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From: spaf@cs.purdue.EDU (Gene Spafford)
Newsgroups: news.lists,news.groups,news.announce.newusers
Subject: Alternative Newsgroup Hierarchies (Updated: 19 May 1988)
Message-ID: <4247@medusa.cs.purdue.edu>
Date: 1 Jun 88 06:29:03 GMT
Expires: 22 Jun 88 06:29:02 GMT
Organization: Dept. of Computer Sciences, Purdue Univ.
Lines: 217
Approved: spaf@cs.purdue.EDU
Supersedes: <4120@medusa.cs.purdue.edu>

Original-from: hoptoad!gnu (John Gilmore) and spaf@purdue.edu (Gene Spafford)
[Most recent change: 19 May 1988 by spaf@cs.purdue.edu (Gene Spafford)]

Introduction
------------
The Usenet software allows the support and transport of hierarchies of
newsgroups not part of the "traditional" Usenet through use of the
distribution mechanism. These hierarchies of groups are available to
sites wishing to support them and finding a feed.  In general, these
groups are not carried by the entire network due to their volume, a
restricted sphere of interest, or a different set of administrative
rules and concerns.

In general it is a bad idea to forward these newsgroups to your
neighbors without asking them first; they should only be received at a
site by choice.  Not only is this generally-accepted net etiquette, it
helps to preserve the freedom to do and say as the posters please in
these newsgroups, since the only people who get them are those who
asked to get them.  This freedom is more restricted in the Usenet as a
whole, since every mainstream posting and every mainstream newsgroup
name must be acceptable to a much wider audience than is present in
these hierarchies.   Due to the sheer size of the mainstream Usenet,
extra-long or controversial postings are more likely to cause problems
when posted to the Usenet; however, these alternative hierarchies exist
precisely to support those kinds of postings (if germane to the
hierarchy).

Usually, there is is no restriction on getting these groups as long
as you have the capacity to receive, store, and forward the groups;
2.10.3 or 2.11 news is required to make the distribution mechanism
work properly for these groups.  How to join each distribution is
described below.

Note that the "uunet" service carries all of these hierarchies.  Contact
uunet!postmaster for subscription details.

Alt
---
"alt" is a small collection of newsgroups which are being distributed
by a collection of sites that choose to carry them.  Many Usenet sites
are not interested in these groups, often including the backbone,
although some backbone sites do carry them.  Here is a recent list
of the 'alt" newsgroups:

alt.aquaria		The aquarium & related as a hobby.
alt.config		Alternative subnet discussions and connectivity.
alt.cyberpunk		Alternative interactions among computers and people.
alt.drugs		Alternative discussions about drugs, man.
alt.flame		Alternative, literate, pithy, succinct screaming.
alt.gourmand		Recipes & cooking info. (Moderated)
alt.hypertext		Discussion of hypertext -- uses, transport, etc.
alt.individualism	??
alt.rock-n-roll		Counterpart to alt.sex and alt.drugs....
alt.sca			Society for Creative Anachronism
alt.sex			Postings of a prurient nature.
alt.sources		Alternative source code, unmoderated.
alt.test		Alternative subnetwork testing.

Submissions to the moderated alt.gourmand group should be mailed to
recipes@decwrl.dec.com (Brian Reid).

You can join the "alt subnet" by finding a site in your area that
carries the groups.  Either send mail to the administrators of the
sites you connect to, or post something to a local "general" or
"wanted" newsgroup for your area .  If no sites nearby are getting
them, you can get them from uunet.

Bionet
------
There is a newsgroup heirarchy for molecular biology called "bionet"
originating from BIONET-20.ARPA and carried on a limited number of
machines including rutgers, phri, mit-eddie, ukma, and all of the
machines at UCSD.  Contact Rob Liebschutz  for
more details.  The current newsgroup list looks like this:

bionet.general			General BIONET announcements.
bionet.jobs			Scientific Job opportunities.
bionet.molbio.bio-matrix	Computer applications to biological databases.
bionet.molbio.embldatabank	Info about the EMBL Nucleic acid database.
bionet.molbio.evolution		How genes and proteins have evolved. 
bionet.molbio.genbank		Info about the GenBank Nucleic acid database.
bionet.molbio.gene-express	How genes are regulated in cells.
bionet.molbio.gene-org		How genes are organized on chromosomes. 
bionet.molbio.methds-reagnts	Requests for information and lab reagents.
bionet.molbio.news		Research news of interest to the community.
bionet.molbio.oncogenes		Genes that cause cancer.
bionet.molbio.plant		Molecular biology of plants.
bionet.molbio.proteins		Research on proteins and protein databases.
bionet.molbio.seqnet		Redistribution of European SEQNET bboard.
bionet.molbio.yeast		Molecular biology of yeast.
bionet.politics			Political issues relevant to science.
bionet.software.contrib		Info on programs contributed to BIONET.
bionet.software.pc		Info on PC software for scientists.
bionet.software.pc.comm		Info on PC communications software.

Biz
---
"Biz" is a distribution of newsgroups that are carried and propagated
by sites interested in the world of business products around them -- in
particular, computer products and services.  This includes product
announcements, announcements of fixes and enhancements, product
reviews, and postings of demo software.  Current biz groups include:
	biz.config	biz.control		biz.newgroup
	biz.test	biz.comp.hardware	biz.comp.software
	biz.comp.software.demos			biz.comp.services
	biz.comp.telebit			biz.comp.mcs
Feeds can be obtained from ddsw1 and spl1, among others.

