View source for Usenet

{{Short description|Worldwide computer-based distributed discussion system}}
{{Pp-move|small=yes}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=February 2012}}
[[File:Slrn.png|thumb|upright=1.3|A 2004 discussion in the Usenet group ''comp.text.tex'']]
[[File:Usenet servers and clients.svg|thumb|A diagram of Usenet servers and clients. The coloured dots on the servers represent the newsgroups they carry. Coloured arrows between servers indicate newsgroup content exchanges (news feeds). Arrows between clients and servers indicate that a user is subscribed to a certain newsgroup and reads or submits articles there.<br><br>Notably, clients never connect with each other, but still have access to each other's posts even when they also never connect to the same server.]]
{{Internet history timeline}}

'''Usenet''' ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|j|uː|z|n|ɛ|t}}),<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |last1=Hosch |first1=William L. |last2=Gregersen |first2=Erik |date=2021-05-17 |title=USENET |url=https://www.britannica.com/technology/USENET |access-date=2023-05-02 |publisher=[[Encyclopædia Britannica]] |language=en |archive-date=March 25, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230325033626/https://www.britannica.com/technology/USENET |url-status=live }}</ref> a portmanteau of '''User's Network''',<ref name=":0" /> is a worldwide distributed discussion system available on computers. It was developed from the general-purpose [[UUCP|Unix-to-Unix Copy]] (UUCP) [[dial-up]] network architecture. [[Tom Truscott]] and [[Jim Ellis (computing)|Jim Ellis]] conceived the idea in 1979, and it was established in 1980.<ref name="Lueg">''From Usenet to CoWebs: interacting with social information spaces'', Christopher Lueg, Danyel Fisher, Springer (2003), {{ISBN|1-85233-532-7}}, {{ISBN|978-1-85233-532-8}}</ref> Users read and post messages (called ''articles'' or ''posts'', and collectively termed ''news'') to one or more topic categories, known as [[Usenet newsgroup|newsgroups]]. Usenet resembles a [[bulletin board system]] (BBS) in many respects and is the precursor to the [[Internet forum]]s that have become widely used. Discussions are [[Threaded discussion|threaded]], as with web forums and BBSes, though posts are stored on the server sequentially.<ref name="jargon">[http://jargon-file.org/archive/jargon-4.4.7.dos.txt The jargon file v4.4.7] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160105200447/http://jargon-file.org/archive/jargon-4.4.7.dos.txt |date=January 5, 2016 }}, Jargon File Archive.</ref><ref>[http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/book/ch106.x03 Chapter 3 - The Social Forces Behind The Development of Usenet] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160804110914/http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/book/ch106.x03 |date=August 4, 2016 }}, Netizens Netbook by Ronda Hauben and Michael Hauben.</ref>

A major difference between a BBS or web message board and Usenet is the absence of a central server and dedicated administrator or hosting provider. Usenet is distributed among a large, constantly changing set of [[news server]]s that [[store and forward]] messages to one another via "news&nbsp;feeds". Individual users may read messages from and post to a local (or simply preferred) news server, which can be operated by anyone, and those posts will automatically be forwarded to any other news servers [[Peering|peered]] with the local one, while the local server will receive any news its peers have that it currently lacks. This results in the automatic proliferation of content posted by any user on any server to any other user subscribed to the same newsgroups on other servers.

As with BBSes and message boards, individual news servers or service providers are under no obligation to carry any specific content, and may refuse to do so for many reasons: a news server might attempt to control the spread of spam by refusing to accept or forward any posts that trigger [[Email filtering|spam filters]], or a server without high-capacity data storage may refuse to carry any newsgroups used primarily for [[file sharing]], limiting itself to discussion-oriented groups. However, unlike BBSes and web forums, the dispersed nature of Usenet usually permits users who are interested in receiving some content to access it simply by choosing to connect to news servers that carry the feeds they want.

Usenet is culturally and historically significant in the networked world, having given rise to, or popularized, many widely recognized concepts and terms such as "[[FAQ]]", "[[flaming (Internet)|flame]]", "[[sock puppet account|sockpuppet]]", and "[[spam (electronic)|spam]]".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.newsdemon.com/usenet_term_spam.php| title=USENET Newsgroup Terms – SPAM |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120915/http://www.newsdemon.com/usenet_term_spam.php |archive-date=2012-09-15 |url-status=live}}</ref>  In the early 1990s, shortly before access to the [[Internet]] became commonly affordable, Usenet connections via [[FidoNet]]'s dial-up [[Bulletin board system|BBS]] networks made long-distance or worldwide discussions and other communication widespread.<ref>Pre-Internet; Usenet needing "just '''local''' telephone service" in most larger towns, depends on the number of local dial-up FidoNet "nodes" operated free of charge by hobbyist "SysOps" (as FidoNet echomail variations or via gateways with the Usenet news hierarchy. This is virtual Usenet or newsgroups access, not true Usenet.) The participating SysOps typically carry 6–30 Usenet newsgroups each, and will often add another on request. If a desired newsgroup was not available locally, a user would need to dial to another city to download the desired news and upload one's own posts.  In all cases it is desirable to hang up as soon as possible and read/write offline, making "newsreader" software commonly used to automate the process. [http://www.bbscorner.com/bbsnetworks/fidonet.htm Fidonet, bbscorner.com ] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220207224755/http://www.bbscorner.com/bbsnetworks/fidonet.htm |date=February 7, 2022 }} <BR/> [https://www.fidonet.org/inet92_Randy_Bush.txt fidonet.org, Randy_Bush.txt] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20031203124343/http://www.fidonet.org/inet92_Randy_Bush.txt |date=December 3, 2003 }}</ref>
{{File sharing sidebar}}

The name ''Usenet'' comes from the term "users' network".<ref name="jargon" /> The first Usenet group was ''NET.general'', which quickly became ''net.general''.<ref name="duke_today">{{cite web |title=Duke to shut Usenet server, home to the first electronic newsgroups |url=https://today.duke.edu/2010/05/usenet.html |first=Cara |last=Bonnett |publisher=[[Duke University]] |date=May 17, 2010 |access-date=June 3, 2020 |archive-date=June 3, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200603085925/https://today.duke.edu/2010/05/usenet.html |url-status=live }}</ref> The first commercial spam on Usenet was from immigration attorneys [[Laurence Canter and Martha Siegel|Canter and Siegel]] advertising green card services.<ref name="duke_today" />

On the Internet, Usenet is transported via the [[Network News Transfer Protocol]] (NNTP) on [[Transmission Control Protocol]] (TCP) [[Computer port (software)|port]] 119 for standard, unprotected connections, and on TCP port 563 for [[Secure Sockets Layer]] (SSL) encrypted connections.

==Introduction==
Usenet was conceived in 1979 and publicly established in 1980, at the [[University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill]] and [[Duke University]],{{r|emerson198310}}<ref name="Lueg" /> over a decade before the [[World Wide Web]] went online (and thus before the general public received access to the [[Internet]]), making it one of the oldest [[computer network]] communications systems still in widespread use. It was originally built on the "poor man's [[ARPANET]]", employing UUCP as its transport protocol to offer mail and file transfers, as well as announcements through the newly developed [[Newsreader (Usenet)|news software]] such as [[A News]]. The name "Usenet" emphasizes its creators' hope that the [[USENIX]] organization would take an active role in its operation.<ref>[http://www.newsdemon.com/first-official-announcement-usenet.php "Invitation to a General Access UNIX Network] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120924152631/http://www.newsdemon.com/first-official-announcement-usenet.php |date=September 24, 2012 }}", James Ellis and Tom Truscott, in First Official Announcement of USENET, NewsDemon (K&L Technologies, Inc), 1979</ref>

The articles that users post to Usenet are organized into topical categories known as [[Usenet newsgroup|newsgroups]], which are themselves logically organized into hierarchies of subjects. For instance, ''[news:sci.math sci.math]'' and ''[news:sci.physics sci.physics]'' are within the ''sci.*'' hierarchy. Or, ''[news:talk.origins talk.origins]'' and ''[news:talk.atheism talk.atheism]'' are in the ''talk.*'' hierarchy. When a user subscribes to a newsgroup, the [[news client]] software keeps track of which articles that user has read.<ref>Lehnert, Wendy G.; Kopec, Richard (2007). ''Web 101.'' Addison Wesley. p. 291. {{ISBN|9780321424679}}</ref>

In most newsgroups, the majority of the articles are responses to some other article. The set of articles that can be traced to one single non-reply article is called a [[Threaded discussion|thread]]. Most modern newsreaders display the articles arranged into threads and subthreads. For example, in the wine-making newsgroup ''rec.crafts.winemaking,'' someone might start a thread called; "What's the best yeast?" and that thread or conversation might grow into dozens of replies long, by perhaps six or eight different authors. Over several days, that conversation about different wine yeasts might branch into several sub-threads in a tree-like form.

When a user posts an article, it is initially only available on that user's news server. Each news server talks to one or more other servers (its "newsfeeds") and [[#Technical details|exchanges]] articles with them. In this fashion, the article is copied from [[inter-server|server to server]] and should eventually reach every server in the network. The later [[peer-to-peer]] networks operate on a similar principle, but for Usenet it is normally the sender, rather than the receiver, who initiates transfers. Usenet was designed under conditions when networks were much slower and not always available. Many sites on the original Usenet network would connect only once or twice a day to batch-transfer messages in and out.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dga/15-849/store_and_forward.html |title=Store And Forward Communication: UUCP and FidoNet |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120630/http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dga/15-849/store_and_forward.html |archive-date=2012-06-30 |url-status=live}}. Carnegie Mellon School of Computer Science.</ref> This is largely because the [[Plain old telephone service|POTS]] network was typically used for transfers, and phone charges were lower at night.

The format and transmission of Usenet articles is similar to that of Internet [[e-mail]] messages. The difference between the two is that Usenet articles can be read by any user whose news server carries the group to which the message was posted, as opposed to email messages, which have one or more specific recipients.<ref>Kozierok, Charles M. (2005). ''The TCP/IP guide: a comprehensive, illustrated Internet protocols reference.'' No Starch Press. p. 1401. {{ISBN|978-159327-047-6}}</ref>

Today, Usenet has diminished in importance with respect to [[Internet forum]]s, [[blog]]s, [[mailing list]]s and [[social media]]. Usenet differs from such media in several ways: Usenet requires no personal registration with the group concerned; information need not be stored on a remote server; archives are always available; and reading the messages does not require a mail or web client, but a news client. However, it is now possible to read and participate in Usenet newsgroups to a large degree using ordinary [[web browser]]s since most newsgroups are now copied to several web sites.<ref>One way to virtually read and participate in Usenet newsgroups using an ordinary Internet browser is to do an internet search on a known newsgroup, such as the high volume forum: "sci.physics".  Retrieved April 28, 2019</ref>  The groups in ''{{Not a typo|[[alt.binaries]]}}'' are still widely used for data transfer.

