RFD.
</pre>

User:Kmorgan

2013-03-04T19:59:38Z

Billhorne: /* Kathy Morgan */

2013-01-20T22:39:12Z

Billhorne: Fixed typo (ewh)

== The way the system is designed to work ==
=== 1. A user posts to a moderated newsgroup. ===
=== 2. Is the newsgroup configured as moderated by the user's news service provider? ===
==== YES. The news server has two options: ====
* '''Using the ISC relay''': the news server
** replaces dots with dashes in the group's name.
** appends "@moderators.isc.org" to the revised name
** stuffs the post in an envelope with an envelope sender address
** e-mails the post to <reformated-newsgroup-name@moderators.isc.org>
*** For example: for news.groups.proposals, the server would mail to <news-groups-proposals@moderators.isc.org>.
* '''If the news server keeps its own list of aliases''' (possibly for regional hierarchies), it may bypass the ISC relays and e-mail the post directly to the submission address for the moderated newsgroup.
==== NO. ====
* The post is injected into the news server's spool. It may circulate to other servers on which the group is flagged as unmoderated if there is a pathway to those other servers. The author of the post sees it on the misconfigured news server immediately, but the moderators of the group and most users on other servers never see the post.
=== 3. Is the envelope sender address resolvable? ===
==== YES. ====
* One of two moderation relays is chosen at random (moderators.individual.net or moderators.schnuerpel.eu).
* The relay looks up the submission address for the newsgroup on its alias list.
* The relay e-mails the post to the group's submission address.

==== NO. ====
* The e-mail will probably be discarded by the e-mail system. See the next section for an explanation of how envelope sender addresses work.
* The moderators of the group will probably never see the post.
=== 4. Do the moderators approve the post? ===
==== YES. ====
* The moderators mark the post as approved.
* The moderators inject the post into a news server.
==== NO. ====
* The post is discarded.
== How envelope sender addresses work ==
* '''''Mail servers generally reject mail with invalid (unresolvable) envelope sender addresses'''''. This isn't specific to the moderation relays; it's a standard anti-spam practice for many mail servers. Mail administrators started rejecting mail with non-resolving envelope From: addresses because it blocked spam and almost no legitimate mail. For example, sendmail 8.9, released in 2000, blocks mail with unresolvable envelope-from addresses *by default*.
** The ''envelope'' of an e-mail has two essential pieces of information written on it, just like a physical envelope for a letter: a ''From:'' address and a ''To:'' address.
** The ''news server program'' would generally send the mail with an envelope sender address of <news@domain> because "news" is the standard user account under which the server software is run. When a news server program generates an email, the envelope's From: address is automatically set to the program's user and domain. If the news server program is running under the user "news", which is typical, <news@domain> would be used for the From: address on the envelope. If the news server program is being run under another username, the From: address on the envelope would just be that username at the server's host--e.g., if the news server program is running under the clark_kent account on dailyplanet.com, the From: address on the envelope would be <clark_kent@dailyplanet.com>.
== Things that break the system ==
* If the server is running on a host with an invalid name, and the program has not been configured to set the mail envelope to something else, the e-mail sent by the server will probably be discarded; this isn't common, because that's just a sysadmin no-no.
** Note: the envelope's From: address doesn't have to be valid in the sense that you can send mail to it; it really just has to have a valid hostname and be in the right format. Having a server running with a totally invalid hostname is just broken, but it has happened.
** The word "valid" in this context is being used to indicate that the moderation relays can find the domain in the public Domain Name Service (DNS). The problem with the news server that was generating unresolvable addresses was that the host name used on the envelope addresses was valid on the news service's internal network, but the name was not identifiable from the public Internet through DNS.
* If the server has been configured to use the poster's From: address as the envelope's From: address, and if the poster is using an address with an unrecognizable domain, then the From: address on the envelope is invalid. This is also something that is the result of a misconfiguration because it is not the proper method to set the envelope address on a mail server. In fact, almost all mail server software would require you to take extra steps to make it so you could do that without a warning being generated. The entire point of the envelope sender is so that users can set their From: address to whatever they want and still have a correct return-path generated from the envelope address.
* If the server gets blacklisted as a spam server, the posts it relays may be discarded.
* As of 2011-12-21, there are three relays supporting the moderation system: Individual.net, schnuerpel.eu and mit.edu.

== The Bottom Line ==

If a news server is misconfigured in one of the two ways described above, the e-mail from the news server to the central moderation relays gets discarded and ''never reaches the moderator's submission address.'' It's not something that moderators can do anything about because the mail never reaches their server.

In practice, almost no one has their servers set up in either of the above ways. Andrew, one of the administrators at the Supernews relay, notes that 99.9% of submissions aren't broken like this -- almost all news servers have the envelope sender addresses set correctly because all of the server software programs configure envelope From: addresses correctly by default. It's easy to get right and hard to get wrong.

== Simplified Flow Chart of the Moderation Relay System ==

[[File:Mod relay.jpg]]

''Flow chart created with demo version of [http://www.rff.com/ RFFlow]''.

== Changing moderation relay addresses ==
Moderators should send requests to change a newsgroup's submission address to [mailto:moderators-request@isc.org moderators-request@isc.org].

== Links ==

{| {{Prettytable}}
|-
|[http://www.dnswiz.com/dnsworks.htm How DNS Works]
|-
|[http://www.feep.net/sendmail/tutorial/intro/SMTP.html SMTP and the Message Envelope]
|-
|[http://www.process.com/tcpip/pmdf621docs/programming/book_12.html PMDF Programmer's Reference: 1.2 Enqueuing Messages]
|-
|[http://www.cpcc.edu/itservices/virus/To_From%20Headers.asp To: and From: Email Headers can be Spoofed/Forged]
|-
|[http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-gb/library/ms526966.aspx Using the SMTP Message Envelope Fields]
|}

[[Category:Moderation]]

Big-8 Usenet hierarchies

2013-01-20T16:30:33Z

Billhorne:

The Big 8 is a collection of international discussion newsgroups covering a wide range of topics organized in eight hierarchies. Discussion is primarily in English, though there are exceptions, most notably in the soc.culture.* sub-hierarchy.

