Big 8 (Usenet)

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". == 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==