For an introduction to this thread's chronological posts, please see the first post in the series, for the year 1981. 1982 saw the foundation of the series of lists of newsgroups that would eventually become the core of the Big 8 newsgroup creation process. Also, the "official" lists became much, much longer. There is, unfortunately, an eight month gap between lists, during which this expansion takes place; it will take further research to find out how much of the expansion was the result of an actual increase in the number of groups, and how much was due to changed attitudes on the part of list-posters. Joe Bernstein Lists of Newsgroups Posted in 1982 CURT STEPHENS "grouplist" January 26, 1982 net.news.group Google Message-ID: anews.Aazure.430 (The header was converted from A-News style by Google. There is another copy of this post, from the same ultimate source in the Toronto archives, as represented in the former Oldnews website, which is part of an appendix to a chapter by Ronda Hauben; see on the Web . That copy's header may or may not be complete, but does confirm the newsgroup, subject line, and date, and includes no Message-ID.) This list was posted not long after Curt Stephens proposed the creation of net.newsgroup for the purpose of posting such lists. This is my main, but not my only, evidence for ascribing to him the emphasis on groups' "official"ness which I think the list-posters have had in common. I have no reason to think the description lines he provided were written by anyone other than him; they are not textual descendants of Mark Horton's from December 1981. The list is formatted very differently from modern lists - numerous multi-line descriptions; formatting bars between each newsgroup row and between the columns. But Curt Stephens was the only list-poster for years to follow the modern practice of putting all newsgroup names at the left margin. His lists are significantly longer than Mark Horton's; this reflects not only rapid group creation in the winter of 1981-82 (although that certainly was happening) but also a more inclusive approach. Added: fa.teletext, net.games.frp, net.games.trivia, net.lan, net.lsi, net.misc, net.news.directory, net.news.group, net.news.map, net.news.newsite, net.news (a duplicative listing, not the original net.news), net.oa, net.rec.bridge, net.records, net.sources, net.taxes, net.travel, net.unix-wizards. Removed: fa.printers, fa.unix-wizards, net.bugs.u3, net.jokes.q. The list notes fa.human-nets as being moderated, but that was hardly the only "moderated" fa.* group at this time, so I don't distinguish it from other groups in my summary on this basis. Similarly, gateways are noted for net.chess and net.unix-wizards, but with no indication whether these are the only gatewayed net.* groups. (From various Google searches I formed the impression that there were three such, actually, and that the gateways lasted throughout 1982; the third was net.micro.) Summary: From 19 to 18 fa.* groups, from 34 to 49 net.* groups (one duplicative), 67 (or 66) total. "List of Newsgroups" February 3, 1982 net.news.group Google Message-ID: anews.Aazure.483 (The header was converted from A-News style by Google.) Nearly all description lines are now only one line long. Added: net.cooks, net.space. fa.human-nets is no longer described as moderated, and net.chess is no longer described as gatewayed, but these are merely changes in the wording of description lines (probably to shorten them); they don't represent changes in the actual groups. Summary: From 18 to 18 fa.* groups, from 49 to 51 net.* groups (one duplicative), 69 (or 68) total. "List of Newspgroups" [sic] March 9, 1982 net.news.group Google Message-ID: anews.Aazure.614 (The header was converted from A-News style by Google.) There are no longer dividing lines between newsgroups, thankfully, though they're still there between the columns. All description lines are now only one line long. Added: net.dcom, net.wines. Removed: net.chess. I don't understand the removal of net.chess at all. It's worth mentioning that chess, specifically computer chess, is one of the common interests that drew together several of the people who would invent Usenet; it nevertheless didn't get its own newsgroup until November 1981, but I find it purely bizarre that three months later someone would suggest removing it. However, it *is* true that people in net.news.* were periodically complaining that net.chess either duplicated, or should be a subgroup of, net.games, throughout the life of net.chess, and this could be Curt Stephens's way of indicating agreement. Summary: From 18 to 18 fa.