While international in scope, many newsgroups in the Big 8 have a United States flavor. This dual nature reflects the historical origins of the Big-8, and the relatively large share of native English speakers who live in the United States.

"A Usenet hierarchy is, reduced to its essence, a set of Usenet newsgroups that share a common naming prefix, such as all groups starting with 'comp.' or all groups starting with 'de.' The names of Usenet newsgroups define a hierarchy of names, with '.' used as the separator between the levels of the hierarchy ... The most significant part of the name is given first. The first component of the name is special and more significant than the rest of the name, since it defines the top-level Usenet hierarchy to which that group belongs" ([http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/faqs/usenet-hier.html Allbery]).

The newsgroups that form the Big-8 hierarchies use the following naming prefixes:

{| {{Prettytable}}
|-
!align="right"|comp.*
|Computer topics, both hardware and software.
|-
!align="right"|news.*
|Administration of the Big 8, as well as about Usenet and Netnews in general, and related topics.
|-
!align="right"|sci.*
|Science and technology.
|-
!align="right"|humanities.*
|The humanities.
|-
!align="right"|rec.*
|Recreational topics, including music, sports, games, outdoor recreation, hobbies, crafts, ...
|-
!align="right"|soc.*
|Socializing, society, and social issues.
|-
!align="right"|talk.*
|Endless discussion, largely about politics.
|-
!align="right"|misc.*
|A mixture of newsgroups that don't fit the other 7 hierarchies. Many are about the practical aspects of everyday life.
|}
The complete list of Big-8 newsgroups is in a special text file called [[Checkgroups|"Checkgroups"]].

A note on the soc.* hierarchy:

On Tue, 11 Jul 2006 21:14:08 GMT, Jim Riley (jimrtex@pipeline.com) wrote in AwUsg.6099$PE1.2213@newsread2.news.pas.earthlink.net:
<pre>
The soc.* hierarchy has always been mostly about socializing, rather
than society or social issues. If you look at the groups placed in the
hierarchy as the result of the Great Renaming, soc.singles might well be
considered the archetype for the hierarchy.

Groups such as misc.legal and misc.kids (about parenting) were not
placed in the soc.* hierarchy because they were not seen as fitting the
hierarchy, even though they are important topics relating to how society
is organized.

See the charters for soc.atheism and talk.atheism for an example.
soc.atheism was designed as a place where non-theists could hang out
with out harassment from theists. If they wanted to debate politics or
religion (or the lack thereof) they could use talk.atheism.
</pre>

Nevertheless, the soc.* hierarchy does indeed include some groups that are about society and not about socializing. For example, soc.org.nonprofit is about the creation and operation of non-profit organizations.

__TOC__

=== History of the Big-8 ===
{| {{Prettytable}}
|-
"It is assumed in some quarters that if you missed the early days of Usenet and didn't use Lynx from a Unix command line, you missed the Magic of Internet Culture" (The Cluetrain Manifesto).
|-
|[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usenet Usenet Wikipedia article on Usenet]
|-
|[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_8_%28Usenet%29 Big_8_(Usenet) Wikipedia article on the Big-8]
|-
|[http://groups.google.com/groups?q=bernstein+group:news.groups+insubject:history&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&scoring=d&selm=bo49f1%24chs%241%40reader2.panix.com&rnum=4 A Google search--news.groups & history]
|-
|[http://web.archive.org/web/20081205073727/http://www.panix.com/~josephb/newsgroups/history/ Joe Bernstein's Web Site]
|-
|[http://communication.ucsd.edu/bjones/Usenet.Hist/Nethist/index.html Archive for the History of Usenet Mailing List]
|-
|[[How the Management of the Big-8 Developed]]
|}
==== In the Beginning: "Let's Play 'Name that Froup!'" ====

(The 'froup' typo is attributed to Laura Zurawski in the alt.stupidity FAQ at MIT's RTFM site.)

On Sat, 18 Dec 2004 19:40:56 -0800, Richard Henry wrote:
>I don't understand the logical foundation of the voting process, I guess.

Jim Riley replied:

Once upon a time groups were created simply by posting a message to the group. The news software would see an unrecognized name and create the group. New froups were created due to a misspelled name.

So a process was developed where a person who thought a group should be created would post a message to (example, "I'm thinking about creating a screenwriting group. Is there anyone interested?"). People would send the "proponent" e-mail expressing their interest, or perhaps expressing that they didn't think that the group was a good idea.

If there was sufficient interest in the new group, and not too much opposition, the proponent would post a message to the group, causing it to be created. A group that was created in accord with this process would be included in canonical lists of newsgroups, increasing the likelihood that it would be created on more, if not most, sites.

Over time, "sufficient interest" became quantified, and eventually became 100 more Yes votes than No votes. I don't know of any particular reason that the Yes and No votes are compared in the way that they are; it may be simply be a way to have No votes be registered with typically little consequence. At one time, most proposed groups received over 200 Yes votes, whether there were 10 or 30 No votes didn't matter.

At one point, there was talk of adding a 2/3 supermajority rule, but it was unclear whether this was to permit groups with margins such as 120:40 to be created or to stop groups that had a 500:300 margin from being created. The former group had sufficient interest, and not too much opposition. The latter group had a lot of opposition, despite achieving a 100 vote plurality.

A formula that included a supermajority could not be worked out, and the idea was dropped. About 6 months later, sci.aquaria was proposed. It was widely opposed because of its placement in the sci.* hierarchy rather than the rec.* hierarchy. The group passed by something like a 700:400 margin under questionable circumstances. Someone noticed that if there had been a 2/3 rule in place, the group would have failed, and the current 2/3 rule was added.

sci.aquaria was created under the old rules. Since that time, few groups have failed because of the 2/3 rule, since it is rare for a proposed group to receive 100 No votes, and even if there is a lot of No votes, there might be even more Yes votes.

