Google Groups no longer supports new Usenet posts or subscriptions. Historical content remains viewable.
Dismiss

Reviving the hierarchy notes

13 views
Skip to first unread message

Julien ÉLIE

unread,
May 31, 2023, 5:24:02 PM5/31/23
to
Hi all,

Following a discussion with Adam, I think it's better to open a new thread.

Lots of valuable archaeology information have been sent in this
newsgroup for years but unfortunately they weren't gathered for quick
reference somewhere.

There are also old notes from Russ and tale here:
https://ftp.isc.org/usenet/CONFIG/HIERARCHY-NOTES


I'm wondering the best way to revive them, and integrate Adam's and
other people's valuable information about hierarchies.

I could easily parse HIERARCHY-NOTES and make the related information
available in the web pages of a hierarchy in usenet.trigofacile.com, as
a new item "History notes" for instance, just after the "Comments" from
control.ctl. The problem however is that all the hierarchies listed in
HIERARCHY-NOTES are not referenced in ftp.isc.org files. Should I then
just add them in "Defunct hierarchies" with the "History notes" item?

Another possibility would be to add a "Hierarchy notes" web page with
the contents of HIERARCHY-NOTES (plus maybe also the Comments from
control.ctl to make the notes more complete).

Or implement both :)
They indeed both seem useful, with different use cases (looking at one
hierarchy or looking at the history of all of them).

I could then integrate in the notes every details Adam or others found
out these late years. (Unless they are more appropriate in control.ctl,
when speaking about rules for the processing of control articles.)


Any other thoughts welcome about how to best achieve that and revive the
hierarchy notes.

--
Julien ÉLIE

« On ne va jamais si loin que lorsque l'on ne sait pas où l'on va. »

Ted Heise

unread,
May 31, 2023, 5:53:49 PM5/31/23
to
I have nothing of substance to offer, other than to say that as a
long time Usenet consumer (and occasional contributor) I truly
appreciate the efforts to maintain/improve the system.

--
Ted Heise <the...@panix.com> West Lafayette, IN, USA

Julien ÉLIE

unread,
Jun 1, 2023, 2:38:31 AM6/1/23
to
Hi Ted,

> I have nothing of substance to offer, other than to say that as a
> long time Usenet consumer (and occasional contributor) I truly
> appreciate the efforts to maintain/improve the system.

Thanks for your message. Such feedback is naturally greatly appreciated :)

Julien ÉLIE

unread,
Jun 14, 2023, 5:43:41 PM6/14/23
to
Hi all,

> Lots of valuable archaeology information have been sent in this
> newsgroup for years but unfortunately they weren't gathered for quick
> reference somewhere.
>
> There are also old notes from Russ and tale here:
>   https://ftp.isc.org/usenet/CONFIG/HIERARCHY-NOTES

Good news, I have finally taken the time to integrate that great work
from Russ and tale here:
http://usenet.trigofacile.com/hierarchies/notes-about-hierarchies.html

The notes are also added in the web page of hierarchies listed in
control.ctl or with newsgroups in the ftp.isc.org newsgroups file.
(These are the ones with an active hyperlink in the above URL.)

I've rewritten the notes at the third person (using "tale" instead of
"I") for better clarity out of context.

The resulting text file is here:

https://github.com/Julien-Elie/usenet-hierarchies/blob/main/website/data/hierarchy-notes.txt


Naturally, if anyone has suggestions of additions now or anytime in the
future, just drop a note here and I'll happily update the notes.


I'll integrate soon the latest information provided by Adam and Thomas
about mod.* and de.alt.* so as to keep a trace.
And the information I have for microsoft.*, fr.* and france.* too.



Incidentally, I have a question about a sentence from the initial file:
"it would be good to extract the information in here about private and
defunct hierarchies and combine it with the hierarchies FAQ". Which FAQ
is it? I don't think it is the Hierarchy Administration FAQ. Is this
FAQ still posted somewhere in a newsgroup, or available at a URL?


Another question: I do not understand the wording "According to Alan
somebody in mail to me". Has anyone a clue of the intended meaning?
Would it be "According to Alan, somebody who emailed me"?

manawatu.*
For the Manawatu district of New Zealand. Contact ne...@manawatu.gen.nz
for more information. According to Alan somebody in mail to me on 5 Feb
1993, "... it's unlikely that you'll ever see any traffic on it"


--
Julien ÉLIE

« 21.1.1 How to convert mSQL tools for MySQL?
1. Run the shell script msql2mysql on the source. This requires the
replace program, which is distributed with MySQL.
2. Compile.
3. Fix all compiler errors. » (MySQL online manual)

Russ Allbery

unread,
Jun 14, 2023, 5:49:44 PM6/14/23
to
Julien ÉLIE <iul...@nom-de-mon-site.com.invalid> writes:

> Incidentally, I have a question about a sentence from the initial file:
> "it would be good to extract the information in here about private and
> defunct hierarchies and combine it with the hierarchies FAQ". Which FAQ
> is it? I don't think it is the Hierarchy Administration FAQ. Is this
> FAQ still posted somewhere in a newsgroup, or available at a URL?

