Usenet
Usenet is one of the oldest distributed computer communications networks. It consists of discussion groups called "newsgroups", in which servers propagate messages in a peer-to-peer fashion, and clients connect to servers to read and post to newsgroups. Communication (both client and server) takes place via Network News Transfer Protocol, or NNTP, an application-layer protocol analogous to but different (and older) than the ubiquitous HyperText Transfer Protocol, aka HTTP.
Access to Usenet is normally tolled. If you pay a fee, you may purchase real NNTP access to a Usenet server, and connect your own client software (and trade large files at binary groups). Many Usenet participants are stuck using free methods like https://groups.google.com to read and post.
Usenet hierarchy
The tree listed here is restricted to those groups, past or present, that have some substantial connection to NetHack. The full Usenet hierarchy is of course much vaster than this.
- comp.
- comp.sources.
- comp.sources.games
- comp.sources.
- rec.
- rec.games.
- rec.games.hack (obsolete)
- rec.games.roguelike.
- rec.games.
- net. (obsolete; see Great Renaming. All known versions of Hack were posted here)
- net.sources.
- net.sources.games
- net.sources.