At one time the average vote was 200+:30. Most proposed groups were created, and since they had sufficient interest they had some level of success. Groups with somewhat marginal interest might squeak by on a 135:30 vote.

A few groups would fail. If it was 20:30, the group probably would have been unsuccessful. If a group failed 120:30 it is not seen as a flaw in the system, but rather simply a disappointed proponent.

The proposals with massive opposition and massive support were rare, and had gone beyond the point of determining whether there was interest in a _newsgroup_ about Topic X, but were rather popularity contests aobut Topic X itself.

==== History of news.groups ====

* In the beginning, all users were expected to read [http://groups.google.com/group/net.general/about?hl=en net.general]. The purpose of the group was [http://groups.google.com/group/net.general/msg/8cc18e59ffa68b62?dmode=source&hl=en "initial queries and announcements."] Proposals for and announcement of new groups took place in that group.
* '''net.news.group''' was created to remove that traffic from net.general, according to Joe Bernstein's History:
<pre>
net.news.group
Proposed as net.names December 26, 1981 by Jerry Schwarz. (He
had proposed a net.groups, similar in purpose to the
net.newsgroups that Curt Stephens later proposed, on June 14,
1981! Obviously a far-sighted person.)
Proposed as net.news.groups January 13, 1982 by Jerry Schwarz.
Announced January 15, 1982 by Mark Horton.
Archived January 15, 1982 to ...
Listed January 26, 1982 to November 1, 1986 without interruption.
Description line (1/26/1982): for discussions about proposed new
newsgroups,
Description line (11/1/1986): Discussions and lists of newsgroups
(Joe Bernstein's comment: Sound familiar, anyone?)
</pre>

* Two early posts described '''the purpose of net.news.group'''. The first post also shows the beginnings of the effort to maintain a list of newsgroups. The second shows that users could still create new newsgroups at will on some systems.
<pre>
Message-ID: [bnews.azure.1484]
Newsgroups: net.general
From: curts@sri-unix
Date: Sat Nov 20 10:30:44 1982
Subject: grouplist

Some time ago, I regularly submitted a list of newsgroups to the net. Each
entry to this list contained a brief summary of the purpose of that group.
I had to stop, when I found myself too busy to keep up. Now, I am going to
try to maintain the list again.

...

A new newsgroup may be created by simply posting material to the
net under a new newsgroup name. However, THIS IS NOT RECOMMENDED!
There are limits to the number of newsgroups that can be supported
by the net. If you wish to send material to the net, first try to
find an established newsgroup that deals with a subject related to
that material. If there is no appropriate newsgroup, suggest the
creation of a new group via net.news.group. Usually, there will be
enough feedback to establish whether there is an audience for the
subject that you would like to discuss.

...

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
net.news.group for discussions about proposed new newsgroups,
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

...

Curt Stephens

Tektronix
Beaverton, Oregon, USA

--------------------------------------------------------

From: cbosgd!mark (cbosgd!mark)
Subject: official policy on creation of new newsgroups
Newsgroups: net.news.group
Date: 1982-05-31 21:52:27 PST
Message-ID: [bnews.cbosgd.2329]

The current official policy on creation new newsgroups is that someone
is supposed to propose it in net.general,net.news.group (substitute
whatever for net if it's a local group, or set up your own procedure)
and all followups are supposed to go to net.news.group only. (The followup
command in all recent versions of news does this automatically.) Once
a consensus is reached, the person who originally proposed it should
make a yes/no decision on the newsgroup and a name, announce it to
net.general, and create it. (If he is not the netnews contact at his
site, he should ask that person to create it, or ask me.)

Modern versions of the software do not let people create new groups
unless they are the local netnews contact, or the super user. There
are many old versions still in use out there that don't enforce this,
which shows that no matter what change we make, getting software to
enforce it in the finite future is very hard.

The net.sctv business has recreated the suggestion of a netnews
committee who makes all the decisions. It has not been resolved yet.
The last time somebody suggested this, there was overwhelming sentiment
to not restrict new newsgroups, but rather to make the software wonderful,
by such things as automatically expiring empty newsgroups, and making it
much faster to do readnews or checknews. (This will probably happen in
version 3.0, which is right now in the wishful thinking stage due to
lack of time on the part of the authors.)

As to natural language, the flaming has gone on for a while but the person
who proposed it hasn't made a decision. Personally, I don't understand
what you guys are going to talk about, but there is lots of stuff I don't
subscribe to. So I'll make a decision: net.nlang is now created with no
subgroups. Post to it and mention the particular language in your title.
Any language that picks up significant activity that continues after the
novelty wears off (the participants should decide this) should create its
own subgroup. New natural language newsgroups can be started in the parent
newsgroup. (Off the wall thought - once the 14 char limit goes away
in the eventual version 3.0, you might want to call it "net.tongues".)

Mark
</pre>

* By 1982 (less than a year after its creation), '''net.news.group''' was nominated as "the silliest group on the net" and the first cries were heard to "go back to an earlier time" (!):

<pre>
Message-ID: [bnews.unc.3498]
Newsgroups: net.news.group
Path: utzoo!decvax!duke!mcnc!unc!wm
X-Path: utzoo!decvax!duke!mcnc!unc!wm
From: unc!wm
Date: Sat May 29 07:12:46 1982
Subject: DOWN with net.news.group
Posted: Fri May 28 15:51:51 1982
Received: Sat May 29 07:12:46 1982

Personally I think half the news groups that have been started
are silly. Natural language groups fit into this category, but
WHO CARES? Anyone can start a new group, and there are several
new groups started every week or so by someone who doesn't know
the "rules" yet. The only purpose net.news.group seems to serve
is as a forum for people to flame about how other people's ideas
for new groups are silly, or how something should be a mailing
list, or should be in net.misc, or shouldn't be in net.misc, etc.
I therefore nominate as the silliest group on the net, you guessed
it, net.news.group! Let us go back to an earlier time, when
all you did if you thought there was an interest in a new group
was to post an article to it. If nobody responds, or if the
group sees activity for two weeks and then dies, it should be
deleted by some automatic deletion mechanism. What are the chances
of seeing this installed in the near future? Of course, we will
still see long discussions about what the name of a group should
be (you know, I think I will go back into the archives and see
what percentage of articles in a group are related to what its
name should be. Any bets?).
unc!wm
</pre>

