"Usenet was, in its own archaic way, something of the precursor of
social media. It was open to anyone (or anyone with the technical means
and knowledge) to participate in. It was divided up into nine top level
groups (after the great renaming of 85/86), eight of which faced some
form of moderation and the ninth, ALT, which was the wild west of
Usenet, where anything was possible.

ALT did not, in fact, stand for Anarchists, Lunatics and Terrorists, it
just seemed that way.

And there were many other locally created groups that had limited
distribution."

https://tagn.wordpress.com/2023/11/26/usenet-newsgroups-part-i-i-find-some-usenet-archives-on-cd-rom/

"But this was how it was done back in 1979 when they put all of this
together. And not just for Usenet. Early email server storage was the
same way, with every email being a single file on the drive in a
directory that indicated the user name of the owner/recipient. Or
something like that. I used to have the SRI Guide to internet
configurations from 1992, but I am pretty sure that got tossed. (Also,
SRI will come up again in a later post.) But there is still some history
out there if you are interested.

It was okay at the time. The internet was small. There was a limited
number of users. And the UNIX machines driving all of this were among
the most capable around and were largely funded directly or indirectly
by government research grants.

Anyway, it seemed like a good idea at the time. Later, it had to get
fixed and the committee driving all of this came up with a method that
did not litter your drive with hundreds of thousands of tiny files
taking up more space than they should. But that came later after it was
practically a crisis and hosting Usenet was a durability test."

https://tagn.wordpress.com/2023/12/03/usenet-newsgroups-part-ii-what-is-on-that-cd-and-why-your-hard-drive-isnt-a-database/

"Table of Contents:

- Salad Days - 1979 to 1990
- The Rise of News Groups and the Breaking of Norms - 1990 to 1996
- The Green Card Lawyers Destroy it All
- Waiting for Facebook or Something Like It - 1996-2008
- Porn, Death, and the Ashes - 2008 onward
- Usenet Newsgroups Today"

https://tagn.wordpress.com/2023/12/10/usenet-newsgroups-part-iii-founding-fame-influence-and-foreshadowing/

Paul W. Schleck <pschleck@panix.com> wrote:
> "Table of Contents:
>
> - Salad Days - 1979 to 1990
> - The Rise of News Groups and the Breaking of Norms - 1990 to 1996
> - The Green Card Lawyers Destroy it All
> - Waiting for Facebook or Something Like It - 1996-2008
> - Porn, Death, and the Ashes - 2008 onward
> - Usenet Newsgroups Today"
>
>
> https://tagn.wordpress.com/2023/12/10/usenet-newsgroups-part-iii-founding-fame-influence-and-foreshadowing/

https://archive.ph/C2Wmj

Paul W. Schleck <pschleck@panix.com> wrote:
> "But this was how it was done back in 1979 when they put all of this
> together. And not just for Usenet. Early email server storage was the
> same way, with every email being a single file on the drive in a
> directory that indicated the user name of the owner/recipient. Or
> something like that. I used to have the SRI Guide to internet
> configurations from 1992, but I am pretty sure that got tossed. (Also,
> SRI will come up again in a later post.) But there is still some history
> out there if you are interested.
>
> It was okay at the time. The internet was small. There was a limited
> number of users. And the UNIX machines driving all of this were among
> the most capable around and were largely funded directly or indirectly
> by government research grants.
>
> Anyway, it seemed like a good idea at the time. Later, it had to get
> fixed and the committee driving all of this came up with a method that
> did not litter your drive with hundreds of thousands of tiny files
> taking up more space than they should. But that came later after it was
> practically a crisis and hosting Usenet was a durability test."
>
>
> https://tagn.wordpress.com/2023/12/03/usenet-newsgroups-part-ii-what-is-on-that-cd-and-why-your-hard-drive-isnt-a-database/

https://archive.ph/kIe1O

Paul W. Schleck <pschleck@panix.com> wrote:
> "Usenet was, in its own archaic way, something of the precursor of
> social media. It was open to anyone (or anyone with the technical means
> and knowledge) to participate in. It was divided up into nine top level
> groups (after the great renaming of 85/86), eight of which faced some
> form of moderation and the ninth, ALT, which was the wild west of
> Usenet, where anything was possible.
>
> ALT did not, in fact, stand for Anarchists, Lunatics and Terrorists, it
> just seemed that way.
>
> And there were many other locally created groups that had limited
> distribution."
>
>
> https://tagn.wordpress.com/2023/11/26/usenet-newsgroups-part-i-i-find-some-usenet-archives-on-cd-rom/

https://archive.ph/Ntytf