Revitalizing Usenet

The Big-8 newsgroups are those that begin with comp., misc., news., rec., sci., soc., talk., and humanities. They have been the backbone of much of the Usenet since the 1980s. These newsgroups are maintained by the Big-8 Management Board. In 2015, a new board was voted in. The term for a board member is 18 months. By late 2017 the entire board had either resigned or let their terms expire. Since then, no new newsgroups have been created, no abandoned newsgroups have been removed, and no other maintenance has been done.

This was surely a sign that Usenet, the once home to Cypherpunks and the place of the birth of Linux is dying.

In late 2019, three people came together on Reddit and began working with the former board members to put in a new board and to draw attention again to the benefits of Usenet. There is no reason for it to die. In fact, it should be protected as one of the most important living artifacts of Internet history. Not in a museum, but a living active organ of the internet. This is our story to bring back the Big-8 Management Board and to breathe new life into Usenet.