* In 1986, '''net.news.group''' became '''news.groups''':
<pre>
From: mark@cbosgd.ATT.COM (Mark Horton)
Newsgroups: net.news.group,news.groups
Subject: net.news.group is being renamed news.groups
Message-ID: [3039@cbosgd.ATT.COM]
Date: Fri, 7-Nov-86 15:14:38 EST
Article-I.D.: cbosgd.3039
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Columbus, Oh

This newsgroup is being renamed from net.news.group to news.groups.
This renaming will gradually take place over the next few weeks.
More and more messages posted to this newsgroup will be aliased
into the new newsgroup as they pass through the net, and people
will begin to post to the new group. After a few weeks, the
old name will be removed.

This note is to inform you of the renaming so you can begin to
read the new group as well as the old group.

Mark Horton
Director, the UUCP Project
</pre>

* A comment from Jim Riley on the early history:
<pre>
Message-ID: <cd0xg.12471$ug4.4262@newsread2.news.pas.earthlink.net>
Date: Wed, 11 Oct 2006 06:32:02 GMT

...

The name of news.groups
is more or less an accident. net.news.group was chosen because it fit
in 14 characters, and the last 's' was added during the great
renaming.

...
</pre>

==== Spaf ====

Spaf is the nickname of Eugene H. Spafford, who is a professor at Purdue University who specializes in issues of information security, digital forensics, privacy technology, and security and science policy. Among many other things, he is the founder and executive director of CERIAS, and chair of ACM's US Public Policy Council, USACM.

* Published the first set of newusers documents for Usenet ca. 1982 (and continued to maintain and post them for the next 11 years).
* Developed the concept of the Usenet backbone ca. 1983.
* Created the idea of the Usenet newgroup "ballot" ca. 1987.
* Was moderator of one of the first moderated newsgroups not represented by a gated mailing list (news.newusers).

==== The Failed Trial Group System (1991) ====

[http://www.templetons.com/brad/trial.html Brad Templeton explains the system.]

==== tale's Reform Proposal (1993) ====

Available in [ftp://ftp.isc.org/pub/usenet/news.announce.newgroups/comp/comp.dcom.telecom.tech ftp://ftp.isc.org/pub/usenet/news.announce.newgroups/comp/comp.dcom.telecom.tech].

<pre>
From tale@uunet.uu.net Thu Oct 14 20:50:30 1993
Path: uunet!tale
From: tale@uunet.uu.net (David C Lawrence)
Newsgroups: news.announce.newgroups,news.groups,news.admin.policy,news.admin.misc
Subject: comp.dcom.telecom.tech and Changing the Guidelines
Followup-To: news.groups,news.admin.policy
Date: 14 Oct 1993 19:01:27 -0400
Organization: UUNET Communications
Lines: 78
Sender: tale@rodan.UU.NET
Approved: tale@uunet.uu.net
Message-ID: 29klo7INN5sq@rodan.UU.NET
References: 29esvpINN4ae@rodan.UU.NET
NNTP-Posting-Host: rodan.uu.net
Xref: uunet news.announce.newgroups:4160 news.groups:84553 news.admin.policy:7211 news.admin.misc:5076

This message is intended to address my recent suggestion that the
comp.dcom.telecom.tech group be created despite its failing vote result,
and to give an introduction toward ideas I have had for a while
regarding restructuring the Guidelines for USENET Group Creation. I
would like to keep it relatively short, and some people might believe
there are glaring omissions. I hope that all points will be addressed
in the ensuing discussion.

First, I thank everyone who has written to me over the past two days.
Nearly all of the messages that I received were carefully written and
well presented. I'm sorry that I cannot reply individually to all of
them.

The diversity of the mail has been surprising at times. I've got
messages from people who voted for the proposal asking me not to create
it, and messages from those who voted against it remarking that I should
create it. I've got praise from people who are happy to see the spirit
of the Guidelines upheld, and derision from those who would hold me to
the letter of them. I've got more than ample indication that if I did
send the newgroup without further debate that it would be widely
honoured and the group well propagated.

Before I continue, I want to make clear my primary source of bias
regarding USENET group creation. I support the creation of well focused
newsgroups which are not duplicitous. I have yet to oppose a USENET
newsgroup based on its content.

Voting by the hundreds is not a good way to administer a classification
system. "No" votes are not particularly effective at the job they were
intended to do, which was to stop poorly formed proposals. They have
been used to stop groups which should have been created and have not
stopped those which shouldn't. I don't believe that any manner of
playing with the numbers and ratios will resolve this inequity. They
should be abolished.

Namespace management is best served by a small working group who can
help ensure consistency and coherency. The net supported this idea two
years ago when a proposal to use a "trial" process to create groups was
approved by a traditional USENET vote. One of its features was that a
small group of people were to chose the name of the group.

I would like to advance a proposal for new guidelines for group
creation. The essential differences would be to make new group creation
easier and shorter for people interested in the topics to be discussed,
at the cost of not being able to push any name and ill-formed charter
forward.

