|
The alt.* hierarchy is a major class of newsgroups in Usenet, containing all newsgroups whose name begins with "alt.", organized hierarchically. The alt.* hierarchy is not confined to newsgroups of any specific subject or type, although in practice more formally organised groups tend not to occur in alt. A newsgroup is a repository, usually within the Usenet system, for messages posted from many users at different locations. ...
Usenet is a distributed Internet discussion system that evolved from a general purpose UUCP network of the same name. ...
Unlike most of the other hierarchies, there is no centralised control of the hierarchy and anyone who is technically capable of creating a newsgroup can do so. In practise, however, most newsgroups follow an informal procedure involving a public discussion in alt.config before being created. This procedure is designed to help the potential creator better understand what factors contribute to a newsgroup's success. alt. ...
It is up to each individual news administrator whether to add a new newsgroup, and some will not do so if the group has not been discussed in alt.config. As a result groups that do not follow this procedure are usually not well-propagated. News group removal in theory occurs in much the same way as newsgroup creation, however as a matter of practice most news administrators do not remove newsgroups. alt. ...
Origin
The birth of the alt.* hierarchy is tied to a drastic transformation of the Usenet, the Great Renaming of 1987. The "backbone carriers", or the backbone cabal as they have been referred to by some users of the Usenet, were vital hubs in the distribution chain of most of the newsgroup postings. Their effort to change the way newsgroups are organized led to objections from some vocal Usenet users. The Great Renaming was a restructuring of Usenet newsgroups that took place in 1987. ...
1987 is a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
The backbone cabal was a group (or cabal) of large-site administrators who pushed through the Great Renaming and reined in the chaos of Usenet during most of the 1980s. ...
Usenet is a distributed Internet discussion system that evolved from a general purpose UUCP network of the same name. ...
In particular, the creation of the talk.* hierarchy for discussions of controversial or sensitive issues by the renaming did not go well. The alt.* hierarchy was suggested as an alternative to talk.* by Brian Reid. It would be a network without the backbones, thereby free from backbones' influences on creating or not creating a new newsgroup. Some suggest that Brian Reid was also interested in starting a recipe group outside the major hierarchies. The first newsgroup on alt hierarchy was his alt.gourmand. A wide variety of systems of interconnected components are called networks. ...
A recipe is a set of instructions that show how to prepare or make something, especially a culinary dish. ...
The name alt was said to refer humorously to "anarchists, lunatics, and terrorists", but is understood by most people today as an abbreviation of "alternative". This article discusses humour in terms of comedy and laughter. ...
Anarchists can refer to one of two things: The movie Anarchists Supporters of the principles of anarchism A List_of_anarchists This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ...
A lunatic (colloquially: loony) is a pejorative term for a person who is mentally ill, dangerous, foolish or unpredictable. ...
Terrorism refers to the use of violence for the purpose of achieving a political, religious, or ideological goal. ...
Alternative culture is a catch-all phrase used to describe a variety of separate loosely related or completely unrelated cultures and sub-cultures that are outside of the mainstream culture or are perceived as being such. ...
Subjects and structure Alt has since become home for a wide variety of things that did not fit elsewhere. In particular, there are many alt.fan newsgroups, mostly devoted to discussions of the work and life of famous people: writers, musicians, actors and athletes have alt.fan groups. This sub-hierarchy has also been used for self-promotion by otherwise unknown people. During the notorious trial of Karla Homolka, alt.fan.karla-homolka was created to get around the Canadian news blackout on the case. Though anyone who creates a written work may be called a writer, the term is usually reserved for those who write creatively or professionally, or those who have written in many different forms. ...
A musician is a person who plays or composes music. ...
Actors in period costume sharing a joke whilst waiting between takes during location filming. ...
Athletics, also known as track and field or track and field athletics, is a collection of sport events. ...
A trial is, in the most general sense, a test, usually a test to see whether something does or does not meet a given standard. ...
Karla Homolka Karla Leanne Homolka, also known as Karla Leanne Teale, born May 4, 1970 in Port Credit, Ontario, Canada, was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 12 years in prison for her role in abetting her husband, serial killer, sex offender, kidnapper, and rapist Paul Bernardo. ...
Two major sections of the alt.* hierarchy, the alt.sex.* and alt.binaries.* hierarchies, have been found to fit better in the alt.* hierarchy than the Big Seven. Because of the inevitably lurid and sometimes offensive subjects that it would cover, newsgroup administrators objected to the inclusion of one or more newsgroups covering sexual topics in the Big Seven (including the existing rec.arts.erotica), fearing that they may prevent the major news hierarchies from being widely distributed. News administrators are free to add any or all of the alt.sex.* newsgroups without having to worry about conflicting with the Big Seven. Likewise, any and all of the alt.binaries.* newsgroups can be accepted or rejected by administrators if they choose. Binaries are often of extremely large size, which is why administrators may choose to exclude them. The Great Renaming was a restructuring of Usenet newsgroups that took place in 1987. ...
Look up Sex in Wiktionary, the free dictionary The members of many species of living things are divided into two or more categories called sexes (or loosely speaking, genders). ...
Computer files can be divided into two broad categories: binary and text. ...
Several extensions of the alt.* hierarchy have become quite successful on their own. A number of newsgroups have taken advantage of the freedom of the alt.* hierarchy to create a number of newsgroups that specialize on certain topics, as opposed to the broader "generic" discussions of the Big Seven hierarchy. For instance, the rec.* hierarchy may be home to the movie discussion newsgroups rec.arts.movies.current-films, rec.arts.movies.past-films, and rec.arts.movies.reviews; but the alt.movies.* hierarchy contains more focused discussion groups including alt.movies.silent, alt.movies.hitchcock, alt.movies.kubrick, and alt.movies.visual-effects. Film refers to the celluloid media on which movies are printed Film is a term that encompasses motion pictures as individual projects, as well as the field in general. ...
The language of preference in the "original" usenet hierarchies, including alt.*, is English. Other language hierarchies have later been created in parallel to the existing English ones, for example de.* for German, fr.* for French, etc. Some access providers also created their own versions, prefixing the newsgroups names with their own name in a similar way. Messages posted in these "private" groups are generally not passed to other providers or the internet in general. The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ...
See also As of October of 2002, there are around 100,000 Usenet newsgroups, of which approximately a fifth are active. ...
The Great Renaming was a restructuring of Usenet newsgroups that took place in 1987. ...
The backbone cabal was a group (or cabal) of large-site administrators who pushed through the Great Renaming and reined in the chaos of Usenet during most of the 1980s. ...
There Is No Cabal is a phrase used on Usenet. ...
External links |
Feeds |
Contact