Great Renaming
Encyclopedia
The Great Renaming was a restructuring of Usenet newsgroups that took place in 1987. B News
maintainer and UUNET
founder Rick Adams
is generally considered to be the initiator of the Renaming.
An alternative explanation was that Europe
an networks refused to pay for some of the high volume and low content groups such as those regarding religion
and racism
; this resulted in a need for categorization of all such newsgroups.
The suggested category for the newsgroups less popular among European networks was talk.*
, mod.* for moderated
discussions, and net.* for unmoderated groups. Names of the groups were said to be rather haphazard.
While reorganization discussions had occurred earlier, software limitations prevented the adoption of a consistent organizational scheme. Improvements introduced by Adams during 1986 with B News
version 2.11 removed the requirement for moderated groups to use the "mod." prefix, allowed posting to moderated groups using newsreader
s rather than separate e-mail
programs, 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.
, 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 the talk.* hierarchy, so that they would not be objected to by their supervisors.
These newsgroups were categorized into a series of hierarchies
, to make it easier for newsgroups to be created and distributed. The original hierarchies were comp.*, misc.*, news.*, rec.*, sci.*, soc.*, and talk.*.
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 the k12.* hierarchy, which covers topics especially relating to education
, school
s, and college
s.
The prefix "alt" designated a hierarchy that is alternative to the mainstream (comp, misc, news, rec, soc, sci, talk) hierarchies.
As freer form discussion on alt.* contrasted with the more academic tending formal hierarchies, the "So You Want to Create an Alt Newsgroup" FAQ
jokes that the name "alt" is an acronym for "anarchists, lunatics, and terrorists", though this is actually just a humorous backcronym.
During the mid-1990s, when Usenet traffic grew significantly, particularly in academia, the humanities.* 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
".
B News
B News was a Usenet news server developed at the University of California, Berkeley by Matt Glickman and Mark Horton as a replacement for A News. It was used on Unix systems from 1981 into the 1990s and is the reference implementation for the de facto Usenet standard described in IETF RFC 850 and...
maintainer and UUNET
UUNET
UUNET founded in 1987, was one of the largest Internet service providers and one of the nine Tier 1 networks. It was based in Northern Virginia and was the first commercial Internet service provider...
founder Rick Adams
Rick Adams (Internet pioneer)
Richard L. Adams, Jr. was an Internet pioneer and the founder of UUNET, which, in the mid and late 1990s, was the world's largest Internet Service Provider ....
is generally considered to be the initiator of the Renaming.
Motivation
The primary reason for the Great Renaming was said to be the difficulty of maintaining a list of all the existing groups.An alternative explanation was that Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
an networks refused to pay for some of the high volume and low content groups such as those regarding religion
Religion
Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...
and racism
Racism
Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...
; this resulted in a need for categorization of all such newsgroups.
The suggested category for the newsgroups less popular among European networks was talk.*
Pre-Renaming
Before the Renaming, the newsgroups were categorized into three hierarchies: fa.* for groups gatewayed from ARPANETARPANET
The Advanced Research Projects Agency Network , was the world's first operational packet switching network and the core network of a set that came to compose the global Internet...
, mod.* for moderated
Moderation system
On Internet websites which invite users to post comments, a moderation system is the method the webmaster chooses to sort contributions which are irrelevant, obscene, illegal, or insulting with regards to useful or informative contributions....
discussions, and net.* for unmoderated groups. Names of the groups were said to be rather haphazard.
While reorganization discussions had occurred earlier, software limitations prevented the adoption of a consistent organizational scheme. Improvements introduced by Adams during 1986 with B News
B News
B News was a Usenet news server developed at the University of California, Berkeley by Matt Glickman and Mark Horton as a replacement for A News. It was used on Unix systems from 1981 into the 1990s and is the reference implementation for the de facto Usenet standard described in IETF RFC 850 and...
version 2.11 removed the requirement for moderated groups to use the "mod." prefix, allowed posting to moderated groups using newsreader
News client
A newsreader is an application program that reads articles on Usenet . Newsreaders act as clients which connect to a news server, via the Network News Transfer Protocol , to download articles and post new articles...
s rather than separate e-mail
E-mail
Electronic mail, commonly known as email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages from an author to one or more recipients. Modern email operates across the Internet or other computer networks. Some early email systems required that the author and the recipient both be online at the...
programs, 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
The backbone providers, the backbone cabalBackbone cabal
The backbone cabal was an informal organization of large-site administrators of the worldwide distributed Internet discussion system Usenet. It existed from about 1983 at least into the 2000s....
, 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 the talk.* hierarchy, so that they would not be objected to by their supervisors.
These newsgroups were categorized into a series of hierarchies
Hierarchy
A hierarchy is an arrangement of items in which the items are represented as being "above," "below," or "at the same level as" one another...
, to make it easier for newsgroups to be created and distributed. The original hierarchies were comp.*, misc.*, news.*, rec.*, sci.*, soc.*, and talk.*.
These hierarchies, known collectively as the "Big Seven
Big 8 (Usenet)
The Big 8 are a group of newsgroup hierarchies established after the Great Renaming, a restructuring of Usenet that took place in 1987. These hierarchies are managed by the Big 8 Management Board...
", 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 the k12.* hierarchy, which covers topics especially relating to education
Education
Education in its broadest, general sense is the means through which the aims and habits of a group of people lives on from one generation to the next. Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts...
, school
School
A school is an institution designed for the teaching of students under the direction of teachers. Most countries have systems of formal education, which is commonly compulsory. In these systems, students progress through a series of schools...
s, and college
College
A college is an educational institution or a constituent part of an educational institution. Usage varies in English-speaking nations...
s.
Post-Renaming
An additional hierarchy, alt.*, was also created soon after the Renaming. The alt.* 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 is alternative to the mainstream (comp, misc, news, rec, soc, sci, talk) hierarchies.
As freer form discussion on alt.* contrasted with the more academic tending formal hierarchies, the "So You Want to Create an Alt Newsgroup" FAQ
FAQ
Frequently asked questions are listed questions and answers, all supposed to be commonly asked in some context, and pertaining to a particular topic. "FAQ" is usually pronounced as an initialism rather than an acronym, but an acronym form does exist. Since the acronym FAQ originated in textual...
jokes that the name "alt" is an acronym for "anarchists, lunatics, and terrorists", though this is actually just a humorous backcronym.
During the mid-1990s, when Usenet traffic grew significantly, particularly in academia, the humanities.* 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
Big 8 (Usenet)
The Big 8 are a group of newsgroup hierarchies established after the Great Renaming, a restructuring of Usenet that took place in 1987. These hierarchies are managed by the Big 8 Management Board...
".