I will be working on the draft of these Guidelines and submitting them
for discussion in the near future. Please do not start debating these
ideas until you see how they come out in the proposal.
</pre>

==== Allbery's Reform Proposal (1996) ====

<pre>
From: Russ Allbery <rra@cs.stanford.edu>
Subject: [DRAFT] RFD: news.groups reorganization
Date: 1996/10/24
Message-ID: qumramogu12.thoron@cyclone.stanford.edu
X-Deja-AN: 191793806
sender: eagle@cyclone.stanford.edu
organization: The Eyrie
newsgroups: news.groups

[ This is a draft only. Comments are very much welcome. Anyone else
who is considering a reorganization of news.groups, please contact
me; I would greatly prefer to work together rather than end up with
competing proposals. ]

From: Russ Allbery <rra@cs.stanford.edu>
Subject: RFD: news.groups reorganization
Newsgroups: news.announce.newgroups,news.groups

REQUEST FOR DISCUSSION (RFD)
moderated group news.groups.creation
moderated group news.groups.reorganization
moderated group news.groups.innovations
unmoderated group news.groups.pre-proposals
unmoderated group news.groups.policy (renames news.groups)

Newsgroup lines:
news.groups.creation Creation of single newsgroups. (Moderated)
news.groups.reorganization Reorganization of newsgroups. (Moderated)
news.groups.innovations Innovative newsgroup concepts. (Moderated)
news.groups.pre-proposals Preliminary newsgroup proposals.
news.groups.policy Policy issues of newsgroup creation.

This is a preliminary Request For Discussion (RFD) for the
reorganization of news.groups. This is not a formal RFD. Procedural
details are below.

RATIONALE: all groups

news.groups is becoming increasingly difficult to follow because of
the noise, poor use of subject lines, and overload due to multiple
group discussions happening simultaneously. This proposal is designed
to break up that discussion and mark the actual group discussion so
that it can be easily filtered and followed by people only interested
in one proposal.

The core of the proposal is robomoderation of the two main groups to
require that every post be marked with a tag specific to a particular
proposal.

...

</pre>

==== fa.* ====
<pre>
On Fri, 20 Oct 2006 10:20:52 +0200, Kjetil Torgrim Homme <kjetilho@kaksi.ifi.uio.no> wrote in <1rbqo7iejf.fsf@buri.ifi.uio.no>:

> > I run the gateway at fa.*, including fa.haskell. I'm sorry to
> > say I haven't put much effort into maintaining subscriptions the
> > last few years, and as you allude to, many of the groups in the
> > hierarchy are dead.
>
> Are you saying that the gated mailing lists themselves are dead?
> That's too bad.

a little of both, I think. (I know fa.haskell is alive, though.)

> > all the fa.* groups are one-way, btw.
>
> I didn't know that. Was this always the case, or a deliberate
> attempt to keep Usenet spam out of Mail?

our gateway has always been one-way.

a little background: as you probably know, the FA name is from before
the Great Renaming (it stands for From ARPAnet). I don't know how it
worked back then. some years later, Anders Ellefsrud, my predecessor
as news admin here at ifi.uio.no, thought that it was wasteful that
our students subscribed to mailing lists individually, and set up a
gateway to save bandwidth and to get automatic expiration. he chose
to reuse the name fa.* which was no longer in use on Usenet. this was
a local hierarchy at first, but some neighbours thought it was useful
and wanted feeds, and in 1998 it started leaking to the Usenet at
large. this was under my watch, but I thought "hey, indexing at
Google is actually pretty neat", so I didn't try to find the leak.

</pre>
[[Category:Big-8 Management]]
[[Category:History]]

Big-8 Usenet hierarchies

2013-01-20T16:26:00Z

Billhorne: /* History of the Big-8 */

The Big 8 is a collection of international discussion newsgroups covering a wide range of topics organized in eight hierarchies. Discussion is primarily in English, though there are exceptions, most notably in the soc.culture.* sub-hierarchy.

While international in scope, many newsgroups in the Big 8 have a United States flavor. This dual nature reflects the historical origins of the Big-8, and the relatively large share of native English speakers who live in the United States.

"A Usenet hierarchy is, reduced to its essence, a set of Usenet newsgroups that share a common naming prefix, such as all groups starting with 'comp.' or all groups starting with 'de.' The names of Usenet newsgroups define a hierarchy of names, with '.' used as the separator between the levels of the hierarchy ... The most significant part of the name is given first. The first component of the name is special and more significant than the rest of the name, since it defines the top-level Usenet hierarchy to which that group belongs" ([http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/faqs/usenet-hier.html Allbery]).

The newsgroups that form the Big-8 hierarchies use the following naming prefixes:

{| {{Prettytable}}
|-
!align="right"|comp.*
|Computer topics, both hardware and software.
|-
!align="right"|news.*
|Administration of the Big 8, as well as about Usenet and Netnews in general, and related topics.
|-
!align="right"|sci.*
|Science and technology.
|-
!align="right"|humanities.*
|The humanities.
|-
!align="right"|rec.*
|Recreational topics, including music, sports, games, outdoor recreation, hobbies, crafts, ...
|-
!align="right"|soc.*
|Socializing, society, and social issues.
|-
!align="right"|talk.*
|Endless discussion, largely about politics.
|-
!align="right"|misc.*
|A mixture of newsgroups that don't fit the other 7 hierarchies. Many are about the practical aspects of everyday life.
|}
The complete list of Big-8 newsgroups is in a special text file called [[Checkgroups|"Checkgroups"]].

A note on the soc.* hierarchy:

On Tue, 11 Jul 2006 21:14:08 GMT, Jim Riley (jimrtex@pipeline.com) wrote in AwUsg.6099$PE1.2213@newsread2.news.pas.earthlink.net:
<pre>
The soc.* hierarchy has always been mostly about socializing, rather
than society or social issues. If you look at the groups placed in the
hierarchy as the result of the Great Renaming, soc.singles might well be
considered the archetype for the hierarchy.

Groups such as misc.legal and misc.kids (about parenting) were not
placed in the soc.* hierarchy because they were not seen as fitting the
hierarchy, even though they are important topics relating to how society
is organized.

See the charters for soc.atheism and talk.atheism for an example.
soc.atheism was designed as a place where non-theists could hang out
with out harassment from theists. If they wanted to debate politics or
religion (or the lack thereof) they could use talk.atheism.
</pre>

Nevertheless, the soc.* hierarchy does indeed include some groups that are about society and not about socializing. For example, soc.org.nonprofit is about the creation and operation of non-profit organizations.

