Big Eight

The eight major hierarchies of USENET groups.

• comp -- computers and computing
• humanities -- literature and such
• misc -- miscellaneous topics
• news -- USENET News itself
• rec -- recreational topics
• sci -- science
• soc -- social groups and concerns
• talk -- chatter on various topics

Note that the alt hierarchy is not included in the Big Eight, although it certainly carries quite a lot of traffic -- mostly binaries and spam.