GNU
---
"gnu.all" is a set of newsgroups that are gated bi-directionally
with the Internet mailing lists concerned with the GNU Project of the
Free Software Foundation.  GNU (GNU's Not Unix) will be a complete
development of an operating system with freely redistributable source
code.  The GNU Project is led by Richard Stallman.

Current groups include:

Newsgroup	Description
---------	-----------
gnu.announce	Status and announcements from the Project (moderated)
gnu.config	GNU's Not Usenet administration and configuration
gnu.test	GNU's Not Usenet alternative sub-network testing
gnu.emacs	Editor/development environment and occasional sources
gnu.emacs.bug	GNU Emacs bug reports and suggested fixes
gnu.emacs.vms	Discussion of the VMS port of GNU Emacs
gnu.emacs.lisp.manual	Working group on the GNU Emacs LISP Programmer's Manual
gnu.gdb.bug	GNU DeBugger bug reports and suggested fixes
gnu.gcc		Discussion of the GNU C Compiler
gnu.gcc.bug	GNU C Compiler bug reports and suggested fixes
gnu.g++		Discussion of the GNU C++ Compiler and GDB+ Debugger
gnu.g++.bug	G++ and GDB+ bug reports and suggested fixes
gnu.chess	Discussion of the GNU Chess program

Usenet sites carrying the gnu.all newsgroups include
bloom-beacon.mit.edu, bu-cs.bu.edu, decwrl.dec.com, im4u.cs.utexas.edu,
mailrus.cc.umich.edu, mandrill.ces.cwru.edu, osu-cis, cs.purdue.edu,
rutgers.edu, tut.cis.ohio-state.edu, uccba.uc.edu, and uunet.uu.net, as
well as many more.  Ask usenet@any of these sites for a feed.

Questions about GNU can be directed to gnu@prep.ai.mit.edu or:
   Free Software Foundation, Inc.
   675 Mass Ave
   Cambridge, MA 02139
   USA
   +1 (617) 876-3296

Inet/DDN
--------
Another alternative hierarchy is the "inet/ddn" distribution.  This
consists of many newsgroups bearing names similar to traditional Usenet
groups and corresponding to Arpa discussion lists.  These groups are
circulated using the NNTP transport mechanism amongst sites on the
Internet in an attempt to reduce the number of copies of these groups
flowing through the mail (some sites get these groups via UUCP and
other tranpost mechanisms, but the volume can be substantial and load
may be significant without a high-speed link).  Further details may be
obtained by writing to Erik Fair (fair@ucbarpa.berkeley.edu).

Pubnet
------
The "pubnet" distribution is for public-access systems and was originated
by Bill Wisner.  Current groups include:
	pubnet.sources		pubnet.unix
	pubnet.config		pubnet.wanted
	pubnet.talk		pubnet.sysops
Currently, the following sites receive the group, and the system admins
there can be contacted for more info or to establish a feed:  chinet,
dasys1, ddsw1, gryphon, icus, igloo, killer, ncoast, netsys, qetzal,
mit-eddie and tapa.

Unix-PC
-------
Another such hierarchy is the "unix-pc" distribution.  This consists of
groups devoted to users of the AT&T Unix-PC.  These groups were
originated as a mailing list started by three owners of AT&T Unix PCs:
Gary Smith, David Dalton and Kathy Vincent.  As the list expanded, it
turned into a newsgroup hierarchy, and more and more sites began to
carry the groups; hundreds of sites now carry these groups.  To recieve
them, you need to contact a site already getting them; att, gatech,
mit-eddie, psuvax1, ucsd and ukma are well-known sites getting these
groups and the admins there may be willing to help find a feed should
you desire (and ask nicely); uunet also carries these groups. The
unix-pc groups circulated include:

unix-pc.general 	General information and discussion.
unix-pc.sources 	Source code to various programs.
unix-pc.uucp 		Configuration and management of uucp on Unix-PCs.
unix-pc.test 		Test group.

usrgroup
--------
The usrgroup hierarchy is sponsored by /usr/group and consists of groups
devoted to discussion of topics relating to POSIX/Unix.  uunet carries
these groups, as do rutgers, mit-eddie and ukma.

usrgroup.distfile       Distributed File System extensions.
usrgroup.graphics       Graphics/windows extensions.
usrgroup.internat       Internationalization extensions.
usrgroup.netinter       Network Interface extensions.
usrgroup.perfmeas       Performance Measurements.
usrgroup.realtime       Realtime extensions.
usrgroup.security       Security extensions.
usrgroup.supercom       Supercomputing extensions.
usrgroup.technical      General /usr/group Technical Committee discussions.

Further info on the efforts of /usr/group can be obtained from:
	     /usr/group
	     4655 Old Ironsides Drive, Suite 200
	     Santa Clara, CA  95054
	     408-986-8840

-- 
Gene Spafford
NSF/Purdue/U of Florida  Software Engineering Research Center,
Dept. of Computer Sciences, Purdue University, W. Lafayette IN 47907-2004
Internet:  spaf@cs.purdue.edu	uucp:	...!{decwrl,gatech,ucbvax}!purdue!spaf