==ISPs, news servers, and newsfeeds==
[[File:Usenet-Providers-and-Backbones-Version-2025-01-30.png|alt=Usenet Provider Map|thumb|Usenet Provider Map]]
Many Internet service providers, and many other Internet sites, operate [[news server]]s for their users to access. ISPs that do not operate their own servers directly will often offer their users an account from another provider that specifically operates newsfeeds. In early news implementations, the server and newsreader were a single program suite, running on the same system. Today, one uses separate newsreader client software, a program that resembles an email client but accesses Usenet servers instead.<ref>{{cite news |title=Best Usenet clients |url=https://usenetreviewz.com/best-usenet-clients/ |publisher=UsenetReviewz |access-date=August 13, 2020 |archive-date=August 8, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200808173100/https://usenetreviewz.com/best-usenet-clients/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

Not all ISPs run news servers. A news server is one of the most difficult Internet services to administer because of the large amount of data involved, small customer base (compared to mainstream Internet service), and a disproportionately high volume of customer support incidents (frequently complaining of missing news articles). Some ISPs outsource news operations to specialist sites, which will usually appear to a user as though the ISP itself runs the server. Many of these sites carry a restricted newsfeed, with a limited number of newsgroups. Commonly omitted from such a newsfeed are foreign-language newsgroups and the ''{{Not a typo|[[Alt.* hierarchy|alt.binaries]]}}'' hierarchy which largely carries software, music, videos and images, and accounts for over 99 percent of article data.{{citation needed|date=May 2024}}

There are also Usenet providers that offer a full unrestricted service to users whose ISPs do not carry news, or that carry a restricted feed.{{citation needed|date=May 2024}}

===Newsreaders===
Newsgroups are typically accessed with [[Newsreader (Usenet)|newsreaders]]: applications that allow users to read and reply to postings in newsgroups. These applications act as [[Client (computing)|clients]] to one or more news servers. Historically, Usenet was associated with the [[Unix]] operating system developed at [[AT&T Corporation|AT&T]], but newsreaders were soon available for all major operating systems.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.dmoz.org/Computers/Software/Internet/Clients/Usenet/ |title=Open Directory Usenet Clients |publisher=Dmoz.org |date=October 9, 2008 |access-date=December 14, 2010 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120730/http://www.dmoz.org/Computers/Software/Internet/Clients/Usenet/ |archive-date=2012-07-30 |url-status=live}}</ref> Email client programs and [[Internet suites]] of the late 1990s and 2000s often included an integrated newsreader. Newsgroup enthusiasts often criticized these as inferior to standalone newsreaders that made correct use of Usenet protocols, standards and conventions.<ref>{{cite web
| last = Jain
| first = Dominik
| title = OE-QuoteFix Description
| date = July 30, 2006
| url = http://home.in.tum.de/~jain/software/oe-quotefix/
| access-date =June 4, 2007 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120921/http://home.in.tum.de/~jain/software/oe-quotefix/ |archive-date=2012-09-21 |url-status=live}}</ref>

With the rise of the World Wide Web (WWW), web front-ends (web2news) have become more common. Web front ends have lowered the technical entry barrier requirements to that of one application and no Usenet NNTP server account. There are numerous websites now offering web based gateways to Usenet groups, although some people have begun filtering messages made by some of the web interfaces for one reason or another.<ref>{{cite web| title = Improve-Usenet| date = October 13, 2008| url = http://improve-usenet.org |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120713/http://improve-usenet.org |archive-date=2012-07-13 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web| title = Improve-Usenet Comments| date = October 13, 2008| url = http://improve-usenet.org/voices1.html | access-date =June 29, 2009 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20080426174022/http://improve-usenet.org/voices1.html |archive-date = April 26, 2008}}</ref> [[Google Groups]]<ref>{{cite web|url=http://groups.google.com/ |title=Google Groups |access-date=December 14, 2010 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120525/http://groups.google.com/ |archive-date=2012-05-25 |url-status=live}}</ref> is one such web based front end and some [[web browser]]s can access Google Groups via news: protocol links directly.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://mykzilla.blogspot.com/2008/11/news-links-to-google-groups.html| title=News: links to Google Groups |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120712/http://mykzilla.blogspot.com/2008/11/news-links-to-google-groups.html |archive-date=2012-07-12 |url-status=live}}</ref>

===Moderated and unmoderated newsgroups===
A minority of newsgroups are moderated, meaning that messages submitted by readers are not distributed directly to Usenet, but instead are emailed to the moderators of the newsgroup for approval. The moderator is to receive submitted articles, review them, and inject approved articles so that they can be properly propagated worldwide. Articles approved by a moderator must bear the Approved: header line. Moderators ensure that the messages that readers see in the newsgroup conform to the charter of the newsgroup, though they are not required to follow any such rules or guidelines.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.big-8.org/wiki/Moderated_Newsgroups#Who_can_force_the_moderators_to_obey_the_group_charter.3F |title=Who can force the moderators to obey the group charter? |publisher=Big-8.org |access-date=December 14, 2010 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120804/http://www.big-8.org/wiki/Moderated_Newsgroups%23Who_can_force_the_moderators_to_obey_the_group_charter.3F |archive-date=August 4, 2012 |url-status=dead |df=mdy-all }}</ref> Typically, moderators are appointed in the proposal for the newsgroup, and changes of moderators follow a succession plan.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.big-8.org/wiki/Moderated_Newsgroups#How_does_a_group_change_moderators.3F |title=How does a group change moderators? |publisher=Big-8.org |access-date=December 14, 2010 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120719/http://www.big-8.org/wiki/Moderated_Newsgroups%23How_does_a_group_change_moderators.3F |archive-date=July 19, 2012 |url-status=dead |df=mdy-all }}</ref>

Historically, a ''mod.*'' hierarchy existed before Usenet reorganization.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.livinginternet.com/u/ui_early.htm |title=Early Usenet Newsgroup Hierarchies |publisher=Livinginternet.com |date=October 25, 1990 |access-date=December 14, 2010 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120921/http://www.livinginternet.com/u/ui_early.htm |archive-date=2012-09-21 |url-status=live}}</ref> Now, moderated newsgroups may appear in any hierarchy, typically with <code>.moderated</code> added to the group name.

Usenet newsgroups in the [[Big 8 (Usenet)|Big-8 hierarchy]] are created by proposals called a Request for Discussion, or RFD. The RFD is required to have the following information: newsgroup name, checkgroups file entry, and moderated or unmoderated status. If the group is to be moderated, then at least one moderator with a valid email address must be provided. Other information which is beneficial but not required includes: a charter, a rationale, and a moderation policy if the group is to be moderated.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.big-8.org/wiki/How_to_Create_a_New_Big-8_Newsgroup |title=How to Create a New Big-8 Newsgroup |publisher=Big-8.org |date=July 7, 2010 |access-date=December 14, 2010 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120722/http://www.big-8.org/wiki/How_to_Create_a_New_Big-8_Newsgroup |archive-date=July 22, 2012 |url-status=dead |df=mdy-all }}</ref> Discussion of the new newsgroup proposal follows, and is finished with the members of the Big-8 Management Board making the decision, by vote, to either approve or disapprove the new newsgroup.

Unmoderated newsgroups form the majority of Usenet newsgroups, and messages submitted by readers for unmoderated newsgroups are immediately propagated for everyone to see. Minimal editorial content filtering vs propagation speed form one crux of the Usenet community. One little cited defense of propagation is canceling a propagated message, but few Usenet users use this command and some news readers do not offer [[Cancel message#cancel|cancellation commands]], in part because article storage expires in relatively short order anyway. Almost all unmoderated Usenet groups tend to receive large amounts of [[spamming|spam]].<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TxaoAwAAQBAJ&q=usenet%20spam%20prevalence&pg=PA168|title=The Social Machine: Designs for Living Online|quote=Today, Usenet still exists, but it is an unsociable morass of spam, porn, and pirated software|isbn=9780262027014|last1=Donath|first1=Judith|date=2014-05-23|publisher=MIT Press |access-date=November 7, 2020|archive-date=January 17, 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230117211729/https://books.google.com/books?id=TxaoAwAAQBAJ&q=usenet%20spam%20prevalence&pg=PA168|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://kernelmag.dailydot.com/issue-sections/features-issue-sections/12223/markovian-parallax-denigrate-usenet-spam/|title=Unraveling the Internet's oldest and weirdest mystery|work=The Kernel |quote=Groups filled with spam, massive fights took place against spammers and over what to do about the spam. People stopped using their email addresses in messages to avoid harvesting. People left the net.|access-date=May 7, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150518071212/http://kernelmag.dailydot.com/issue-sections/features-issue-sections/12223/markovian-parallax-denigrate-usenet-spam/|archive-date=May 18, 2015|url-status=live|df=mdy-all|date=2015-03-22}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://partners.nytimes.com/library/tech/98/05/circuits/articles/07spam.html|title=The American Way of Spam|quote=...many of the newsgroups have since been overrun with junk messages.|access-date=May 7, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150518095600/http://partners.nytimes.com/library/tech/98/05/circuits/articles/07spam.html|archive-date=May 18, 2015|url-status=live|df=mdy-all}}</ref>

===Technical details===
Usenet is a set of protocols for generating, storing and retrieving news "articles" (which resemble Internet mail messages) and for exchanging them among a readership which is potentially widely distributed. These protocols most commonly use a [[flooding algorithm]] which propagates copies throughout a network of participating servers. Whenever a message reaches a server, that server forwards the message to all its network neighbors that haven't yet seen the article. Only one copy of a message is stored per server, and each server makes it available on demand to the (typically local) readers able to access that server. The collection of Usenet servers has thus a certain [[peer-to-peer]] character in that they share resources by exchanging them, the granularity of exchange however is on a different scale than a modern peer-to-peer system and this characteristic excludes the actual users of the system who connect to the news servers with a typical client-server application, much like an email reader.

RFC 850 was the first formal specification of the messages exchanged by Usenet servers. It was superseded by RFC 1036 and subsequently by RFC 5536 and RFC 5537.

In cases where unsuitable content has been posted, Usenet has support for automated removal of a posting from the whole network by creating a cancel message, although due to a lack of authentication and resultant abuse, this capability is frequently disabled. Copyright holders may still request the manual deletion of infringing material using the provisions of [[World Intellectual Property Organization]] treaty implementations, such as the United States [[Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act]], but this would require giving notice to each individual news server administrator.

On the Internet, Usenet is transported via the [[Network News Transfer Protocol]] (NNTP) on [[Computer port (software)|TCP Port]] 119 for standard, unprotected connections and on TCP port 563 for [[Secure Sockets Layer|SSL]] encrypted connections.

===Organization===
{{See also|Great Renaming}}
{{Main|List of newsgroups|Big 8 (Usenet)}}
[[File:Usenet Big Nine.svg|thumb|right|The "Big Nine" hierarchies of Usenet]]

The major set of worldwide newsgroups is contained within nine hierarchies, eight of which are operated under consensual guidelines that govern their administration and naming. The current ''[[Big 8 (Usenet)|Big Eight]]'' are:
* ''comp.*'' – computer-related discussions (''comp.software'', ''comp.sys.amiga'')
* ''humanities.*'' – [[fine art]]s, [[literature]], and [[philosophy]] (''humanities.classics'', ''humanities.design.misc'')
* ''misc.*'' – miscellaneous topics (''misc.education'', ''misc.forsale'', ''misc.kids'')
* ''news.*'' – discussions and announcements about news (meaning Usenet, not current events) (''news.groups'', ''news.admin'')
* ''rec.*'' – recreation and entertainment (''rec.music'', ''rec.arts.movies'')
* ''sci.*'' – science related discussions (''sci.psychology'', ''sci.research'')
* ''soc.*'' – social discussions (''soc.college.org'', ''soc.culture.{{sic|hide=y|african}}'')
* ''talk.*'' – talk about various controversial topics (''talk.religion'', ''talk.politics'', ''[[talk.origins]]'')

The [[alt.* hierarchy|''alt.*'' hierarchy]] is not subject to the procedures controlling groups in the Big Eight, and it is as a result less organized. Groups in the ''alt.*'' hierarchy tend to be more specialized or specific—for example, there might be a newsgroup under the Big Eight which contains discussions about children's books, but a group in the alt hierarchy may be dedicated to one specific author of children's books. [[Binaries]] are posted in ''{{Not a typo|alt.binaries.*}}'', making it the largest of all the hierarchies.

Many other hierarchies of newsgroups are distributed alongside these. Regional and language-specific hierarchies such as ''{{sic|hide=y|japan}}.*'', ''{{sic|hide=y|malta}}.*'' and ''ne.*'' serve specific countries and regions such as [[Japan]], [[Malta]] and [[New England]]. Companies and projects administer their own hierarchies to discuss their products and offer community technical support, such as the historical ''{{sic|hide=y|gnu}}.*'' hierarchy from the [[Free Software Foundation]]. [[Microsoft]] closed its newsserver in June 2010, providing support for its products over forums now.<ref>[http://www.microsoft.com/communities/newsgroups/default.mspx Microsoft Responds to the Evolution of Communities] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120918084608/http://www.microsoft.com/communities/newsgroups/default.mspx |date=September 18, 2012 }}, Announcement, undated. {{cite web |url=http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-20004109-56.html |title=Microsoft hitting 'unsubscribe' on newsgroups |work=CNET |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120712/http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-20004109-56.html |archive-date=2012-07-12 |url-status=live }}, CNET, May 4, 2010.</ref> Some users prefer to use the term "Usenet" to refer only to the Big Eight hierarchies; others include ''alt.*'' as well. The more general term "netnews" incorporates the entire medium, including private organizational news systems.

Informal sub-hierarchy conventions also exist. ''*.answers'' are typically moderated cross-post groups for FAQs. An FAQ would be posted within one group and a cross post to the ''*.answers'' group at the head of the hierarchy seen by some as a refining of information in that news group. Some subgroups are recursive—to the point of some silliness in ''alt.*''{{Citation needed|date=November 2016}}.

===Binary content===
[[File:Usenet Binaries Upload process.PNG|thumb|300px|A visual example of the many complex steps required to prepare data to be uploaded to Usenet newsgroups. These steps must be done again in reverse to download data from Usenet.]]

Usenet was originally created to distribute text content encoded in the 7-[[bit]] [[ASCII]] character set. With the help of programs that encode 8-bit values into ASCII, it became practical to distribute [[binary file]]s as content. Binary posts, due to their size and often-dubious copyright status, were in time restricted to specific newsgroups, making it easier for administrators to allow or disallow the traffic.

The oldest widely used encoding method for binary content is [[uuencode]], from the [[Unix]] UUCP package. In the late 1980s, Usenet articles were often limited to 60,000 characters, and larger hard limits exist today. Files are therefore commonly split into sections that require reassembly by the reader.

With the header extensions and the [[Base64]] and Quoted-Printable [[MIME]] encodings, there was a new generation of binary transport. In practice, MIME has seen increased adoption in text messages, but it is avoided for most binary attachments. Some operating systems with [[metadata]] attached to files use specialized encoding formats. For Mac OS, both [[BinHex]] and special MIME types are used. Other lesser known encoding systems that may have been used at one time were [[BTOA]], [[Xxencode|XX encoding]], [[Boo (programming language)|BOO]], and USR encoding.

In an attempt to reduce file transfer times, an informal file encoding known as [[yEnc]] was introduced in 2001. It achieves about a 30% reduction in data transferred by assuming that most 8-bit characters can safely be transferred across the network without first encoding into the 7-bit ASCII space. The most common method of uploading large binary posts to Usenet is to convert the files into [[RAR (file format)|RAR]] archives and create [[Parchive]] files for them. Parity files are used to recreate missing data when not every part of the files reaches a server.

Binary newsgroups can be used to distribute files, and, as of 2022, some remain popular as an alternative to [[BitTorrent]] to share and download files.<ref>{{Cite web |last1=Gregersen |first1=Erik |last2=Hosch |first2=William L. |date=2022-02-17 |title=newsgroup |url=https://www.britannica.com/technology/newsgroup |access-date=2023-04-28 |publisher=[[Encyclopedia Britannica]] |language=en |archive-date=April 28, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230428002633/https://www.britannica.com/technology/newsgroup |url-status=live }}</ref>

====Binary retention time====
[[File:Usenet-total-storage.jpg|thumb|300px|October 2020 screenshot showing 60 PB of usenet group data.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.binsearch.info/groupinfo.php |title=Usenet storage is more than 60 petabytes (60000 terabytes) |publisher=binsearch.info |access-date=October 20, 2020 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20200521133653/https://www.binsearch.info/groupinfo.php |archive-date=2020-05-21 |url-status=live}}</ref>]]

Each news server allocates a certain amount of storage space for content in each newsgroup. When this storage has been filled, each time a new post arrives, old posts are deleted to make room for the new content. If the network bandwidth available to a server is high but the storage allocation is small, it is possible for a huge flood of incoming content to overflow the allocation and push out everything that was in the group before it. The average length of time that posts are able to stay on the server before being deleted is commonly called the ''retention time''.

Binary newsgroups are only able to function reliably if there is sufficient storage allocated to handle the amount of articles being added. Without sufficient retention time, a reader will be unable to download all parts of the binary before it is flushed out of the group's storage allocation. This was at one time how posting undesired content was countered; the newsgroup would be flooded with random garbage data posts, of sufficient quantity to push out all the content to be suppressed. This has been compensated by service providers allocating enough storage to retain everything posted each day, including spam floods, without deleting anything.

Modern Usenet [[news server]]s have enough capacity to archive years of binary content even when flooded with new data at the maximum daily speed available.

In part because of such long retention times, as well as growing Internet [[upload]] speeds, Usenet is also used by individual users to store [[backup]] data.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.wikihow.com/Backup-Your-Data-on-Usenet-%28Ubackup%29 |title=usenet backup (uBackup) |work=wikiHow |publisher=Wikihow.com |access-date=October 20, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200225210522/https://www.wikihow.com/Back-Up-Data-on-Usenet-(uBackup) |archive-date=2020-02-25 |url-status=live}}</ref> While commercial providers offer easier to use [[List of online backup services|online backup services]], storing data on Usenet is free of charge (although access to Usenet itself may not be). The method requires the uploader to cede control over the distribution of the data; the files are automatically disseminated to all Usenet providers exchanging data for the news group it is posted to. In general the user must manually select, prepare and upload the data. The data is typically [[encryption|encrypted]] because it is available to anyone to download the backup files. After the files are uploaded, having multiple copies spread to different geographical regions around the world on different [[news server]]s decreases the chances of data loss.

Major Usenet service providers have a retention time of more than 12 years.<ref>{{cite web|title=Eweka 4446 Days Retention|url=https://www.eweka.nl/en|url-status=live|archive-url=https://archive.today/20201020201352/https://www.eweka.nl/en|archive-date=October 20, 2020|access-date=October 20, 2020|publisher=Eweka.nl}}</ref> This results in more than 60 [[petabyte]]s (60000 [[terabyte]]s) of storage (see image). When using Usenet for data storage, providers that offer longer retention time are preferred to ensure the data will survive for longer periods of time compared to services with lower retention time.

====Legal issues====
While binary newsgroups can be used to distribute completely legal user-created works, [[free software]], and public domain material, some binary groups are used to illegally distribute [[proprietary software]], copyrighted media, and pornographic material.

