1. What sources have copies of charters and RFDs for newsgroups in the
'alt.' hierarchy? The charter is more important to me than the RFD.

2. Do any NNTP servers store these charter documents? If so, which ones?

3. If 'yes' to #2, what are the NNTP commands for requesting such
documents from a NNTP server?

Best case scenario I hope for: connect to a server via telnet / ssh and
request charter for relevant individual groups one at a time.

4. If 'no' to #2-3, are there any online resources with all the 'alt.'
charters?

Thank you in advance for your attention to these questions.

--

~ Hank Ross ~

Hank Ross <hross@no_spam.web> writes:

> 1. What sources have copies of charters and RFDs for newsgroups in the
> 'alt.' hierarchy? The charter is more important to me than the RFD.

There's no such thing for alt.* groups. You may be able to find some
original intent for the groups in their archived control messages at:

https://ftp.isc.org/usenet/control/alt

but frequently that's only the newsgroups line, and in some cases the
groups were created so long ago that not even that is archived.

alt.* is an unmanaged hierarchy in which anyone historically can create a
newsgroup, with no requirements for charters, RFDs, or anything of the
sort.

--
Russ Allbery (eagle@eyrie.org) <https://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>

Please post questions rather than mailing me directly.
<https://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/faqs/questions.html> explains why.

On 10/9/21 10:08 PM, Russ Allbery wrote:
> Hank Ross <hross@no_spam.web> writes:
>
>> 1. What sources have copies of charters and RFDs for newsgroups in the
>> 'alt.' hierarchy? The charter is more important to me than the RFD.
>
> There's no such thing for alt.* groups. You may be able to find some
> original intent for the groups in their archived control messages at:
>
> https://ftp.isc.org/usenet/control/alt
>
> but frequently that's only the newsgroups line, and in some cases the
> groups were created so long ago that not even that is archived.
>
> alt.* is an unmanaged hierarchy in which anyone historically can create a
> newsgroup, with no requirements for charters, RFDs, or anything of the
> sort.

Understood. Thanks for the link.

This leads me to ask:

1. Are there any non-control file descriptions or equivalent blurbs
stored _anywhwere_ for 'alt.' hierarchies?

2. Do any NNTP servers have the control files archived? I've never run a
NNTP server so this is a black box to me.

--

~ Hank Ross ~

Hank Ross <hross@no_spam.web> writes:

> 1. Are there any non-control file descriptions or equivalent blurbs
> stored _anywhwere_ for 'alt.' hierarchies?

Not that I'm aware of.

> 2. Do any NNTP servers have the control files archived? I've never run a
> NNTP server so this is a black box to me.

There is almost certainly an NNTP server out there with a very long expire
for control, but I'm afraid I'm not the person who knows which one or how
to access it.

--
Russ Allbery (eagle@eyrie.org) <https://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>

Please post questions rather than mailing me directly.
<https://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/faqs/questions.html> explains why.

Russ Allbery <eagle@eyrie.org> wrote:

> alt.* is an unmanaged hierarchy in which anyone historically can create a
> newsgroup, with no requirements for charters, RFDs, or anything of the
> sort.

Be careful what you say Russ, comments like that could make Kerman to self
harm himself.

-bruce
bje@ripco.com

bje@ripco.com wrote:

>Be careful what you say Russ, comments like that could make Kerman to self
>harm himself.

Gosh. Bruce really hurt my feelings. Sob.

According to Russ Allbery <eagle@eyrie.org>:
>There is almost certainly an NNTP server out there with a very long expire
>for control, but I'm afraid I'm not the person who knows which one or how
>to access it.

Giganews says they have 17 years of history and I think in many cases they have more.

They charge but you can get a 14 day free trial and see what's in their control archive.

--
Regards,
John Levine, johnl@taugh.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. https://jl.ly

Hank Ross wrote:

> 1. What sources have copies of charters and RFDs for newsgroups in the
> 'alt.' hierarchy? The charter is more important to me than the RFD.

I wrote this a few months ago. I hope this helps.
https://www.big-8.org/wiki/How_to_find_a_charter

On 10/10/21 6:51 AM, bje@ripco.com wrote:

> Be careful what you say Russ, comments like that could make Kerman to self
> harm himself.
>
> -bruce
> bje@ripco.com

Be careful what you say Bruce, Kerman the German is not amused. Kerman
the German will find some rule you violated with this statement then
paper cut your fingers off with it.

--

Kerman the German
Conquesti tu Usenetti, byotch