I believe that was the predecessor of rone's unified control.ctl file,
which in turn was the predecessor of the current control-archive
control.ctl file.

> Another question: I do not understand the wording "According to Alan
> somebody in mail to me". Has anyone a clue of the intended meaning?
> Would it be "According to Alan, somebody who emailed me"?

> manawatu.*
> For the Manawatu district of New Zealand. Contact
> ne...@manawatu.gen.nz for more information. According to Alan somebody
> in mail to me on 5 Feb 1993, "... it's unlikely that you'll ever see
> any traffic on it"

I don't know for sure, but knowing the way that tale phrased things, my
guess is that means someone mailed him who used only "Alan" with no last
name in their From header.

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

Thomas Hochstein

unread,
Jun 15, 2023, 2:30:03 AM6/15/23
to
Julien ÉLIE schrieb:

> Good news, I have finally taken the time to integrate that great work
> from Russ and tale here:
> http://usenet.trigofacile.com/hierarchies/notes-about-hierarchies.html

Thank you very much for your work!

> Naturally, if anyone has suggestions of additions now or anytime in the
> future, just drop a note here and I'll happily update the notes.

Would it make sense to add the information from the - defunct - Master
List of Newsgroup Hierarchies? An archived version is available at
<https://web.archive.org/web/20160407174854/http://pfx.ca/mlnh/mlnhtables.html>.

(That would allow me to cross that item off my ever-growing todo list. :))

-thh

Julien ÉLIE

unread,
Jun 15, 2023, 6:08:14 AM6/15/23
to
Hi Russ,

>> Incidentally, I have a question about a sentence from the initial file:
>> "it would be good to extract the information in here about private and
>> defunct hierarchies and combine it with the hierarchies FAQ". Which FAQ
>> is it? I don't think it is the Hierarchy Administration FAQ. Is this
>> FAQ still posted somewhere in a newsgroup, or available at a URL?
>
> I believe that was the predecessor of rone's unified control.ctl file,
> which in turn was the predecessor of the current control-archive
> control.ctl file.

OK, I can then remove that suggestion to produce a new comprehensive
guide to Usenet hierarchies as this FAQ is fairly outdated and you
already did a clean up when working on the new control.ctl file based on
rone's work in early 2000s.


>> Another question: I do not understand the wording "According to Alan
>> somebody in mail to me". Has anyone a clue of the intended meaning?
>> Would it be "According to Alan, somebody who emailed me"?
>
>> manawatu.*
>> For the Manawatu district of New Zealand. Contact
>> ne...@manawatu.gen.nz for more information. According to Alan somebody
>> in mail to me on 5 Feb 1993, "... it's unlikely that you'll ever see
>> any traffic on it"
>
> I don't know for sure, but knowing the way that tale phrased things, my
> guess is that means someone mailed him who used only "Alan" with no last
> name in their From header.

Thanks for the clarification. I've updated the phrasing.

--
Julien ÉLIE

« La science consiste à passer d'un étonnement à l'autre. » (Aristote)

Julien ÉLIE

unread,
Jun 15, 2023, 6:08:21 AM6/15/23
to
Hi Thomas,

> Would it make sense to add the information from the - defunct - Master
> List of Newsgroup Hierarchies? An archived version is available at
> <https://web.archive.org/web/20160407174854/http://pfx.ca/mlnh/mlnhtables.html>.

I propose to merge that Master List into the descriptions of hierarchies
currently extracted only from control.ctl:

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Julien-Elie/usenet-hierarchies/main/nas/data/hierarchies/Description

And I can put a link to the newly merged list at the beginning of the
miscellaneous hierarchy notes web page.


> (That would allow me to cross that item off my ever-growing todo list. :))

:)

--
Julien ÉLIE

« Ma devise : une bonne sieste et au lit. » (Jean-Jacques Peroni)

Thomas Hochstein

unread,
Jun 17, 2023, 1:30:03 PM6/17/23
to
Julien ÉLIE wrote:

>> Would it make sense to add the information from the - defunct - Master
>> List of Newsgroup Hierarchies? An archived version is available at
>> <https://web.archive.org/web/20160407174854/http://pfx.ca/mlnh/mlnhtables.html>.
>
> I propose to merge that Master List into the descriptions of hierarchies
> currently extracted only from control.ctl:
>
> https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Julien-Elie/usenet-hierarchies/main/nas/data/hierarchies/Description

That seems to be a good idea!

Thanks,
-thh

Kerr Avon

unread,
Jun 23, 2023, 7:46:52 AM6/23/23
to
Russ Allbery <ea...@eyrie.org> wrote:

>
>> Another question: I do not understand the wording "According to Alan
>> somebody in mail to me". Has anyone a clue of the intended meaning?
>> Would it be "According to Alan, somebody who emailed me"?
>
>> manawatu.*
>> For the Manawatu district of New Zealand. Contact
>> ne...@manawatu.gen.nz for more information. According to Alan somebody
>> in mail to me on 5 Feb 1993, "... it's unlikely that you'll ever see
>> any traffic on it"
>
> I don't know for sure, but knowing the way that tale phrased things, my
> guess is that means someone mailed him who used only "Alan" with no last
> name in their From header.
>

This would have been Alan Brown who was involved in Manawatu Internet
Services

manawatu.gen.nz was their UUCP hub address.

Golly I feel old ;-)


--
Agency News | news.bbs.nz

Julien ÉLIE

unread,
Jun 25, 2023, 3:46:08 AM6/25/23
to
Hi Kerr Avon,

>>> manawatu.*
>>> For the Manawatu district of New Zealand. Contact
>>> ne...@manawatu.gen.nz for more information. According to Alan somebody
>>> in mail to me on 5 Feb 1993, "... it's unlikely that you'll ever see
>>> any traffic on it"
>
> This would have been Alan Brown who was involved in Manawatu Internet
> Services
>
> manawatu.gen.nz was their UUCP hub address.

Thanks, I have updated the notes for manawatu.*.
http://usenet.trigofacile.com/hierarchies/notes-about-hierarchies.html

--
Julien ÉLIE

« Ce qu'on est arrivé à faire avec le téléphone sans fil, va-t-on le
réussir un jour avec les haricots ? » (Philip Geluck)

Julien ÉLIE

unread,
Dec 27, 2023, 3:10:25 PM12/27/23
to
Hi Thomas,

> Would it make sense to add the information from the - defunct - Master
> List of Newsgroup Hierarchies? An archived version is available at
> <https://web.archive.org/web/20160407174854/http://pfx.ca/mlnh/mlnhtables.html>.
>
> (That would allow me to cross that item off my ever-growing todo list. :))

I've at last done that. We can both cross that item off :-)

I hope the result looks fine to you.

There are 397 additional hierarchies in the above master list that are
not present in control.ctl.

The merged view of control.ctl and the master list is here:

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Julien-Elie/usenet-hierarchies/main/nas/data/hierarchies/Description

I've added a link to that merged view at the beginning of:
http://usenet.trigofacile.com/hierarchies/notes-about-hierarchies.html



7 descriptions would be worthwhile updating for the next release of
control.ctl. I've added a reminder there:
https://github.com/rra/control-archive/issues/5


Interestingly, I found out while doing the merge that 2 hierarchies
co-exist in the same namespace: Slovakian newsgroups, and regional
Saskatchewan (Canada) newsgroups.
Here is an old discussion about that:
https://groups.google.com/g/sk.net.news/c/fGKu_UVpd-s




Question, in case someone knows: abg.* and affrc.* are listed in the
master list, but without any information. Does it remind you anything?
I've kept "?" for them but will update it as needed if someone has
information.

--
Julien ÉLIE

« Chuck Norris once ran cd .. in / and it worked. »

Marcel Logen

unread,
Dec 27, 2023, 4:59:10 PM12/27/23
to
Julien ÉLIE in news.admin.hierarchies:

[...]

>Question, in case someone knows: abg.* and affrc.* are listed in the
>master list, but without any information. Does it remind you anything?
>I've kept "?" for them but will update it as needed if someone has
>information.

AFAIK, abg.* is the regional hierarchy (city hierarchy) for
Augsburg, DE. But I'm not fully sure about that.

Marcel
--
─╮ ╭─╮ ╭───╮ ╭──────────╮ ╭──╮ ╭──────╮ ╭─╮..67..
│ │ ╰───╯ ╰─╮ ╰────────╮ ╰────────╮ │ │ ╰──╮ ╰────╯ │..67..
│ │ ╭─────╯ ╭──╮ │ ╭─────╯ │ │ ╭─╮ │ ..60..╰───╮
╰─────╯ ╰─────────╯ ╰────╯ ╰───────╯ ╰─╯ ╰──╯ ..64..╰─╮

Julien ÉLIE

unread,
Dec 28, 2023, 2:51:18 AM12/28/23
to
Hi Marcel, Christoph,

>> AFAIK, abg.* is the regional hierarchy (city hierarchy) for
>> Augsburg, DE. But I'm not fully sure about that.
>
> Can confirm.

Thanks for it, I've updated the description.

--
Julien ÉLIE

« Ce qui est fait n'est plus à faire. »

John Hall

unread,
Dec 28, 2023, 3:13:36 AM12/28/23
to
In message <umi0bf$236qn$1...@news.trigofacile.com>, Julien ÉLIE
<iul...@nom-de-mon-site.com.invalid> writes
<snip>
>Question, in case someone knows: abg.* and affrc.* are listed in the
>master list, but without any information. Does it remind you anything?
>I've kept "?" for them but will update it as needed if someone has
>information.

Going a Google search, the only match I could find for affrc was for the
Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Research Council in Japan.

This web page:

http://plan9.stanleylieber.com/lib/newsgroups

lists the following newsgroups as being in the affrc hierarchy:

affrc.chat
affrc.meetings
affrc.misc
affrc.net
affrc.newsystems
affrc.sas
affrc.sys
affrc.test
affrc.trouble
affrc.wanted
--
John Hall
"Acting is merely the art of keeping a large group of people
from coughing."
Sir Ralph Richardson (1902-83)

Thomas Hochstein

unread,
Dec 29, 2023, 6:15:04 AM12/29/23
to
Marcel Logen wrote:

> AFAIK, abg.* is the regional hierarchy (city hierarchy) for
> Augsburg, DE. But I'm not fully sure about that.

Yes, that's correct. See <https://de-regio.de/show.php?hierarchy=abg>.

Marcel Logen

unread,
Dec 29, 2023, 7:16:55 AM12/29/23
to
Thomas Hochstein in news.admin.hierarchies:
Thank you, Thomas.

BTW a correction:

| Beschreibung Ausgburg,Germany
^^ ^^

Marcel
--
╭───────╮ ╭───╮ ╭─╮ ╭────╮ ╭───────╮ ..67..
│ ╰──╮ ╰─╮ │ ╭──╮ ..37..│ ╰──╯ ╭─╯ │ ╭────╯ ╭─╮
╰──╮ ╭────╯ ╭──╯ ╰─╯ ╰──╮ ╭─╮ ╭──╮ ╰─╮ ╭─╯ ╭──╯ ╰─╮ ╭──╯ ╰─
╭───╯ ╰──────╯ ╰──╯ ╰───╯ ╰────╯ ╰────╯ ╰───╯..67..

Thomas Hochstein

unread,
Dec 29, 2023, 8:45:03 AM12/29/23
to
Marcel Logen wrote:

> BTW a correction:
>
> | Beschreibung Ausgburg,Germany
> ^^ ^^

Yeah, that does look a bit broken ... Fixed.

Julien ÉLIE

unread,
Jan 7, 2024, 5:54:14 PMJan 7
to
Hi Thomas,

> See <https://de-regio.de/show.php?hierarchy=abg>.

I did not know that web site. Very great work, and useful for an
overview of German-speaking hierarchies.

https://de-regio.de/show.php?hierarchy=bln&lang=en
You may want to update the date of the latest checkgroups for bln.* and
add information about its new PGP-managed status.


Incidentally, in the control.ctl file, there is:

## BDA (German groups?)
checkgroups:news@*netuse.de:bda.*:doit
newgroup:news@*netuse.de:bda.*:doit
rmgroup:news@*netuse.de:bda.*:doit

bda.config Config fuer News der BDA.
bda.forum.bda Forum der BDA.
bda.forum.hfa Diskussionforum fuer die Heldenfussallee (Internet Soap
Opera)
bda.forum.jp Diskussion ueber Beitraege des Journalisten Pools.
bda.forum.zeit.feuilleton Debatte kultureller Themen aller Arten.
bda.forum.zeit.job Praktika und Job-Tips.
bda.forum.zeit.kolumnen Kolumnen aus der ZEIT.
bda.forum.zeit.thema Diskussionen ums woechentliche ZEIT-Thema.
bda.jp.misc Artikel des Journalisten Pools.
bda.news Neuigkeiten zur BDA.
bda.test Tests der BDA.



This hierarchy is not listed in your web site. Does it sound something
to you?

--
Julien ÉLIE

« Inter pradendum sit saepe parumque bibendum. »

Julien ÉLIE

unread,
Jan 7, 2024, 5:54:57 PMJan 7
to
Hi John,

> Doing a Google search, the only match I could find for affrc was for the
> Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Research Council in Japan.

Thanks for your research. I've added that information for affrc.* and
put a question mark at the end as we're not 100% sure.

--
Julien ÉLIE

« Life is short… so eat dessert first! »
0 new messages