Box 2.3 Characteristics of Usenet Newsgroups Naming Naming of newsgroups is hierarchical and of arbitrary depth. Naming of Usenet newsgroups mirrors the spirit of how computer and other network end points are named within the Internet as a whole, which Usenet predates. Hence [comp.org.usenix] is the computer professional organization USENIX, [comp.os.linux.announce] is announcements concerning a computer operating system named LINUX, [rec.travel.africa] is about recreational travel to Africa, [alt.sex] is about sex in general, whereas [alt.sex.wanted.escorts] is an obvious specialization, [net.config] is about configuring networks, [alt.drugs.mushrooms] is about mushrooms as sources of drugs, [misc.health.diabetes] is advice on diabetes and health, and [ne.politics] is wars of words around New England politics. By technocratic convention, some parts of the hierarchy are static and new groups can only arise by consensus voting (groups improperly created do not get carried). Conversely, other parts of the hierarchy (notably "alt") are wide open to the creation of new groups and subgroups, all under the banner of anti-censorship. Not surprisingly, the alt- newsgroups contain large amounts of sexually explicit content of all varieties. Moderation Some groups are "moderated," which means that postings are routed to moderators, people who either approve and forward or deny and delete prospective postings. This is enormously thankless work, and first-rate moderation often requires load sharing among several people working as one. Because unmoderated groups are available to all, the "spam" problem that bedevils e-mail is vastly worse in Usenet. Ironically, the parts of Usenet devoted to communications about sexual matters are so overwhelmed with advertisement that they have been effectively censored inasmuch as no useful discussion can take place within them due to the volume of junk. Sexually Explicit Content Usenet newsgroups in the "alt" hierarchy come and go. On one day in 2001, an examination of Usenet on one server of one ISP showed: 287 Usenet discussion groups in the alt.sex.* hierarchy, most of which were (in principle) text groups and which contained an aggregate of 30,541 postings in a recent 3-day interval (which overcounts the number of original posts because many are repeatedly cross-posted to multiple groups); 469 postings in one sample group, alt.sex.anal, appearing in the 3-day interval, of which 102 appeared to be involving children by their own headline description; 27 Usenet groups in the picture-oriented alt.binaries.erotica.* hierarchy, containing an aggregate of 6,469 postings in the 3-day interval (again without regard to duplicate cross-postings); and 198 Usenet groups in the picture-oriented alt.binaries.pictures.* hierarchy, of which 57 (of the 198) appeared to be sex related and which contained an aggregate of 46,417 postings in the 3-day interval (again without regard to duplicate cross-postings). Similar results for availability, volume, quality, repetition, and ease of access apply to other channels in like manner.