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The Newsgroups line specifies which newsgroup or newsgroups the article belongs in. Newsgroups specified must all be the names of existing newsgroups, as no new newsgroups will be created by simply posting to them. – Mark Horton; Standard For Interchange of USENET Messages; RFC 850; June 1983. |
There are nine main top-level Usenet hierarchies, and many secondary ones. As described in how Usenet was invented, the newsgroup hierarchies in place today developed over a span of several years, with the standard categories consisting of alt and the Usenet 8 as listed below:
- alt– alternative, popular topics
- comp– computer science subjects
- humanities– humanities subjects
- misc– miscellaneous groups
- news– news topics
- rec– recreational subjects
- sci– science topics
- soc– sociological subjects
- talk– controversial topics
There are thousands of other top-level hierarchies in use across the Usenet, and thousands of lower level hierarchies. Top-level hierarchies with more than 100 newsgroups in a 1999 measurement are listed below, with the nine main hierarchies highlighted in bold.
|
Hierarchy |
Newsgroup Count |
Hierarchy |
Newsgroup Count |
|
alt |
9234 |
fr |
210 |
|
fido7 |
1618 |
gov |
208 |
|
comp |
1151 |
relcom |
194 |
|
rec |
865 |
fido |
193 |
|
clari |
783 |
misc |
187 |
|
microsoft |
730 |
git |
182 |
|
uw |
463 |
umn |
180 |
|
z-netz |
443 |
aus |
170 |
|
bit |
392 |
net |
163 |
|
fj |
388 |
uiuc |
162 |
|
de |
375 |
pl |
151 |
|
cl |
343 |
utexas |
140 |
|
tw |
342 |
no |
139 |
|
japan |
328 |
han |
134 |
|
su |
317 |
es |
127 |
|
ucb |
306 |
humanities |
124 |
|
soc |
297 |
pdaxs |
122 |
|
it |
292 |
bionet |
121 |
|
uk |
258 |
can |
114 |
|
sfnet |
234 |
slac |
102 |
|
sci |
229 |
us |
101 |
|
tnn |
223 |
news |
47 |
|
finet |
211 |
talk |
39 |
The largest second-level categories, also identified in a 1999 measurement, are listed below.
|
Hierarchy |
Newsgroup Count |
|
alt.fan.* |
1101 |
|
alt.binaries.* |
921 |
|
alt.music.* |
533 |
|
alt.business.* |
473 |
|
alt.sex.* |
400 |
|
bit.listserv.* |
360 |
|
tw.bbs.* |
310 |
|
alt.tv.* |
308 |
|
comp.sys.* |
269 |
|
alt.games.* |
226 |
|
alt.sports.* |
226 |
|
soc.culture.* |
169 |
|
alt.support.* |
162 |
|
comp.os.* |
153 |
|
rec.arts.* |
138 |
|
alt.religion.* |
131 |
|
rec.games.* |
124 |
|
alt.familynames.* |
116 |
|
rec.music.* |
112 |
|
alt.flame.* |
108 |
|
comp.lang.* |
108 |
|
alt.culture.* |
105 |
|
alt.politics.* |
89 |
|
rec.sport.* |
71 |
|
comp.unix.* |
61 |
|
alt.christnet.* |
43 |
|
alt.food.* |
33 |
|
alt.currentevents.* |
32 |
|
comp.infosystems.* |
32 |
|
sci.med.* |
32 |
|
soc.genealogy.* |
30 |
There are also many local Usenet categories used for geographic localities. Sometimes local hierarchies are carried and distributed only among geographically local news servers. A few example local newsgroup hierarchies are listed below. You can search your own newsgroup list for hierarchies named after your town or region.
|
Hierarchy |
Region |
|
ca.* |
California |
|
chi.* |
Chicago, Illinois |
|
ne.* |
US New England |
|
ott.* |
Ottawa, Canada |
|
pnw.* |
US Pacific Northwest |
|
seattle.* |
Seattle, Washington |
|
su.* |
Stanford University |
Resources. The following Internet sites provide more information about newsgroup hierarchies: