As of October of As of 2002, there are around 100,000 Usenet newsgroups, of which approximately a fifth are active. This number varies, depending on the news server carrying the newsgroups.
While it would be impractical for Wikipedia to list each and every newsgroup, several newsgroups are notable and popular, and some have had a considerable history.
Newsgroups of interest include:
=alt=
alt.arts.poetry.comments — for poetry and poetry critique
alt.atheism — discusses atheism
alt.ascii-art — a group for posting, admiring and discussing ASCII art.
alt.binaries.slack — artwork created by and for the Church of the SubGenius.
alt.callahans — Spider Robinson s Callahan s Place online
alt.config — creation of new newsgroups in the Alt hierarchy .
alt.cyberpunk — discussing the writer William Gibson (novelist) and of things cyberpunk.
alt.de.wikipedia — discussion of Wikipedia in German language.
alt.fan.douglas-adams — discussing the writer Douglas Adams.
Meow Wars — a center of the Meow Wars.
alt.folklore.urban — confirming and debunking myth, rumour and old-wives-tales.
alt.gothic — a gothic newsgroup and birthplace of Convergence (goth festival)
alt.gothic.cybergoth — what happens when geek culture and goth culture elope. Different from alt.cyberpunk
alt.history.what-if — discussion of alternate history scenarios.
alt.humor.best-of-usenet
alt.pub.dragons-inn — play by email gaming and fantasy fiction
Kibology — He who Greps.
alt.religion.scientology — discussion of the controversial subject of Scientology.
alt.revisionism — discussion of Holocaust revisionism.
alt.romath — a battleground in the Meow Wars.
alt.sex — the first alt.* newsgroup for discussion of sexual topics.
alt.sex.bondage — discussion of BDSM sex (largely replaced by soc.subculture.bondage-bdsm ).
alt.sex.stories — text-based erotic stories of all types.
alt.sexual.abuse.recovery and alt.sexual.abuse.recovery.moderated
alt.spooky — a parody of alt.gothic inspired by comic book artist Jhonen Vasquez.
alt.suicide.holiday — pro-choice discussion of suicide.
alt.support.childfree — discussions for people who neither have nor want children and identify as childfree.
alt.sysadmin.recovery — the Scary Devil Monastery.
alt.talk.creationism — discussion of the pros and cons of creationism.
alt.tasteless — discussion of subject matter in too poor taste to be discussed elsewhere.
*alt.tv — Alt.tv newsgroup are generally discussion of television shows
alt.tv.beavis-n-butthead — first newsgroup in the Meow Wars.
alt.tv.family-guy — discusses the TV show Family Guy
alt.tv.simpsons — discusses the TV show The Simpsons.
alt.usenet.kooks — discussion of Usenet crank (person)s and their idiosyncratic theories.
alt.wikipedia — discussion of Wikipedia.
alt.zines — discussion of small-press publications, magazines, and pamphlets (zines).
=comp=
comp.ai — general discussions about artificial intelligence
comp.dcom.telecom — general discussions about telecommunications systems.
comp.graphics.api.opengl — general discussion of OpenGL topics
comp.lang.asm.x86 — discussions about assembly language for x86-based computer systems.
comp.lang.c — general discussions about the C programming language.
comp.lang.C Plus Plus — general discussions about C++ programming language.
comp.soft-sys.matlab — the MathWorks calculation and visualization package.
=humanities=
=misc=
=news=
news.admin.net-abuse.email — discussion of abuse of email by spammers and other parties.
news.groups — creation and deletion of newsgroups in the Big 8 (comp.*, humanities.*, misc.*, news.*, rec.*, sci.*, soc.*, and talk.*)
=rec=
rec.arts.books — general discussion of books.
rec.arts.erotica — text-based erotic stories — was banned at many sites.
rec.arts.poems — for the posting of poetry
rec.arts.sf.written.robert-jordan — created when the readers of rec.arts.sf.written became exasperated by the surfeit of Robert Jordan-related discussion
rec.arts.tv — discussion about televsion. For television shows, browse alt.tv
rec.arts.tv.soaps.cbs discussion about soap operas broadcast by the CBS television network.
rec.arts.tv.mst3k.misc — discussion of the TV series Mystery Science Theater 3000 .
rec.autos.sport.nascar — discussion of Nextel cup and other racing series.
rec.humor.funny — edited (moderated) jokes.
Internet Oracle — Internet humor
rec.music.country.western — discussion of country music then and now.
rec.music.industrial — discussion of industrial music.
rec.radio.amateur.dx — discussion of amateur radio.
rec.radio.broadcasting — discussion of broadcasting radio.
rec.radio.shortwave — discussion of shortwave radio.
rec.sport.pro-wrestling — general discussion of professional wrestling and current events using wrestling related terms.
rec.sport.soccer — general discussion of world football (soccer).
rec.woodworking — general discussion of woodworking.
=sci=
sci.astro — general discussion of astronomy
sci.geo.earthquakes — general discussion of earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis, and other geological and seismic events.
sci.geo.geology — general discussion of geology.
sci.geo.meteorology — general discussion of meteorology and weather phenomena.
sci.math — general discussion of mathematics from arithmetic to high level calculus.
sci.optics — general discussion of optics and light sciences.
sci.optics.fiber — general discussion of fiber optics.
sci.physics — general discussion of Physics.
sci.physics.electromag — general discussion of electromagnetic phenomena.
=soc=
soc.support.youth.gay-lesbian-bi — support group for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered teenagers and youths.
=talk=
talk.bizarre — a newsfroup for experiencing the bizarre.
talk.origins — evolution-creationism controversy which maintains an extensive FAQ.
=others=
it.arti.trash — one of the most active on italian topics. Vito s annual meeting included.
stl.general — General interest items for Saint Louis, Missouri, Missouri region.
= See also =
[http://groups.google.com/ Google Groups] contains a complete browsable list of groups at http://groups.google.com/groupsgroup=*