* groups, from 51 to 52 net.* groups (one duplicative), 70 (or 69) total. ANONYMOUS ("From cbosg!harpo!npois!eiss!ladm" in the original e-mail version, "From: ARPAVAX:Usenet" in the posted version.) This poster's anonymity is why I can't attribute to him or her the intent of "official"ness that I do attribute to Curt Stephens and Adam Buchsbaum. But the post shows signs of being part of a netnews distribution in origin; that strongly implies that it has the same intent (in this case, that everyone who used the software distributed would start from the same list of groups). "misc/newsinfo" April 20, 1982 net.sources Google Message-ID: anews.Aucbarpa.1182 (The header was converted from A-News style by Google.) The above is how you'll find this post in Google, but it seems fairly clear that the true source is an e-mail or some such thing, dated March 19, 1982. This list is clearly based on those by Curt Stephens. However, the format is again improved (newsgroups are no longer double spaced) and also worsened (multi-line descriptions are common again). Gateway information is again provided, the last time for years. Added: net.cse, net.followup, net.math, net.micro, net.rec.boat, net.rec.skydive, net.sf-lovers. Removed: net.news (the duplicate copy). Additional information: Claims that fa.human-nets, fa.sf-lovers, and fa.telecom are available "PRINTED ONLY", and fa.space "ALSO PRINTED"; that fa.poli-sci and fa.tcp-ip are "TURNED OFF"; and that net.sf-lovers, net.space, and net.unix-wizards are gatewayed. The "PRINTED" references, and the allegation that two groups that would live a long time were "TURNED OFF", suggest that this is a location-specific list, but this conflicts with a number of other indications that it's part of a software release; I'm confused. One plausible explanation would be that it was in fact part of a software release, but a software release by a company or school, designed to get all computers at that institution running the same news software (and list of newsgroups). In that case, given the material's emphasis on BTL locations and newsgroups, AT&T is the most obvious possible source. Summary: From 18 to 18 fa.* groups, from 52 to 58 net.* groups, 76 total. CURT STEPHENS "grouplist" November 20, 1982 net.general Google Message-ID: bnews.azure.1484 (The header was converted from B-News style by Google.) This post only precedes Adam Buchsbaum's first one by a day; I find it implausible that Adam Buchsbaum's first post took only a day's work, so I think rather that both were posted in response to some request or need that was in the air, so to speak, and that I haven't yet found in the archives. Curt Stephens explicitly says that this list is quite outdated, and invites corrections. Yet it stands in anomalous contrast to the March 19 list. All the new creations in the March 19 list are absent from this one, which would imply that this one was earlier, a simple replica of Curt Stephens's previous (March 9) list. That, however, is not true; there are three new groups on here, too, *none* of which are on the March 19 list. And most strikingly of all, the new creations on *both* lists uniformly survived into Adam Buchsbaum's lists. It's as though the author of the anonymous list had utterly different criteria for judging new groups from those Curt Stephens himself used, but took as his or her basis the March 9 list *by* Curt Stephens. Added: net.games.emp, net.invest, net.news (the duplicative copy), net.physics. Removed: net.cse, net.followup, net.math, net.micro, net.rec.boat, net.rec.skydive, net.sf-lovers. Summary: From 18 to 18 fa.* groups, from 58 to 55 net.* groups (one duplicative), 73 (or 72) total. ADAM BUCHSBAUM "List of USENET Newsgroups" November 21, 1982 net.news.group Google Message-ID: bnews.alice.1179 (The header was converted from B-News style by Google.) I think this post is the beginning of the Big 8's newsgroup creation governance system. Already by the end of 1982, Adam Buchsbaum's lists of newsgroups were being accepted by other site administrators as official. They would eventually become the "List of Active Newsgroups" which Gene Spafford would inherit in mid-1984 and which continued to be posted until the end of 1996. As best I can tell, Gene Spafford's authority in the newsgroup creation system, from 1984 to his retirement, derived very largely from his work editing this list; he certainly seems to have considered it his most important work, to judge by his farewell message. The newsgroup descriptions show no evidence of relationship to Curt Stephens's descriptions; I presume, but do not know, that