ISP-operated Usenet servers frequently block access to all ''{{Not a typo|alt.binaries.*}}'' groups to both reduce network traffic and to avoid related legal issues. Commercial Usenet service providers claim to operate as a telecommunications service, and assert that they are not responsible for the user-posted binary content transferred via their equipment. In the United States, Usenet providers can qualify for protection under the [[DMCA]] [[Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act|Safe Harbor regulations]], provided that they establish a mechanism to comply with and respond to takedown notices from copyright holders.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.supernews.com/docs/dmca.html |title=Digital Millenium Copyright Act|archive-url=https://archive.today/20120910/http://www.supernews.com/docs/dmca.html |archive-date=2012-09-10 |url-status=live}}</ref>

Removal of copyrighted content from the entire Usenet network is a nearly impossible task, due to the rapid propagation between servers and the retention done by each server. Petitioning a Usenet provider for removal only removes it from that one server's retention cache, but not any others. It is possible for a special ''post cancellation'' message to be distributed to remove it from all servers, but many providers ignore [[Cancel message|cancel]] messages by standard policy, because they can be easily falsified and submitted by anyone.<ref>{{cite web|title=Cancel Messages FAQ |url=http://wiki.killfile.org/projects/usenet/faqs/cancel/|access-date=June 29, 2009|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080215161039/http://www.killfile.org/faqs/cancel.html |archive-date=February 15, 2008 |quote=...Until authenticated cancels catch on, there are no options to avoid forged cancels and allow unforged ones...}}</ref><ref>Microsoft knowledgebase article stating that many servers ignore cancel messages {{cite web |url=http://support.microsoft.com/kb/q164420/ |title=Support.microsoft.com |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120719/http://support.microsoft.com/kb/q164420/ |archive-date=2012-07-19 |url-status=live}}</ref> For a takedown petition to be most effective across the whole network, it would have to be issued to the origin server to which the content has been posted, before it has been propagated to other servers. Removal of the content at this early stage would prevent further propagation, but with modern high speed links, content can be propagated as fast as it arrives, allowing no time for content review and takedown issuance by copyright holders.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.measurement.sk/2005/S1/Surmacz.pdf |title=Microsoft Word - Surmacz.doc |access-date=December 14, 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130521051120/http://www.measurement.sk/2005/S1/Surmacz.pdf |archive-date=May 21, 2013 |url-status=live |df=mdy-all }}</ref>

Establishing the identity of the person posting illegal content is equally difficult due to the trust-based design of the network. Like [[SMTP]] email, servers generally assume the header and origin information in a post is true and accurate. However, as in SMTP email, Usenet post headers are easily falsified so as to obscure the true identity and location of the message source.<ref>''...every part of a Usenet post may be forged apart from the left most portion of the "Path:" header...'' {{cite web |url=http://www.by-users.co.uk/faqs/email/headers/ |title=By-users.co.uk |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120723/http://www.by-users.co.uk/faqs/email/headers/ |archive-date=2012-07-23 |url-status=live}}</ref> In this manner, Usenet is significantly different from modern P2P services; most P2P users distributing content are typically immediately identifiable to all other users by their [[network address]], but the origin information for a Usenet posting can be completely obscured and unobtainable once it has propagated past the original server.<ref>{{cite newsgroup|message-id=StUPidfuk01@uunet.uu.net|newsgroup=news.admin.misc|title=Better living through forgery |url=http://groups.google.com/group/news.admin.misc/msg/9f6aa173f228ac6a?dmode=source&output=gplain|date=1995-06-10 |access-date=December 5, 2014|archive-url=https://archive.today/20120724/http://groups.google.com/group/news.admin.misc/msg/9f6aa173f228ac6a?dmode=source&output=gplain |archive-date=2012-07-24 |url-status=live}}</ref>

Also unlike modern P2P services, the identity of the downloaders is hidden from view. On P2P services a downloader is identifiable to all others by their network address. On Usenet, the downloader connects directly to a server, and only the server knows the address of who is connecting to it. Some Usenet providers do keep usage logs, but not all make this logged information casually available to outside parties such as the [[Recording Industry Association of America]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.giganews.com/legal/privacy.html |title=Giganews Privacy Policy |publisher=Giganews.com |access-date=December 14, 2010 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120731/http://www.giganews.com/legal/privacy.html |archive-date=2012-07-31 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.usenetserver.com/privacy-policy |title=Privacy Policy UsenetServer |publisher=Usenetserver.com |access-date=July 8, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200604013934/https://www.usenetserver.com/privacy-policy |archive-date=2020-06-04 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://aioe.org/index.php?logging-policy |title=Logging Policy |publisher=Aioe.org |date=June 9, 2005 |access-date=December 14, 2010 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120708/http://aioe.org/index.php?logging-policy |archive-date=July 8, 2012 |url-status=dead |df=mdy-all }}</ref> The existence of anonymising gateways to USENET also complicates the tracing of a postings true origin.

==History==
<div class="noprint" style="clear:right; border:solid #aaa 1px;  margin:0 0 1em 1em; background:#f9f9f9; padding:4px; spacing:0; text-align:left; float:right;">{{smalldiv|1=<pre>
UUCP/Usenet Logical Map  —   June 1, 1981 / mods by S. McGeady November 19, 1981

            (ucbvax)
+=+===================================+==+
| |                                   |  |
| |                wivax              |  |
| |                  |                |  |
| |         microsoft| uiucdcs        |  |
| |  genradbo      | | |  |           |  |           (Tektronix)
| |     |          | | |  | purdue    |  |
| decvax+===+=+====+=+=+  | |         |  |
|       |   | |      |    | | pur-phy |  |                        tekmdp
|       |   | |      |    | |     |   |  |                           |
+@@@@@@cca  | |      |    | |     |   |  |                           |
|       |   | |  +=pur-ee=+=+=====+===+  |                           |
|    csin   | |  |   |                   |                           |
|           | +==o===+===================+==+========+=======+====teklabs=+
|           |    |                                                        |
|           |    |                    pdp phs   grumpy  wolfvax           |
|           |    |                     |   |      |        |              |
|           | cincy                unc=+===+======+========+              |
|           |   |        bio       |                                      |
|           |   |  (Misc) |        |            (Misc)                    |
|           |   | sii  reed        |    dukgeri duke34  utzoo             |
|           |   |  |    |          |         |   |       |                |
|      +====+=+=+==+====++======+==++===duke=+===+=======+==+=========+   |
|      |      |    |     |      |   |                       |         |   | u1100s
|    bmd70  ucf-cs ucf   | andiron  |                       |         |   |   |
|                        |          |                       |         |   |   |
|                  red   |          |                       |         |   | pyuxh
|                   |    |          |     zeppo             |         |   |   |
|       psupdp---psuvax  |          |       |               |         |   |   |
|                   |    |          | alice |   whuxlb      | utah-cs |   | houxf
|                allegra |          | |     |     |         |   |     |   |   |
|                     |  |          | |     |     |         |   |  +--chico---+
|                 +===+=mhtsa====research   |   /=+=======harpo=+==+     |    |
|                 |   |  |  |               |  /            |            |    |
|               hocsr |  |  +=+=============+=/           cbosg---+      |    |
|    ucbopt           |  |    |                             |     |   esquire |
|       :             |  |    |                           cbosgd  |           |
|       :             |  |    |                                   |           |
|    ucbcory          |  | eagle==+=====+=====+=====+=====+       |           |
|       :             |  |  |     |     |     |     |     |       |  +-uwvax--+
|       :             |  |  |   mhuxa mhuxh mhuxj mhuxm mhuxv     |  |
|       :             |  |  |                                     |  |
|       :             |  |  |        +----------------------------o--+
|       :             |  |  |        |                            |
|    ucbcad           |  |  |      ihpss    mh135a                |
|       :             |  |  |        |         |                  |
|       :             \--o--o------ihnss----vax135----cornell     |
|       :                |  |        |         |                  |
+=+==ucbvax==========+===+==+=+======+=======+=+========+=========+
  (UCB) :            |        |              |          | (Silicon Valley)
     ucbarpa      cmevax      |              |        menlo70--hao
        :                     |              |        |    |
     ucbonyx                  |              |        |   sri-unix
                              |           ucsfcgl     |
                              |              |        |
Legend:                       |              |      sytek====+========+
-------                       |              |               |        |
- | / \ + = Uucp           sdcsvax=+=======+=+======+     intelqa   zehntel
=           "Bus"                  |       |        |
o           jumps               sdcarl  phonlab  sdcattb
:           Berknet
@           Arpanet</pre>}}
UUCP/Usenet Logical Map, original by [[Steven McGeady]]. {{smalldiv|1=Copyright© 1981, 1996<br />
Bruce Jones, [[Henry Spencer]], David Wiseman. Copied with permission from<br />
''The Usenet Oldnews Archive: Compilation''.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://quux.org:70/Archives/usenet-a-news/NET.general/81.12.14_azure.300_net.general,fa.unix-wizards.txt |title=Quux.org |access-date=December 14, 2010 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120714/http://quux.org:70/Archives/usenet-a-news/NET.general/81.12.14_azure.300_net.general,fa.unix-wizards.txt |archive-date=2012-07-14 |url-status=live}}</ref>
}}</div>

Newsgroup experiments first occurred in 1979. [[Tom Truscott]] and [[Jim Ellis (computing)|Jim Ellis]] of [[Duke University]] came up with the idea as a replacement for a local announcement program, and established a link with nearby [[University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill|University of North Carolina]] using [[Bourne shell]] scripts written by [[Steve Bellovin]]. The public release of [[A News|news]] was in the form of conventional compiled [[software]], written by Steve Daniel and Truscott.<ref name="emerson198310">{{cite news | url=https://archive.org/stream/byte-magazine-1983-10/1983_10_BYTE_08-10_UNIX#page/n219/mode/2up | title=Usenet / A Bulletin Board for Unix Users | work=BYTE | date=October 1983 | access-date=31 January 2015 | author=Emerson, Sandra L. | pages=219–236}}</ref><ref>LaQuey, Tracy (1990). ''The User's directory of computer networks.'' Digital Press. p. 386. {{ISBN|978-1555580476}}</ref> In 1980, Usenet was connected to [[ARPANET]] through [[University of California, Berkeley|{{nowrap|UC Berkeley}}]], which had connections to both Usenet and ARPANET. [[Mary Ann Horton]], the graduate student who set up the connection, began "feeding mailing lists from the ARPANET into Usenet" with the "fa" ("From ARPANET"<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.oreillynet.com/network/2001/12/21/usenet.html|title=And So It Begins|access-date=September 15, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100715195100/http://www.oreillynet.com/network/2001/12/21/usenet.html|archive-date=July 15, 2010|url-status=live|df=mdy-all}}</ref>) identifier.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.let.leidenuniv.nl/history/ivh/chap3.htm|title=History of the Internet, Chapter Three: History of Electronic Mail|access-date=September 15, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140812153615/http://www.let.leidenuniv.nl/history/ivh/chap3.htm|archive-date=August 12, 2014|url-status=live|df=mdy-all}}</ref> Usenet gained 50 member sites in its first year, including [[Reed College]], [[University of Oklahoma]], and [[Bell Labs]],{{r|emerson198310}} and the number of people using the network increased dramatically; however, it was still a while longer before Usenet users could contribute to ARPANET.<ref>Hauben, Michael and Hauben, Ronda. "[http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/ Netizens: On the History and Impact of Usenet and the Internet, On the Early Days of Usenet: The Roots of the Cooperative Online Culture] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150610060052/http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/ |date=June 10, 2015 }}". First Monday vol. 3 num.August 8, 3 1998</ref>

