From news.daimi.aau.dk!news.uni-c.dk!sunic!news.luth.se!eru.mt.luth.se!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!hookup!caen!hearst.acc.Virginia.EDU!news.jmu.edu!usenet Wed Mar  1 15:32:25 1995
Path: news.daimi.aau.dk!news.uni-c.dk!sunic!news.luth.se!eru.mt.luth.se!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!hookup!caen!hearst.acc.Virginia.EDU!news.jmu.edu!usenet
From: LSBUMGAR@vax1.acs.jmu.edu (lee s. bumgarner)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.culture.usenet,news.admin.misc
Subject: A History of the Great Renaming, V .2
Date: 23 Feb 1995 14:45:06 GMT
Organization: The Second Foundation
Lines: 80
Sender: LSBUMGAR@jmu.edu
Message-ID: <3ii71i$ng8@doc.jmu.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: vax2.acs.jmu.edu
X-News-Reader: VMS NEWS v1.25
Xref: news.daimi.aau.dk alt.folklore.computers:85617 alt.culture.usenet:8094 news.admin.misc:32089

I've slightly changed this at the request of Wiles, and hope no harm has been
done. If you've read this already, the changes are at the end. I plan to
do away with this format for the final version for the most part, in order 
for it to be more Usenet friendly.
Again, if you know anything about this, please contact me.
-l

Since the collective memory of Usenet is something like two weeks,  it is
rare for an event to be of such signficance to Usenet that it be refered to
a month later, much less nearly ten years later. Yet such is the case with
the Great Renaming, which took place in 1986. 

"The growth of Usenet prompted it.  The original scheme of just three 
worldwide hierarchies --net.* for unmoderated groups, mod.* for moderated 
groups and fa.* for gatewayed groups --- and the fairly haphazard way in
which new names were developed was difficult to administer, "  David Lawrence,
(tale@uunet.uu.net) writes.

Due to Usenet's growth, not only was it becoming difficult to figure out what
they were looking for, but increasing number of readers were posting their
articles to the wrong newsgroup, Lawrence wrote.
  
Yet according to Lawrence, it was  site administrators who were having the
most problems. It was becoming more difficult for those who wanted only
partial feed to maintaining their subscription files, "and the
hierarchal aspect of the namespace was meant in no small part to make the
desired feeding of groups more easy to accomplish," he said. 

Edwin Wiles a spectator of the event, (Edwin_Wiles@vienna.itd.sterling.com),
agrees,  writing that eventually things came to a head. "It [Usenet] was
taking far too much time, and causing far too much trouble.  So, various
people started communicating on "what do we do about this
mess?!?!'" 

So the process began, although not without some difficulty. "A great deal of
this was done in open newsgroups that anyone could have read, had they 
wanted to.  However, most people being more interested in getting on with
their lives, weren't paying any attention.  Only those who were being hurt by
the situation were attempting to solve the problem," he said.

Eventually, plans for the Great Renaming were announce in newsgroups outside
those that had been discussing it, Wiles said. "People who hadn't been
paying attention to what was going on in open forum suddenly started 
screaming 'Who are these people and just where do they get off telling
ME what MY newsgroups are going to be called!?'" he said. Wiles said once
the initial shock wore off, however,  most people began to read the 
various articles explain why the proposals had been made, and they 
realized that it was indeed time for a change. Yet, as is usual with Usenet,
not everyone was convinced. 

According to Wiles, the "alt.*" hierarchy was created "to pacify one
segment of the net.community who would not tolerate the idea that there
would be any sort of external control over ``their'' newsfeed.  Within
the ``alt'' hierarchy there would be *no* controls *whatsoever* on
newsgroup creation, removal, renaming, moderation, or unmoderation.
A total free-for-all."

The  "Big Seven" hierarchies, on the other hand, Wiles said,  would have an 
agreed upon procedure for proposing, discussing, and voting on the creation 
of new newsgroups.  

Wiles continued, "Over the last few years, I've been rather amused to
see ``alt'' people saying the same things that were being said about
the whole of Usenet before the ``great renaming''.  It may at some
point be necessary to institute controls on ``alt'', but what will
it be replaced with?  ``Ffa.'' for Free-For-All?
  
I assure you, the vociferous ones who originally forced the creation
of ``alt'' by refusing to see reason are still out there, just as
likely to object to controls on ``alt'', and quite capable of forcing
the creation of a replacement ``alt'' hierarchy.  My advice to the
``alt'' people is to stop trying to force ``alt'' into the Big Seven
(making it the Big Eight), and do the work to get your favorite groups
properly moved into one of the Big Seven."

         			    ##30##

                   _____________________________________
 lsbumgar@jmu.edu     *	Boot up, log in, nerd out *         no, I can't spell
                   --------------------------------------