__TOC__

=== History of the Big-8 ===
{| {{Prettytable}}
|-
"It is assumed in some quarters that if you missed the early days of Usenet and didn't use Lynx from a Unix command line, you missed the Magic of Internet Culture" (The Cluetrain Manifesto).
|-
|[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usenet Usenet Wikipedia article on Usenet]
|-
|[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_8_%28Usenet%29 Big_8_(Usenet) Wikipedia article on the Big-8]
|-
|[http://groups.google.com/groups?q=bernstein+group:news.groups+insubject:history&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&scoring=d&selm=bo49f1%24chs%241%40reader2.panix.com&rnum=4 A Google search--news.groups & history]
|-
|[http://web.archive.org/web/20081205073727/http://www.panix.com/~josephb/newsgroups/history/ Joe Bernstein's Web Site]
|-
|[http://communication.ucsd.edu/bjones/Usenet.Hist/Nethist/index.html Archive for the History of Usenet Mailing List]
|-
|[[How the Management of the Big-8 Developed]]
|}
==== In the Beginning: "Let's Play 'Name that Froup!'" ====

(The 'froup' typo is attributed to Laura Zurawski in the alt.stupidity FAQ at MIT's RTFM site.)

On Sat, 18 Dec 2004 19:40:56 -0800, Richard Henry wrote:
>I don't understand the logical foundation of the voting process, I guess.

Jim Riley replied:

Once upon a time groups were created simply by posting a message to the group. The news software would see an unrecognized name and create the group. New froups were created due to a misspelled name.

So a process was developed where a person who thought a group should be created would post a message to (example, "I'm thinking about creating a screenwriting group. Is there anyone interested?"). People would send the "proponent" e-mail expressing their interest, or perhaps expressing that they didn't think that the group was a good idea.

If there was sufficient interest in the new group, and not too much opposition, the proponent would post a message to the group, causing it to be created. A group that was created in accord with this process would be included in canonical lists of newsgroups, increasing the likelihood that it would be created on more, if not most, sites.

Over time, "sufficient interest" became quantified, and eventually became 100 more Yes votes than No votes. I don't know of any particular reason that the Yes and No votes are compared in the way that they are; it may be simply be a way to have No votes be registered with typically little consequence. At one time, most proposed groups received over 200 Yes votes, whether there were 10 or 30 No votes didn't matter.

At one point, there was talk of adding a 2/3 supermajority rule, but it was unclear whether this was to permit groups with margins such as 120:40 to be created or to stop groups that had a 500:300 margin from being created. The former group had sufficient interest, and not too much opposition. The latter group had a lot of opposition, despite achieving a 100 vote plurality.

A formula that included a supermajority could not be worked out, and the idea was dropped. About 6 months later, sci.aquaria was proposed. It was widely opposed because of its placement in the sci.* hierarchy rather than the rec.* hierarchy. The group passed by something like a 700:400 margin under questionable circumstances. Someone noticed that if there had been a 2/3 rule in place, the group would have failed, and the current 2/3 rule was added.

sci.aquaria was created under the old rules. Since that time, few groups have failed because of the 2/3 rule, since it is rare for a proposed group to receive 100 No votes, and even if there is a lot of No votes, there might be even more Yes votes.

At one time the average vote was 200+:30. Most proposed groups were created, and since they had sufficient interest they had some level of success. Groups with somewhat marginal interest might squeak by on a 135:30 vote.

A few groups would fail. If it was 20:30, the group probably would have been unsuccessful. If a group failed 120:30 it is not seen as a flaw in the system, but rather simply a disappointed proponent.

The proposals with massive opposition and massive support were rare, and had gone beyond the point of determining whether there was interest in a _newsgroup_ about Topic X, but were rather popularity contests aobut Topic X itself.

==== History of news.groups ====

* In the beginning, all users were expected to read [http://groups.google.com/group/net.general/about?hl=en net.general]. The purpose of the group was [http://groups.google.com/group/net.general/msg/8cc18e59ffa68b62?dmode=source&hl=en "initial queries and announcements."] Proposals for and announcement of new groups took place in that group.
* '''net.news.group''' was created to remove that traffic from net.general, according to Joe Bernstein's History:
<pre>
net.news.group
Proposed as net.names December 26, 1981 by Jerry Schwarz. (He
had proposed a net.groups, similar in purpose to the
net.newsgroups that Curt Stephens later proposed, on June 14,
1981! Obviously a far-sighted person.)
Proposed as net.news.groups January 13, 1982 by Jerry Schwarz.
Announced January 15, 1982 by Mark Horton.
Archived January 15, 1982 to ...
Listed January 26, 1982 to November 1, 1986 without interruption.
Description line (1/26/1982): for discussions about proposed new
newsgroups,
Description line (11/1/1986): Discussions and lists of newsgroups
(Joe Bernstein's comment: Sound familiar, anyone?)
</pre>

* Two early posts described '''the purpose of net.news.group'''. The first post also shows the beginnings of the effort to maintain a list of newsgroups. The second shows that users could still create new newsgroups at will on some systems.
<pre>
Message-ID: [bnews.azure.1484]
Newsgroups: net.general
From: curts@sri-unix
Date: Sat Nov 20 10:30:44 1982
Subject: grouplist

Some time ago, I regularly submitted a list of newsgroups to the net. Each
entry to this list contained a brief summary of the purpose of that group.
I had to stop, when I found myself too busy to keep up. Now, I am going to
try to maintain the list again.

...

A new newsgroup may be created by simply posting material to the
net under a new newsgroup name. However, THIS IS NOT RECOMMENDED!
There are limits to the number of newsgroups that can be supported
by the net. If you wish to send material to the net, first try to
find an established newsgroup that deals with a subject related to
that material. If there is no appropriate newsgroup, suggest the
creation of a new group via net.news.group. Usually, there will be
enough feedback to establish whether there is an audience for the
subject that you would like to discuss.

...

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
net.news.group for discussions about proposed new newsgroups,
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

...