===Network===
UUCP networks spread quickly due to the lower costs involved, and the ability to use existing leased lines, [[X.25]] links or even [[ARPANET]] connections. By 1983, thousands of people participated from more than 500 hosts, mostly universities and Bell Labs sites but also a growing number of Unix-related companies; the number of hosts nearly doubled to 940 in 1984. More than 100 newsgroups existed, more than 20 devoted to Unix and other computer-related topics, and at least a third to recreation.<ref>Haddadi, H. (2006). "[http://www.eecs.qmul.ac.uk/~hamed/papers/mphil.pdf Network Traffic Inference Using Sampled Statistics] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151117133532/http://www.eecs.qmul.ac.uk/~hamed/papers/mphil.pdf |date=November 17, 2015 }}". University College London.</ref>{{r|emerson198310}} As the mesh of UUCP hosts rapidly expanded, it became desirable to distinguish the Usenet subset from the overall network. A vote was taken at the 1982 USENIX conference to choose a new name. The name Usenet was retained, but it was established that it only applied to news.<ref>{{cite web| last = Horton| first = Mark| title = Arachnet| date = December 11, 1990 |url = http://communication.ucsd.edu/bjones/Usenet.Hist/Nethist/0111.html |access-date=4 June 2007 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120921/http://communication.ucsd.edu/bjones/Usenet.Hist/Nethist/0111.html |archive-date=2012-09-21 |url-status=live}}</ref> The name UUCPNET became the common name for the overall network.

In addition to UUCP, early Usenet traffic was also exchanged with [[FidoNet]] and other dial-up [[Bulletin board system|BBS]] networks.  By the mid-1990s there were almost 40,000 FidoNet systems in operation, and it was possible to communicate with millions of users around the world, with only local telephone service. Widespread use of Usenet by the BBS community was facilitated by the introduction of UUCP feeds made possible by MS-DOS implementations of UUCP, such as UFGATE (UUCP to FidoNet Gateway), FSUUCP and UUPC. In 1986, RFC 977 provided the [[Network News Transfer Protocol]] (NNTP) specification for distribution of Usenet articles over [[Internet protocol suite|TCP/IP]] as a more flexible alternative to informal Internet transfers of UUCP traffic. Since the Internet boom of the 1990s, almost all Usenet distribution is over NNTP.<ref>Huston, Geoff (1999). ''ISP survival guide: strategies for running a competitive ISP.'' Wiley. p. 439.</ref>

===Software===
Early versions of Usenet used Duke's [[A News]] software, designed for one or two articles a day. Matt Glickman and Horton at Berkeley produced an improved version called [[B News]] that could handle the rising traffic (about 50 articles a day as of late 1983).{{r|emerson198310}} With a message format that offered compatibility with Internet mail and improved performance, it became the dominant server software. [[C News]], developed by [[Geoff Collyer]] and [[Henry Spencer]] at the [[University of Toronto]], was comparable to B News in features but offered considerably faster processing. In the early 1990s, [[InterNetNews]] by [[Rich Salz]] was developed to take advantage of the continuous message flow made possible by NNTP versus the batched store-and-forward design of UUCP. Since that time [[InterNetNews|INN]] development has continued, and other news server software has also been developed.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.newsreaders.com/unix/servers.html |title=Unix/Linux news servers |publisher=Newsreaders.com |access-date=December 14, 2010 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120905/http://www.newsreaders.com/unix/servers.html |archive-date=2012-09-05 |url-status=live}}</ref>

===Public venue===
Usenet was the first Internet community and the place for many of the most important public developments in the pre-commercial Internet. It was the place where [[Tim Berners-Lee]] announced the launch of the [[World Wide Web]],<ref>{{cite newsgroup| title = WorldWideWeb: Summary| author = Tim Berners-Lee| date = August 6, 1991| newsgroup = alt.hypertext| message-id = 6487@cernvax.cern.ch| url = http://groups.google.com/group/alt.hypertext/msg/395f282a67a1916c| access-date = June 4, 2007| archive-date = June 2, 2013| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20130602161737/http://groups.google.com/group/alt.hypertext/msg/395f282a67a1916c| url-status = live}}</ref> where [[Linus Torvalds]] announced the [[Linux]] project,<ref>{{cite newsgroup | title = What would you like to see most in minix? | newsgroup = comp.os.minix | message-id = 1991Aug25.205708.9541@klaava.Helsinki.FI | url = http://groups.google.com/group/comp.os.minix/msg/b813d52cbc5a044b | last = Torvalds | first = Linus | access-date = September 9, 2006 | archive-date = October 27, 2006 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20061027060049/http://groups.google.com/group/comp.os.minix/msg/b813d52cbc5a044b | url-status = live }}</ref> and where [[Marc Andreessen]] announced the creation of the [[Mosaic browser]] and the introduction of the image tag,<ref>{{cite newsgroup| title = NCSA Mosaic for X 0.10 available.| author = Marc Andreessen| date = March 15, 1993| newsgroup = comp.windows.x| message-id = MARCA.93Mar14225600@wintermute.ncsa.uiuc.edu| url = http://groups.google.com/group/comp.windows.x/msg/7fde2f6d4d5dc4e7| access-date = 4 June 2007| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20060616013046/http://groups.google.com/group/comp.windows.x/msg/7fde2f6d4d5dc4e7| archive-date = June 16, 2006| url-status = live| df = mdy-all}}</ref> which revolutionized the World Wide Web by turning it into a graphical medium.

===Internet jargon and history===
Many [[jargon]] terms now in common use on the Internet originated or were popularized on Usenet.<ref>{{cite web
 |last         = Kaltenbach
 |first        = Susan
 |title        = The Evolution of the Online Discourse Community
 |date         = December 2000
 |url          = http://noonuniverse.com/Linked_work/online_discourse.pdf
 |quote        = "Verb Doubling: Doubling a verb may change its semantics, Soundalike Slang: Punning jargon, The -P convention: A LISPy way to form questions, Overgeneralization: Standard abuses of grammar, Spoken Inarticulations: Sighing and &lt;*sigh*&gt;ing, Anthropomorphization: online components were named "Homunculi," daemons," etc., and there were also "confused" programs. Comparatives: Standard comparatives for design quality"
 |access-date  = May 26, 2010
 |archive-url  = https://web.archive.org/web/20110714192209/http://noonuniverse.com/Linked_work/online_discourse.pdf
 |archive-date = July 14, 2011
 |url-status     = live
 |df           = mdy-all
}}</ref> Likewise, many conflicts which later spread to the rest of the Internet, such as the ongoing difficulties over [[spam (electronic)|spamming]], began on Usenet.<ref>{{cite web|last=Campbell|first=K. K.|title=Chatting With Martha Siegel of the Internet's Infamous Canter & Siegel|url=http://w2.eff.org/legal/cases/Canter_Siegel/c-and-s_summary.article|publisher=[[Electronic Frontier Foundation]]|access-date=September 24, 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071125201904/http://w2.eff.org/legal/cases/Canter_Siegel/c-and-s_summary.article|archive-date=November 25, 2007|date=October 1, 1994}}</ref>{{blockquote|"Usenet is like a herd of performing elephants with diarrhea. Massive, difficult to redirect, awe-inspiring, entertaining, and a source of mind-boggling amounts of excrement when you least expect it." | [[Gene Spafford]], 1992}}

===Decline===
Sascha Segan of ''[[PC Magazine]]'' said in 2008 that "Usenet has been dying for years".<ref>{{cite news |last1=Segan |first1=Sascha |title=R.I.P Usenet: 1980-2008 |url=https://www.pcmag.com/archive/rip-usenet-1980-2008-230383 |access-date=2022-11-30 |work=PC Magazine |date=July 31, 2008 |language=en |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120909/http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2326849,00.asp |archive-date=September 9, 2012 |url-status=live |df=mdy-all }}</ref> Segan said that some people pointed to the [[Eternal September]] in 1993 as the beginning of Usenet's decline, when AOL began offering Usenet access. He argues that when users began putting large (non-text) files on Usenet by the late 1990s, Usenet [[disk space]] and traffic increased correspondingly. Internet service providers questioned why they needed to host binary articles.

[[AOL]] discontinued Usenet access in 2005. In May 2010, [[Duke University]], whose implementation had started Usenet more than 30 years earlier, decommissioned its Usenet server, citing low usage and rising costs.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://today.duke.edu/2010/05/usenet.html |title=A Piece of Internet History |work=Duke Today |author=Cara Bonnett|date=May 17, 2010 |access-date=May 24, 2010 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120711/http://news.duke.edu/2010/05/usenet.html |archive-date=2012-07-11 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/05/20/usenet_duke_server/ |title=Usenet's home shuts down today |work=The Register |author=Andrew Orlowski |date=May 20, 2010 |access-date=May 24, 2010 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120921/http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/05/20/usenet_duke_server/ |archive-date=2012-09-21 |url-status=live}}</ref> On February 4, 2011, the Usenet news service link at the [[University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill]] (news.unc.edu) was retired after 32 years.{{Citation needed|date=February 2021}}

In response, John Biggs of [[TechCrunch]] said "As long as there are folks who think a [[command line]] is better than a mouse, the original text-only [[Social networking service|social network]] will live on".<ref>"{{cite web|title=Reports of Usenet's Death Are Greatly Exaggerated|url=https://techcrunch.com/2008/08/01/the-reports-of-usenets-death-are-greatly-exaggerated/|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://archive.today/20120716/http://techcrunch.com/2008/08/01/the-reports-of-usenets-death-are-greatly-exaggerated/|archive-date=2012-07-16}}." [[TechCrunch]]. August 1, 2008. Retrieved on May 8, 2011.</ref> While there are still some active text newsgroups on Usenet, the system is now primarily used to share large files between users, and the underlying technology of Usenet remains unchanged.<ref>{{Cite web|last=|first=|date=|title=What Is Usenet|url=https://top10usenet.com/guides/what-is-usenet/|access-date=February 8, 2021|website=Top 10 Usenet|archive-date=February 8, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210208224040/https://top10usenet.com/guides/what-is-usenet/|url-status=live}}</ref>

==Usenet traffic changes==
Over time, the amount of Usenet traffic has steadily increased. {{As of | 2010}} the number of all text posts made in all Big-8 newsgroups averaged 1,800 new messages every hour, with an average of 25,000 messages per day.<ref name="newsadmin1">{{cite web |url=http://www.newsadmin.com/top100tmsgs.asp |title=Top 100 text newsgroups by postings |publisher=NewsAdmin |access-date=December 14, 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061016004305/http://www.newsadmin.com/top100tmsgs.asp |archive-date=October 16, 2006 |url-status=dead |df=mdy-all }}</ref> However, these averages are minuscule in comparison to the traffic in the binary groups.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.newsadmin.com/top100bmsgs.asp |title=Top 100 binary newsgroups by postings |publisher=NewsAdmin |access-date=December 14, 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061016004534/http://www.newsadmin.com/top100bmsgs.asp |archive-date=October 16, 2006 |url-status=dead |df=mdy-all }}</ref> Much of this traffic increase reflects not an increase in discrete users or newsgroup discussions, but instead the combination of massive automated spamming and an increase in the use of ''{{Not a typo|.binaries}}'' newsgroups<ref name="newsadmin1"/> in which large files are often posted publicly. A small sampling of the change (measured in feed size per day) follows:

[[Image:Usenet traffic per day (en).svg|right]]

{| class="wikitable"
|+ Source: altopia.com<ref>{{Cite web |title=Usenet Piracy |url=https://www.iparrow.com/usenet-piracy/ |access-date=2024-02-24 |website=IP Arrow |language=en-US}}</ref>
|-
! style="text-align:right"|Daily volume!!Daily posts!!Date
|-
| style="text-align:right"|4.5 [[Gibibyte|GiB]] || ||1996 Dec
|-
| style="text-align:right"|9 GiB || ||1997 Jul
|-
| style="text-align:right"|12 GiB || 554 [[Kilo-|k]] || 1998 Jan
|-
| style="text-align:right"|26 GiB || 609 k  || 1999 Jan
|-
| style="text-align:right"|82 GiB || 858 k || 2000 Jan
|-
| style="text-align:right"|181 GiB || 1.24 [[Mega-|M]] || 2001 Jan
|-
| style="text-align:right"|257 GiB || 1.48 M || 2002 Jan
|-
| style="text-align:right"|492 GiB || 2.09 M || 2003 Jan
|-
| style="text-align:right"|969 GiB || 3.30 M || 2004 Jan
|-
| style="text-align:right"|1.52 [[Tebibyte|TiB]] || 5.09 M || 2005 Jan
|-
| style="text-align:right"|2.27 TiB || 7.54 M || 2006 Jan
|-
| style="text-align:right"|2.95 TiB || 9.84 M || 2007 Jan
|-
| style="text-align:right"|3.07 TiB || 10.13 M || 2008 Jan
|-
| style="text-align:right"|4.65 TiB || 14.64 M || 2009 Jan
|-
| style="text-align:right"|5.42 TiB || 15.66 M || 2010 Jan
|-
| style="text-align:right"|7.52 TiB || 20.12 M || 2011 Jan
|-
| style="text-align:right"|9.29 TiB || 23.91 M || 2012 Jan
|-
| style="text-align:right"|11.49 TiB || 28.14 M || 2013 Jan
|-
| style="text-align:right"|14.61 TiB || 37.56 M || 2014 Jan
|-
| style="text-align:right"|17.87 TiB || 44.19 M || 2015 Jan
|-
| style="text-align:right"|23.87 TiB || 55.59 M || 2016 Jan
|-
| style="text-align:right"|27.80 TiB || 64.55 M || 2017 Jan
|-
| style="text-align:right"|37.35 TiB || 73.95 M || 2018 Jan
|-
| style="text-align:right"|60.38 TiB || 104.04 M || 2019 Jan
|-
| style="text-align:right"|62.40 TiB || 107.49 M || 2020 Jan
|-
| style="text-align:right"|100.71 TiB || 171.86 M || 2021 Jan
|-
| style="text-align:right"|220.00 TiB<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.newsdemon.com/usenet-newsgroup-feed-size|title=Usenet Newsgroup Feed Size - NewsDemon Usenet Newsgroup Access}}</ref> ||  279.16 M|| 2023 Aug
|-
|274.49 TiB
|400.24 M
|2024 Feb
|}

In 2008, [[Verizon Communications]], [[Time Warner Cable]] and [[Sprint Nextel]] signed an agreement with [[Attorney General of New York]] [[Andrew Cuomo]] to shut down access to sources of [[child pornography]].<ref>Rosencrance, Lisa. {{cite web |url=http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9095778 |title=3 top ISPs to block access to sources of child porn |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120722/http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9095778 |archive-date=2012-07-22 |url-status=live}}. ''[[Computer World]]''. June 8, 2008. Retrieved on April 30, 2009.</ref> Time Warner Cable stopped offering access to Usenet. Verizon reduced its access to the "Big 8" hierarchies. Sprint stopped access to the ''alt.*'' hierarchies. AT&T stopped access to the ''{{Not a typo|alt.binaries.*}}'' hierarchies. Cuomo never specifically named Usenet in his anti-child pornography campaign. David DeJean of ''[[PC World]]'' said that some worry<!-- I cited the author, so please do not tag with who --> that the ISPs used Cuomo's campaign as an excuse to end portions of Usenet access, as it is costly for the Internet service providers and not in high demand by customers. In 2008 [[AOL]], which no longer offered Usenet access, and the four providers that responded to the Cuomo campaign were the five largest Internet service providers in the United States; they had more than 50% of the U.S. ISP market share.<ref name="DeJeanNotDeadYet2">DeJean, David. "Usenet: Not Dead Yet." ''[[PC World]]''. Tuesday October 7, 2008. {{cite web |url=https://www.pcworld.com/article/151989-2/usenet_not_dead_yet.html |title=2 |date=2008-10-07 |access-date=September 17, 2017 |archive-date=September 21, 2012 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120921/https://www.pcworld.com/article/151989-2/usenet_not_dead_yet.html |url-status=dead }}. Retrieved on April 30, 2009.</ref> On June 8, 2009, AT&T announced that it would no longer provide access to the Usenet service as of July 15, 2009.<ref>{{cite web
| title = ATT Announces Discontinuation of USENET Newsgroup Services
| url = http://www.newsdemon.com/blog/2009/06/09/att-announces-discontinuation-of-usenet-newsgroup-services/
| publisher = NewsDemon
| date = June 9, 2009
| access-date =June 18, 2009
|archive-url=https://archive.today/20120921/http://www.newsdemon.com/blog/2009/06/09/att-announces-discontinuation-of-usenet-newsgroup-services/ |archive-date=2012-09-21 |url-status=live}}</ref>

[[AOL]] announced that it would discontinue its integrated Usenet service in early 2005, citing the growing popularity of weblogs, chat forums and on-line conferencing.<ref>Hu, Jim. "{{cite web |url=http://news.cnet.com/AOL-shutting-down-newsgroups/2100-1032_3-5550036.html |title=AOL shutting down newsgroups |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120723/http://news.cnet.com/AOL-shutting-down-newsgroups/2100-1032_3-5550036.html |archive-date=2012-07-23 |url-status=live}}." [[CNet]]. January 25, 2005. Retrieved on May 1, 2009.</ref> The AOL community had a tremendous role in popularizing Usenet some 11 years earlier.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.betanews.com/article/AOL-Pulls-Plug-on-Newsgroup-Service/1106664611 |title=AOL Pulls Plug on Newsgroup Service |publisher=Betanews.com |access-date=December 14, 2010 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120722/http://www.betanews.com/article/AOL-Pulls-Plug-on-Newsgroup-Service/1106664611 |archive-date=2012-07-22 |url-status=live|date=January 25, 2005 }}</ref>

In August 2009, Verizon announced that it would discontinue access to Usenet on September 30, 2009.<ref name="dslreports">Bode, Karl. {{cite web |url=http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Verizon-To-Discontinue-Newsgroups-September-30-104227 |title=Verizon To Discontinue Newsgroups September 30 |work=DSL Reports |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120731/http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Verizon-To-Discontinue-Newsgroups-September-30-104227 |archive-date=2012-07-31 |url-status=live}}. DSLReports. August 31, 2009. Retrieved on October 24, 2009.</ref><ref name="VerizonSupport">"{{cite web |url=http://www22.verizon.com/ResidentialHelp/HighSpeed/General%20Support/Top%20Questions/QuestionsOne/125159.htm |title=Verizon Newsgroup Service Has Been Discontinued |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120921/http://www22.verizon.com/ResidentialHelp/HighSpeed/General+Support/Top+Questions/QuestionsOne/125159.htm |archive-date=2012-09-21 |url-status=live}}" Verizon Central Support. Retrieved on October 24, 2009.</ref> [[JANET]] announced it would discontinue Usenet service, effective July 31, 2010, citing Google Groups as an alternative.<ref>[http://www.ukerna.ac.uk/services/news/index.html Ukerna.ac.uk]{{dead link |url=http://www.ukerna.ac.uk/services/news/index.html|date=September 2012}}</ref> [[Microsoft]] announced that it would discontinue support for its public newsgroups (msnews.microsoft.com) from June 1, 2010, offering web forums as an alternative.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.microsoft.com/communities/newsgroups/default.mspx#EV | title=Microsoft Responds to the Evolution of Communities | publisher=microsoft.com | access-date=September 1, 2011 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20030622131419/http://www.microsoft.com/communities/newsgroups/default.mspx#EV | archive-date=June 22, 2003 | url-status=live | df=mdy-all }}</ref>

Primary reasons cited for the discontinuance of Usenet service by general [[Internet service provider|ISPs]] include the decline in volume of actual readers due to competition from [[blog]]s, along with cost and liability concerns of increasing proportion of traffic devoted to file-sharing and spam on unused or discontinued groups.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://news.cnet.com/AOL-shutting-down-newsgroups/2100-1032_3-5550036.html | title=AOL shutting down newsgroups | publisher=cnet.com/ | date=January 25, 2005 | access-date=September 1, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080829012327/http://news.cnet.com/AOL-shutting-down-newsgroups/2100-1032_3-5550036.html |archive-date=2008-08-29 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Verizon-To-Discontinue-Newsgroups-September-30-104227 | title=Verizon To Discontinue Newsgroups | publisher=dslreports.com | date=August 31, 2009 | access-date=September 1, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120306031517/http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Verizon-To-Discontinue-Newsgroups-September-30-104227 |archive-date=2012-03-06 |url-status=live}}</ref>

Some ISPs did not include pressure from Cuomo's campaign against child pornography as one of their reasons for dropping Usenet feeds as part of their services.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r21120658-The-Comcast-Newsgroups-Service-Discontinued | title=The Comcast Newsgroups Service Discontinued | publisher=dslreports.com | date=September 16, 2008 | access-date=December 5, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141206015500/http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r21120658-The-Comcast-Newsgroups-Service-Discontinued |archive-date=December 6, 2014 |url-status=live}}</ref> ISPs Cox and Atlantic Communications resisted the 2008 trend but both did eventually drop their respective Usenet feeds in 2010.<ref name=dropun>{{cite web|url=http://www.zeropaid.com/news/88729/cox-to-drop-free-usenet-service-june-30th/ |title=Cox to Drop Free Usenet Service June 30th |publisher=Zeropaid.com |date=April 22, 2010 |access-date=September 3, 2011 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120921/http://www.zeropaid.com/news/88729/cox-to-drop-free-usenet-service-june-30th/ |archive-date=2012-09-21 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="coxatlantic">{{cite web | url=http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/04/21/210224/Cox-Discontinues-Usenet-Starting-In-June | title=Cox Discontinues Usenet, Starting In June | publisher=Geeknet, Inc | date=April 21, 2010 | access-date=September 1, 2011 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120921/http://news.slashdot.org/story/10/04/21/210224/Cox-Discontinues-Usenet-Starting-In-June |archive-date=2012-09-21 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.thundernews.com/blog/tag/isp/ | title=Cox Communications and Atlantic Broadband Discontinue Usenet Access | publisher=thundernews.com | date=April 27, 2010 | access-date=September 1, 2011 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120912/http://www.thundernews.com/blog/tag/isp/ |archive-date=2012-09-12 |url-status=live}}</ref>

==Archives==
Public archives of Usenet articles have existed since the early days of Usenet, such as the system created by Kenneth Almquist in late 1982.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://groups.google.com/group/net.general/msg/ba3ad51d0cedd76b?dmode=source&output=gplain |title=How to obtain back news items |access-date=December 14, 2010 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120710/http://groups.google.com/group/net.general/msg/ba3ad51d0cedd76b?dmode=source&output=gplain |archive-date=2012-07-10 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite newsgroup
 |newsgroup    = net.general
 |title        = How to obtain back news items (second posting)
 |url          = https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/net.general/how$20to$20obtain$20back$20news$20items/net.general/Zn4-pUXPiDE/a9ftDB3VOroJ
 |date         = December 21, 1982
 |access-date   = December 5, 2014
 |quote        = message-id:bnews.spanky.138
 |archive-url  = https://web.archive.org/web/20110129021654/https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/net.general/how$20to$20obtain$20back$20news$20items/net.general/Zn4-pUXPiDE/a9ftDB3VOroJ
 |archive-date = January 29, 2011
 |url-status     = live
 |df           = mdy-all
}}</ref> Distributed archiving of Usenet posts was suggested in November 1982 by Scott Orshan, who proposed that "Every site should keep all the articles it posted, forever."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://groups.google.com/group/net.news/msg/e8145eace8aa0529?dmode=source&output=gplain |title=Distributed archiving of netnews |access-date=December 14, 2010 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120708/http://groups.google.com/group/net.news/msg/e8145eace8aa0529?dmode=source&output=gplain |archive-date=2012-07-08 |url-status=live}}</ref> Also in November of that year, [[Rick Adams (Internet pioneer)|Rick Adams]] responded to a post asking "Has anyone archived netnews, or does anyone plan to?"<ref>{{cite web|url=http://groups.google.com/group/net.news/msg/a9ad42b15688b910?dmode=source&output=gplain |title=Archive of netnews |access-date=December 14, 2010 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120724/http://groups.google.com/group/net.news/msg/a9ad42b15688b910?dmode=source&output=gplain |archive-date=2012-07-24 |url-status=live}}</ref> by stating that he was, "afraid to admit it, but I started archiving most 'useful' newsgroups as of September 18."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://groups.google.com/group/net.news/msg/87c9160730b36989?dmode=source&output=gplain |title=Re: Archive of netnews |access-date=December 14, 2010 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120715/http://groups.google.com/group/net.news/msg/87c9160730b36989?dmode=source&output=gplain |archive-date=2012-07-15 |url-status=live}}</ref> In June 1982, Gregory G. Woodbury proposed an "automatic access to archives" system that consisted of "automatic answering of fixed-format messages to a special mail recipient on specified machines."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://groups.google.com/group/net.general/msg/a377e12ab1a829ff?dmode=source&output=gplain |title=Automatic access to archives |access-date=December 14, 2010 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120712/http://groups.google.com/group/net.general/msg/a377e12ab1a829ff?dmode=source&output=gplain |archive-date=2012-07-12 |url-status=live}}</ref>

In 1985, two news archiving systems and one [[Request for Comments|RFC]] were posted to the Internet. The first system, called keepnews, by Mark M. Swenson of the [[University of Arizona]], was described as "a program that attempts to provide a sane way of extracting and keeping information that comes over Usenet." The main advantage of this system was to allow users to mark articles as worthwhile to retain.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://groups.google.com/group/net.sources/msg/737d29fd3af2d5ae?dmode=source&output=gplain |title=keepnews – A Usenet news archival system |access-date=December 14, 2010 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120717/http://groups.google.com/group/net.sources/msg/737d29fd3af2d5ae?dmode=source&output=gplain |archive-date=2012-07-17 |url-status=live}}</ref> The second system, YA News Archiver by Chuq Von Rospach, was similar to keepnews, but was "designed to work with much larger archives where the wonderful quadratic search time feature of the Unix ... becomes a real problem."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://groups.google.com/group/net.sources/msg/d5c0cec804f745dd?dmode=source&output=gplain |title=YA News Archiver |access-date=December 14, 2010 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120709/http://groups.google.com/group/net.sources/msg/d5c0cec804f745dd?dmode=source&output=gplain |archive-date=2012-07-09 |url-status=live}}</ref> Von Rospach in early 1985 posted a detailed RFC for "archiving and accessing usenet articles with [[Index term|keyword]] lookup." This RFC described a program that could "generate and
maintain an archive of Usenet articles and allow looking up articles based on the article-id, subject lines, or keywords pulled out of the article itself." Also included was [[C (programming language)|C]] code for the internal data structure of the system.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://groups.google.com/group/net.news/msg/f26190057834ed87?dmode=source&output=gplain |title=RFC usenet article archive program with keyword lookup |access-date=December 14, 2010 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120715/http://groups.google.com/group/net.news/msg/f26190057834ed87?dmode=source&output=gplain |archive-date=2012-07-15 |url-status=live}}</ref>

The desire to have a full text search index of archived news articles is not new either, one such request having been made in April 1991 by [[Alex Martelli]] who sought to "build some sort of keyword index for [the news archive]."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://groups.google.com/group/news.software.nn/msg/16381a7e3fd611d4?dmode=source&output=gplain |title=Looking for fulltext indexing software for archived news |access-date=December 14, 2010 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120921/http://groups.google.com/group/news.software.nn/msg/16381a7e3fd611d4?dmode=source&output=gplain |archive-date=2012-09-21 |url-status=live}}</ref> In early May, Martelli posted a summary of his responses to Usenet, noting that the "most popular suggestion award must definitely go to 'lq-text' package, by Liam Quin, recently posted in alt.sources."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://groups.google.com/group/news.software.nn/msg/f503efa9034f1c1d?dmode=source&output=gplain |title=Summary: search for fulltext indexing software for archived news |access-date=December 14, 2010 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120708/http://groups.google.com/group/news.software.nn/msg/f503efa9034f1c1d?dmode=source&output=gplain |archive-date=2012-07-08 |url-status=live}}</ref>

The Alt Sex Stories Text Repository (ASSTR) site archived and indexed erotic and pornographic stories posted to the Usenet group [[alt.sex.stories]].<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://asstr.org/ |title=Asstr.org |access-date=August 13, 2014 |archive-date=August 18, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140818001320/http://www.asstr.org/ |url-status=dead }}</ref>

The archiving of Usenet has led to fears of loss of privacy.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2326849,00.asp |title=R.I.P Usenet: 1980–2008 – Usenet's Decline – Columns by PC Magazine |publisher=Pcmag.com |date=2008-07-31 |access-date=December 14, 2010 |first=Sascha |last=Segan |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120909/http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2326849,00.asp |archive-date=2012-09-09 |url-status=live}}</ref> An archive simplifies ways to profile people. This has partly been countered with the introduction of the '' [[X-No-Archive|X-No-Archive: Yes]]'' header, which is itself controversial.<ref>Strawbridge, Matthew (2006). ''Netiquette: Internet Etiquette in the Age of the Blog.'' Software Reference. p. 53. {{ISBN|978-0955461408}}</ref>

===Archives by Deja News and Google Groups===
{{Main|Google Groups}}

Web-based archiving of Usenet posts began in March 1995 at [[Deja News]] with a very large, searchable database. In February 2001, this database was acquired by [[Google]];<ref>Cullen, Drew (February 12, 2001). {{cite web |url=https://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/02/12/google_saves_deja_com_usenet/ |title=Google saves Deja.com Usenet service |website=[[The Register]] |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120921/http://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/02/12/google_saves_deja_com_usenet/ |archive-date=2012-09-21 |url-status=live}}. ''[[The Register]]''.</ref> Google had begun archiving Usenet posts for itself starting in the second week of August 2000.

Google Groups hosts an archive of Usenet posts dating back to May 1981. The earliest posts, which date from May 1981 to June 1991, were donated to Google by the [[University of Western Ontario]] with the help of David Wiseman and others,<ref>Wiseman, David. [http://www.csd.uwo.ca/~magi/personal/usenet.html "Magi's NetNews Archive Involvement"] {{webarchive|url=https://archive.today/20050209012732/http://www.csd.uwo.ca/~magi/personal/usenet.html |date=February 9, 2005 }}, csd.uwo.ca.</ref> and were originally archived by [[Henry Spencer]] at the University of Toronto's Zoology department.<ref>Mieszkowski, Katharine. "{{cite web |url=http://archive.salon.com/tech/feature/2002/01/07/saving_usenet/index.html |title=The Geeks Who Saved Usenet |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120710/http://archive.salon.com/tech/feature/2002/01/07/saving_usenet/index.html |archive-date=July 10, 2012 |url-status=dead |df=mdy-all }}", archive.salon.com (January 7, 2002).</ref> The archives for late 1991 through early 1995 were provided by Kent Landfield from the NetNews CD series<ref>Feldman, Ian. {{cite web |url=http://db.tidbits.com/article/3229 |title=Usenet on a CD-ROM, no longer a fable |date=February 10, 1992 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120707/http://db.tidbits.com/article/3229 |archive-date=2012-07-07 |url-status=live}}, "TidBITS" (February 10, 1992)</ref> and Jürgen Christoffel from [[Gesellschaft für Mathematik und Datenverarbeitung|GMD]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://groups.google.com/group/news.admin.misc/msg/6dec509043e7b3c7?dmode=source&output=gplain |title=Google Groups Archive Information |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120709/http://groups.google.com/group/news.admin.misc/msg/6dec509043e7b3c7?dmode=source&output=gplain |archive-date=2012-07-09 |url-status=live}} (December 21, 2001)</ref>

Google has been criticized by ''[[Vice (magazine)|Vice]]'' and [[Wired (magazine)|''Wired'']] contributors as well as former employees for its stewardship of the archive and for breaking its search functionality.<ref>{{Cite magazine|url = https://www.wired.com/2009/10/usenet|title = Google's Abandoned Library of 700 Million Titles|magazine = Wired|last = Poulsen|first = Kevin|access-date = March 12, 2017|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20170309162758/https://www.wired.com/2009/10/usenet/|archive-date = March 9, 2017|url-status = live|df = mdy-all|date = 2009-10-07}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url = https://www.vice.com/en/article/google-a-search-company-has-made-its-internet-archive-impossible-to-search/|title = Google, a Search Company, Has Made Its Internet Archive Impossible to Search|website = Motherboard|last = Braga|first = Matthew|access-date = August 30, 2015|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20150905023932/http://motherboard.vice.com/read/google-a-search-company-has-made-its-internet-archive-impossible-to-search|archive-date = September 5, 2015|url-status = live|df = mdy-all|date = 2015-02-13}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|title = I'm Feeling Lucky: The Confessions of Google Employee Number 59|last = Edwards|first = Douglas|publisher = Houghton Mifflin Harcourt|year = 2011|isbn = 978-0-547-41699-1|pages = [https://archive.org/details/imfeelingluckyco00edwa/page/209 209–213]|url = https://archive.org/details/imfeelingluckyco00edwa/page/209}}</ref>

As of January 2024, Google Groups carries a header notice, saying:

{{Blockquote|Effective from 22 February 2024, Google Groups will no longer support new Usenet content. Posting and subscribing will be disallowed, and new content from Usenet peers will not appear. Viewing and searching of historical data will still be supported as it is done today.}}

An explanatory page adds:<ref>{{cite web |title=Google Groups ending support for Usenet - Google Groups Help |url=https://support.google.com/groups/answer/11036538?visit_id=638401644159352995-1779246639 |website=Google Support}}</ref>

{{Blockquote|In addition, Google’s Network News Transfer Protocol (NNTP) server and associated peering will no longer be available, meaning Google will not support serving new Usenet content or exchanging content with other NNTP servers. This change will not impact any non-Usenet content on Google Groups, including all user and organization-created groups.}}

==See also==
{{Portal|Internet}}
<!-- Please keep entries in alphabetical order & add a short description [[WP:SEEALSO]] -->
{{div col|colwidth=25em}}
* [[Association for Progressive Communications]] <!-- a similar parallel system using NNTP -->
* [[Fediverse]] <!-- A similar system of networked instances -->
* [[HCL Domino#History|PLATO Notes]]
* [[Open-News-Network e.V.]]
* [[Telehack]]
* [[Usenet II]]
* [[Usenet personality]]
{{div col end}}
<!-- please keep entries in alphabetical order -->

=== Usenet newsreaders ===
<!-- Please keep entries in alphabetical order & add a short description [[WP:SEEALSO]] -->
{{div col|colwidth=25em}}
* [[Newsreader (Usenet)]]
* [[Comparison of Usenet newsreaders]]
* [[List of Usenet newsreaders]]
{{div col end}}
<!-- please keep entries in alphabetical order -->

=== Usenet/newsgroup service providers ===
<!-- Please keep entries in alphabetical order & add a short description [[WP:SEEALSO]] -->
{{div col|colwidth=25em}}
* [[Astraweb]]
* [[Easynews]]
* [[Giganews]]
* [[Supernews (Usenet provider)|Supernews]]
{{div col end}}
<!-- please keep entries in alphabetical order -->

=== Usenet history ===
<!-- Please keep entries in alphabetical order & add a short description [[WP:SEEALSO]] -->
{{div col|colwidth=25em}}
* [[Scientology and the Internet]]
* [[Serdar Argic]]
{{div col end}}
<!-- please keep entries in alphabetical order -->

=== Usenet administrators ===
Usenet had administrators on a server-by-server basis, not as a whole.  A few famous administrators:
<!-- Please keep entries in alphabetical order & add a short description [[WP:SEEALSO]] -->
{{div col|colwidth=25em}}
* [[Chris Lewis (Usenet)|Chris Lewis]]
* [[Gene Spafford]], a.k.a. Spaf
* [[Henry Spencer]]
* [[Kai Puolamäki]]
* [[Mary Ann Horton]]
{{div col end}}
<!-- please keep entries in alphabetical order -->

==References==
{{Reflist}}

== Further reading ==
* {{cite web |author=Bruce Jones |title=USENET History mailing list archive covering 1990-1997 |url=https://shikan.org/bjones/Usenet.Hist/Nethist/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190507202935/https://shikan.org/bjones/Usenet.Hist/Nethist/ |archive-date=May 7, 2019 |date=July 1, 1997 |url-status=live }}
* {{cite book|author=[[Michael Hauben]], Ronda Hauben, and [[Tom Truscott|Thomas Truscott]]|title=Netizens: On the History and Impact of Usenet and the Internet (Perspectives)|publisher=Wiley-IEEE Computer Society P|date=April 27, 1997|isbn=978-0-8186-7706-9|url=http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/|access-date=June 6, 2015|archive-date=June 10, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150610060052/http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120/|url-status=live}}
* {{cite book|author=Bryan Pfaffenberger|title=The USENET Book: Finding, Using, and Surviving Newsgroups on the Internet|publisher=Addison Wesley|date=December 31, 1994|isbn=978-0-201-40978-9}}
* {{cite book |author1=Kate Gregory |author2=Jim Mann |author3=Tim Parker |author4=Noel Estabrook |name-list-style=amp |title=Using Usenet Newsgroups |publisher=Que |date=June 1995 |isbn=978-0-7897-0134-3 |url=https://archive.org/details/usingusenetnewsg0000esta }}
* {{cite book|author=Mark Harrison|title=The USENET Handbook (Nutshell Handbook)|publisher=O'Reilly|date=July 1995|isbn=978-1-56592-101-6}}
* {{cite book|author1=Henry Spencer|author2=David Lawrence|title=Managing Usenet|publisher=O'Reilly|date=January 1998|isbn=978-1-56592-198-6|url=https://archive.org/details/managingusenet00spen}}
* {{cite book|author=Don Rittner|title=Rittner's Field Guide to Usenet|publisher=MNS Publishing|date=June 1997|isbn=978-0-937666-50-0}}
* {{cite journal
| title=GroupLens: applying collaborative filtering to Usenet news
| journal=Communications of the ACM
| volume=40 | issue = 3 | date=March 1997 | pages=77–87
| author=Konstan, J., Miller, B., Maltz, D., [[Jon Herlocker|Herlocker, J.]], Gordon, L., and Riedl, J.
| doi = 10.1145/245108.245126
| citeseerx=10.1.1.377.1605
| s2cid=15008577
}}
* {{cite conference |last1=Miller |first1=B. |last2=Riedl |first2=J. |last3=Konstan |first3=J. |url=http://www.grouplens.org/papers/pdf/usenix97.pdf |conference=Experiences with GroupLens: Making Usenet useful again |title=Proceedings of the 1997 Usenix Winter Technical Conference |date=January 1997 |access-date=December 13, 2005 |archive-date=March 6, 2006 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060306011401/http://www.grouplens.org/papers/pdf/usenix97.pdf |url-status=live }}
* {{cite web |url=https://www.google.com/googlegroups/archive_announce_20.html |title=20 Year Usenet Timeline |access-date=June 27, 2006 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070105001726/https://www.google.com/googlegroups/archive_announce_20.html |archive-date=January 5, 2007 }}
* {{cite web | url=http://www.linux-mag.com/id/2675/ | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070216044400/http://www.linux-mag.com/id/2675/ | url-status=usurped | archive-date=February 16, 2007 | title=Web 2.0, Meet Usenet 1.0 | publisher=Linux Magazine | access-date=February 13, 2007 }}
* {{cite web | last = Schwartz | first = Randal | author-link = Randal L. Schwartz | title = Web 2.0, Meet Usenet 1.0 | date = June 15, 2006 | url = http://www.linux-mag.com/id/2675/ | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20070216044400/http://www.linux-mag.com/id/2675/ | url-status = usurped | archive-date = February 16, 2007 | access-date = June 4, 2007 }}
* {{cite web | last1 = Kleiner | first1 = Dmytri | author-link = Dmytri Kleiner | author2 = Wyrick, Brian | title = InfoEnclosure 2.0 | date = January 29, 2007 | url = http://www.metamute.org/InfoEnclosure-2.0 | access-date = June 4, 2007 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20111025112523/http://www.metamute.org/InfoEnclosure-2.0 | archive-date = October 25, 2011 | url-status = dead | df = mdy-all }}

==External links==
{{Commons category}}
* [http://tools.ietf.org/wg/usefor/ IETF working group USEFOR] (USEnet article FORmat), tools.ietf.org
* [http://quux.org:70/Archives/usenet-a-news/ A-News Archive]: Early Usenet news articles: 1981 to 1982., quux.org
* {{cite web |url=http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/groups/scg/ |title=Netscan |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070621181529/http://netscan.research.microsoft.com/ |archive-date=June 21, 2007}} Social Accounting Reporting Tool
* [https://www.livinginternet.com/internet/u/ui.htm Living Internet] A comprehensive history of the Internet, including Usenet. livinginternet.com
* [http://www.harley.com/usenet/usenet-tutorial/glossary.html Usenet Glossary] A comprehensive list of Usenet terminology
* [https://sybershock.com/#usenet Usenet free servers] A list of free providers of Usenet server access

{{Usenetnav|state=expanded}}
{{Computer-mediated communication}}
{{filesharing}}
{{Internet slang}}
{{Web syndication}}
{{Authority control}}

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