they were all written by Adam Buchsbaum. I haven't yet researched at what date newsgroup lines became part of what people voted on, but since they would change repeatedly over the next few years, I'm betting that they weren't up for vote before 1987, anyway. Despite the changes, the descriptions in this list are in fact the direct ancestors of the newsgroup lines of today. This initial list is formatted rather differently from the lists we're used to today. It's hard to see this any way *but* teleologically; Adam Buchsbaum started with (and stuck with) a format, which Gene Spafford changed piece by piece between September 1984 and May 1987 into the format we now know. So here's a list of differences: All "subgroups" (third-level groups) are indented, and their newsgroup lines read typically "Subgroup for ..." (essentially assuming that you'll already have read the parent group's newsgroup line). There are consistently two or more tabs between newsgroup names and descriptions, so that subgroups' names and descriptions begin in different columns from second-level groups' names and descriptions. Descriptions are sometimes multiple lines in length. Moderation is not flagged (but then, at that time, it didn't exist, except in the sense that many fa.* groups were moderated); when it appears, it'll be flagged differently from how we're used to seeing it flagged now (and that is, in fact, why the eventual Lists of Moderators became part of this step of my project). Hierarchies are listed in a set order, net.* then fa.* (and later mod.* at the end), rather than alphabetically. Speaking of alphabetical order, although all of this succession of newsgroup lists are clearly intended to be alphabetical within hierarchies, errors in alphabetisation are not merely present, but *common*, and often persist for multiple lists. As of mid-1987, this remained true, although the Great Renaming significantly improved matters. I'm bringing this up not to insult the listers but to emphasise that these lists appear to have been, from the beginning to at least 1987, human-created rather than automatically updated. (I retain some of the errors in alphabetisation in my own lists in these posts; this is both caused by, and representative of, the fact that my work has been mostly manual as well. I did not do this work by using diff.) This is the first list known to me for (give or take something) eight months, and predictably offers major changes; I suspect, but do not know, that it's also based on significantly better research, or significantly more liberal attitudes, than the previous lists. Anyway, the list of official groups here grows considerably. Added: fa.bitgraph, fa.info-vlsi, fa.railroad, net.adm.site, net.arch, net.audio, net.bugs.uucp, net.chess (again), net.cms, net.cse (again), net.flame, net.followup (again), net.games.dip, net.games.pacman, net.games.pbm, net.games.video, net.info-micro, net.info-terms, net.jobs, net.jokes.d, net.lang, net.lang.ada, net.lang.apl, net.lang.c, net.lang.lisp, net.lang.pascal, net.mail, net.math (again), net.micro (again), net.micro.432, net.micro.68k, net.micro.atari, net.micro.pc, net.micro.zx, net.news.config, net.nlang, net.notes, net.poems, net.politics, net.railroad, net.rec.birds, net.rec.boat (again), net.rec.caves, net.rec.coins, net.rec.photo, net.rec.skydive (again), net.research, net.sf-lovers (again), net.singles, net.social, net.startrek, net.suicide, net.trivia, net.tv, net.tv.sctv, net.usenix, net.usoft, net.usoft.s, net.video, net.wanted, net.wobegon, net.works. Removed: fa.unix-cpm, net.news (the duplicative copy). Summary: From 18 to 20 fa.* groups, from 55 to 113 net.* groups, 133 total. "List of Active Newsgroups" December 5, 1982 net.news.group Google Message-ID: bnews.alice.1250 (The header was converted from B-News style by Google.) And here we find a set of rmgroups which Adam Buchsbaum had initiated work on roughly at the same time as he started posting lists! Added: net.bugs.usg, net.lang.prolog, net.lang.st80. Removed: fa.info-micro, fa.railroad, fa.works, net.auto.vw, net.cms, net.games.dip, net.info-micro, net.info-terms, net.news.directory, net.oa, net.research, net.trivia, net.tv.sctv, net.wines. Ambiguously removed: fa.space. (The newsgroup name is not listed, but a line from its description survives in the right place. Probably an editing error intended to represent complete removal.) Two of the removed net.* groups would return in the next list. Summary: From 20 to 16 (or 17) fa.* groups, from 113 to 105 net.* groups, 121 (or 122) total. This is the last newsgroup list known to me posted in 1982.