Curt Stephens

Tektronix
Beaverton, Oregon, USA

--------------------------------------------------------

From: cbosgd!mark (cbosgd!mark)
Subject: official policy on creation of new newsgroups
Newsgroups: net.news.group
Date: 1982-05-31 21:52:27 PST
Message-ID: [bnews.cbosgd.2329]

The current official policy on creation new newsgroups is that someone
is supposed to propose it in net.general,net.news.group (substitute
whatever for net if it's a local group, or set up your own procedure)
and all followups are supposed to go to net.news.group only. (The followup
command in all recent versions of news does this automatically.) Once
a consensus is reached, the person who originally proposed it should
make a yes/no decision on the newsgroup and a name, announce it to
net.general, and create it. (If he is not the netnews contact at his
site, he should ask that person to create it, or ask me.)

Modern versions of the software do not let people create new groups
unless they are the local netnews contact, or the super user. There
are many old versions still in use out there that don't enforce this,
which shows that no matter what change we make, getting software to
enforce it in the finite future is very hard.

The net.sctv business has recreated the suggestion of a netnews
committee who makes all the decisions. It has not been resolved yet.
The last time somebody suggested this, there was overwhelming sentiment
to not restrict new newsgroups, but rather to make the software wonderful,
by such things as automatically expiring empty newsgroups, and making it
much faster to do readnews or checknews. (This will probably happen in
version 3.0, which is right now in the wishful thinking stage due to
lack of time on the part of the authors.)

As to natural language, the flaming has gone on for a while but the person
who proposed it hasn't made a decision. Personally, I don't understand
what you guys are going to talk about, but there is lots of stuff I don't
subscribe to. So I'll make a decision: net.nlang is now created with no
subgroups. Post to it and mention the particular language in your title.
Any language that picks up significant activity that continues after the
novelty wears off (the participants should decide this) should create its
own subgroup. New natural language newsgroups can be started in the parent
newsgroup. (Off the wall thought - once the 14 char limit goes away
in the eventual version 3.0, you might want to call it "net.tongues".)

Mark
</pre>

* By 1982 (less than a year after its creation), '''net.news.group''' was nominated as "the silliest group on the net" and the first cries were heard to "go back to an earlier time" (!):

<pre>
Message-ID: [bnews.unc.3498]
Newsgroups: net.news.group
Path: utzoo!decvax!duke!mcnc!unc!wm
X-Path: utzoo!decvax!duke!mcnc!unc!wm
From: unc!wm
Date: Sat May 29 07:12:46 1982
Subject: DOWN with net.news.group
Posted: Fri May 28 15:51:51 1982
Received: Sat May 29 07:12:46 1982

Personally I think half the news groups that have been started
are silly. Natural language groups fit into this category, but
WHO CARES? Anyone can start a new group, and there are several
new groups started every week or so by someone who doesn't know
the "rules" yet. The only purpose net.news.group seems to serve
is as a forum for people to flame about how other people's ideas
for new groups are silly, or how something should be a mailing
list, or should be in net.misc, or shouldn't be in net.misc, etc.
I therefore nominate as the silliest group on the net, you guessed
it, net.news.group! Let us go back to an earlier time, when
all you did if you thought there was an interest in a new group
was to post an article to it. If nobody responds, or if the
group sees activity for two weeks and then dies, it should be
deleted by some automatic deletion mechanism. What are the chances
of seeing this installed in the near future? Of course, we will
still see long discussions about what the name of a group should
be (you know, I think I will go back into the archives and see
what percentage of articles in a group are related to what its
name should be. Any bets?).
unc!wm
</pre>

* In 1986, '''net.news.group''' became '''news.groups''':
<pre>
From: mark@cbosgd.ATT.COM (Mark Horton)
Newsgroups: net.news.group,news.groups
Subject: net.news.group is being renamed news.groups
Message-ID: [3039@cbosgd.ATT.COM]
Date: Fri, 7-Nov-86 15:14:38 EST
Article-I.D.: cbosgd.3039
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Columbus, Oh

This newsgroup is being renamed from net.news.group to news.groups.
This renaming will gradually take place over the next few weeks.
More and more messages posted to this newsgroup will be aliased
into the new newsgroup as they pass through the net, and people
will begin to post to the new group. After a few weeks, the
old name will be removed.

This note is to inform you of the renaming so you can begin to
read the new group as well as the old group.

Mark Horton
Director, the UUCP Project
</pre>

* A comment from Jim Riley on the early history:
<pre>
Message-ID: <cd0xg.12471$ug4.4262@newsread2.news.pas.earthlink.net>
Date: Wed, 11 Oct 2006 06:32:02 GMT

...

The name of news.groups
is more or less an accident. net.news.group was chosen because it fit
in 14 characters, and the last 's' was added during the great
renaming.

...
</pre>

==== Spaf ====

Spaf is the nickname of Eugene H. Spafford, who is a professor at Purdue University who specializes in issues of information security, digital forensics, privacy technology, and security and science policy. Among many other things, he is the founder and executive director of CERIAS, and chair of ACM's US Public Policy Council, USACM.

* Published the first set of newusers documents for Usenet ca. 1982 (and continued to maintain and post them for the next 11 years).
* Developed the concept of the Usenet backbone ca. 1983.
* Created the idea of the Usenet newgroup "ballot" ca. 1987.
* Was moderator of one of the first moderated newsgroups not represented by a gated mailing list (news.newusers).

==== The Failed Trial Group System (1991) ====

[http://www.templetons.com/brad/trial.html Brad Templeton explains the system.]

==== tale's Reform Proposal (1993) ====

Available in [ftp://ftp.isc.org/pub/usenet/news.announce.newgroups/comp/comp.dcom.telecom.tech ftp://ftp.isc.org/pub/usenet/news.announce.newgroups/comp/comp.dcom.telecom.tech].

