Newsgroups are organized into category hierarchies of names and dots, which are read right to left. For example,
alt.music.jazz means the jazz music topic in the alt (alternate) category. Categories are often designated with an asterisk to represent all topics; for example, talk.* means "talk.all," or the entire Talk category (see
wild cards).
The Alt category is the most varied. The least moderated of newsgroups, Alt contains a huge number of topics, including X-rated material. The
alt.binaries category is used to share non-text files, including software, images and videos. Following are the major categories. See
newsgroup and
Usenet.
Category Subjects
alt varied, X-rated
alt.binaries images, videos
biz business (ads allowed)
comp computer technical
misc miscellaneous
news Usenet technical issues
rec recreation (sports, etc.)
sci science and medicine
soc social issues
talk controversial topics