<pre>
From tale@uunet.uu.net Thu Oct 14 20:50:30 1993
Path: uunet!tale
From: tale@uunet.uu.net (David C Lawrence)
Newsgroups: news.announce.newgroups,news.groups,news.admin.policy,news.admin.misc
Subject: comp.dcom.telecom.tech and Changing the Guidelines
Followup-To: news.groups,news.admin.policy
Date: 14 Oct 1993 19:01:27 -0400
Organization: UUNET Communications
Lines: 78
Sender: tale@rodan.UU.NET
Approved: tale@uunet.uu.net
Message-ID: 29klo7INN5sq@rodan.UU.NET
References: 29esvpINN4ae@rodan.UU.NET
NNTP-Posting-Host: rodan.uu.net
Xref: uunet news.announce.newgroups:4160 news.groups:84553 news.admin.policy:7211 news.admin.misc:5076

This message is intended to address my recent suggestion that the
comp.dcom.telecom.tech group be created despite its failing vote result,
and to give an introduction toward ideas I have had for a while
regarding restructuring the Guidelines for USENET Group Creation. I
would like to keep it relatively short, and some people might believe
there are glaring omissions. I hope that all points will be addressed
in the ensuing discussion.

First, I thank everyone who has written to me over the past two days.
Nearly all of the messages that I received were carefully written and
well presented. I'm sorry that I cannot reply individually to all of
them.

The diversity of the mail has been surprising at times. I've got
messages from people who voted for the proposal asking me not to create
it, and messages from those who voted against it remarking that I should
create it. I've got praise from people who are happy to see the spirit
of the Guidelines upheld, and derision from those who would hold me to
the letter of them. I've got more than ample indication that if I did
send the newgroup without further debate that it would be widely
honoured and the group well propagated.

Before I continue, I want to make clear my primary source of bias
regarding USENET group creation. I support the creation of well focused
newsgroups which are not duplicitous. I have yet to oppose a USENET
newsgroup based on its content.

Voting by the hundreds is not a good way to administer a classification
system. "No" votes are not particularly effective at the job they were
intended to do, which was to stop poorly formed proposals. They have
been used to stop groups which should have been created and have not
stopped those which shouldn't. I don't believe that any manner of
playing with the numbers and ratios will resolve this inequity. They
should be abolished.

Namespace management is best served by a small working group who can
help ensure consistency and coherency. The net supported this idea two
years ago when a proposal to use a "trial" process to create groups was
approved by a traditional USENET vote. One of its features was that a
small group of people were to chose the name of the group.

I would like to advance a proposal for new guidelines for group
creation. The essential differences would be to make new group creation
easier and shorter for people interested in the topics to be discussed,
at the cost of not being able to push any name and ill-formed charter
forward.

I will be working on the draft of these Guidelines and submitting them
for discussion in the near future. Please do not start debating these
ideas until you see how they come out in the proposal.
</pre>

==== Allbery's Reform Proposal (1996) ====

<pre>
From: Russ Allbery <rra@cs.stanford.edu>
Subject: [DRAFT] RFD: news.groups reorganization
Date: 1996/10/24
Message-ID: qumramogu12.thoron@cyclone.stanford.edu
X-Deja-AN: 191793806
sender: eagle@cyclone.stanford.edu
organization: The Eyrie
newsgroups: news.groups

[ This is a draft only. Comments are very much welcome. Anyone else
who is considering a reorganization of news.groups, please contact
me; I would greatly prefer to work together rather than end up with
competing proposals. ]

From: Russ Allbery <rra@cs.stanford.edu>
Subject: RFD: news.groups reorganization
Newsgroups: news.announce.newgroups,news.groups

REQUEST FOR DISCUSSION (RFD)
moderated group news.groups.creation
moderated group news.groups.reorganization
moderated group news.groups.innovations
unmoderated group news.groups.pre-proposals
unmoderated group news.groups.policy (renames news.groups)

Newsgroup lines:
news.groups.creation Creation of single newsgroups. (Moderated)
news.groups.reorganization Reorganization of newsgroups. (Moderated)
news.groups.innovations Innovative newsgroup concepts. (Moderated)
news.groups.pre-proposals Preliminary newsgroup proposals.
news.groups.policy Policy issues of newsgroup creation.

This is a preliminary Request For Discussion (RFD) for the
reorganization of news.groups. This is not a formal RFD. Procedural
details are below.

RATIONALE: all groups

news.groups is becoming increasingly difficult to follow because of
the noise, poor use of subject lines, and overload due to multiple
group discussions happening simultaneously. This proposal is designed
to break up that discussion and mark the actual group discussion so
that it can be easily filtered and followed by people only interested
in one proposal.

The core of the proposal is robomoderation of the two main groups to
require that every post be marked with a tag specific to a particular
proposal.

...

</pre>

==== fa.* ====
<pre>
On Fri, 20 Oct 2006 10:20:52 +0200, Kjetil Torgrim Homme <kjetilho@kaksi.ifi.uio.no> wrote in <1rbqo7iejf.fsf@buri.ifi.uio.no>:

> > I run the gateway at fa.*, including fa.haskell. I'm sorry to
> > say I haven't put much effort into maintaining subscriptions the
> > last few years, and as you allude to, many of the groups in the
> > hierarchy are dead.
>
> Are you saying that the gated mailing lists themselves are dead?
> That's too bad.

a little of both, I think. (I know fa.haskell is alive, though.)

> > all the fa.* groups are one-way, btw.
>
> I didn't know that. Was this always the case, or a deliberate
> attempt to keep Usenet spam out of Mail?

our gateway has always been one-way.

a little background: as you probably know, the FA name is from before
the Great Renaming (it stands for From ARPAnet). I don't know how it
worked back then. some years later, Anders Ellefsrud, my predecessor
as news admin here at ifi.uio.no, thought that it was wasteful that
our students subscribed to mailing lists individually, and set up a
gateway to save bandwidth and to get automatic expiration. he chose
to reuse the name fa.* which was no longer in use on Usenet. this was
a local hierarchy at first, but some neighbours thought it was useful
and wanted feeds, and in 1998 it started leaking to the Usenet at
large. this was under my watch, but I thought "hey, indexing at
Google is actually pretty neat", so I didn't try to find the leak.

</pre>
[[Category:Big-8 Management]]
[[Category:History]]