                         SPECIAL HIERARCHY NOTES

This file is no longer being updated.  I (Russ Allbery) simply don't have
the time, given the volume of control messages that flow by these days.
At some point, it would be good to extract the information in here about
private and defunct hierarchies and combine it with the hierarchies FAQ to
produce a more comprehensive guide to Usenet hierarchies.  If someone is
looking for an interesting project in Usenet archeology, they may find
that one interesting.

The remainder of this file are the notes that tale maintained when he was
maintaining the control message archive and active newsgroup database.
For the remainder of this file, I refers to tale.  I believe the last
comprehensive work on maintaining it stopped somewhat earlier.  Most of
the information here dates from the 1990s.

I have added a few additional notes since when I chose not to add a
hierarchy to the public list for some reason.


This file contains information about the handling of particular
hierarchies.  To aid in searching for a particular entry, all top level
names are flush left with ".*" appended.  I have information about many
more hierarchies than these, but have not yet had time to add it.

==========================================================================

The following is a list of hierarchies that I know to be private
hierarchies; that is, the administrators in charge of them have
specifically requested that they do not wish the hierarchy to appear in
the ISC list, and often don't want it to appear anywhere except their own
servers.

alab.*
  This hierarchy is for a department at the National Chiao Tung University
  in Hsinchu, Taiwan.  Contact pcyu@alab.ee.nctu.edu.tw (Pang-Cheng Yu)
  for more information.
apana.*
  Private hierarchy for the Australian Public Access Network Association.
  Contact "Garry R. Ford" <garry@merddyn.apana.org.au> or Dean Hollister
  <dean@odyssey.apana.org.au> for more information.
backbone.*
  This hierarchy is for internal use only by ruhr.de.  Contact
  admin@ruhr.de for more information.
balcab.*
  Private for the Basel, Switzerland, ISP named Balcab.  Contact Matthias
  Leisi <leisi@gmx.ch> for more information.
best.*
  For Best Internet Communications (best.net) use only.  Contact
  news@best.net for more information.
birk.*
  Private.  Newgroups were leaked from hastur.rlyeh.net and
  starcat.rlyeh.net, two of the peers in the birk hierarchy.  Contact
  birk-admin@ping.uio.no (Jan Ingvoldstad) for more information.
borland.*
  On 31 May 1998, Chris Malatesta <cmalatesta@borland.com> responded to my
  inquiry about leaked Collabra newgroups for borland.public.* groups with
  the statement "We do not feed our news server... So I'm confused how you
  recieved this...".  I explained about how to read Path headers, and then
  asked, "Do I correctly infer from your reply that you do not wish the
  Borland groups to be available outside of your own server?"  Having
  received no further reply from him, it is my assumption that it is
  intended to be a hierarchy only local to their own news server.  You can
  access the Borland newsgroups via the forums.inprise.com news server, or
  through http://www.borland.com/newsgroups/.
cais.*
  For Capital Area Internet Service (cais.com) use only.  Contact
  news@cais.com for more information.
cd-online.*
  For Worldonline, Inc (worldonline.nl) use only.  Contact
  newsmaster@worldonline.nl for more information.
central.*
  For use by The Internet Company of New Zealand only.  Contact
  usenet@iconz.co.nz for more information.
chaven.*
  For internal use only by Celestial Haven ISP.  Contact news@chaven.com
  for more information.
chello.*
  On 15 Jan 2000, ralf@IAEhv.nl (Ralf van Dooren) sent a newgroup for
  chello.nl.test.test worldwide.  It seemed fairly obvious that it was a
  bogus newgroup not sanctioned by Chello Netherlands admins, but
  nonetheless I took the opportunity to enquire of the folks at Chello
  Netherlands whether the chello.* hierarchy existed as either a private
  or public hierarchy.  To my surprise, Mr. van Dooren replied that he was
  an employee of Chello at their "abusedesk", and had been investigating
  some problems with chello.* groups disappearing on their servers.  He
  said that to his knowledge chello.* is not intended to be carried
  outside the chello-network.
cix.*
  Four newgroups in July 1998 all had Distribution: local headers that
  were (obviously) ineffective.  All were posted via kerberos.demon.co.uk
  and had message-ids naming cix.compulink.co.uk.  They did not have valid
  From: headers, though.  In May 2001, Sean Purdy <newsmaster@cix.co.uk>
  reported to me that the hierarchy is private to cix.co.uk.
cl.*
  For internal use only by CL-Netz.  Contact koordination@cl-netz.de for
  more information.
cmi.*
  For internal use only at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign,
  per mail from Bruce Gletty, CCSO news manager @uiuc.edu, July 1998.
  Later informed by foertsch@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu that, "any 'cmi' group is
  owned by prairienet and they need to bless any distribution beyond
  campus/local ISPs."
cmu.*
  For Carnegie-Mellon University use only, per Dan Lovinger
  <del+@cmu.edu>, CMU Computing Services, August 1994.
csie.*
  Two Collabra newgroups.  Curiously, they were from very different
  domains but with very similar names:  csie.bbs.fj and csie.bbs.fj.rec.
  Much later, on 24 Feb 2000, jkng@csie.nctu.edu.tw (NortonNg) sent six
  newgroups for groups in the hierarchy, and he later reported to me that
  it was a mistake and he corrected the configuration.
cuhk.*
  In September of 1998, 22 Usenet newgroup control messages were sent
  around the world for groups in the cuhk.* hierarchy by a half-dozen
  different people in the Engineering Faculty CUHK at cuhk.edu.hk (Hong
  Kong).  Alan S. H. Lam <shlam@ie.cuhk.edu.hk> reported to me that it was
  accidental and the hierarchy is private.
deja.*
  In May 1999, group-admin@deja.com sent at least 40 newgroup messages
  around the world that all bore the note, "[...] this is being created
  for internal use by Deja.com Inc.  If you have mistakenly received this
  control message, please contact group-admin@deja.com immediately. And
  please accept our apologies."  Apology accepted.
dejanews.*
  In February and May 1999, group-admin@deja.com sent six newgroup
  messages like those described in deja.* above --- internal use, mistake
  for others to get, apologies, yadda yadda.
duke.*
  For use by Duke University only.  Conact news@newsgate.duke.edu for more
  information.
earthlink.*
  For internal use by the EarthLink ISP only.
fh-hannover.*
  Local to shalom.cid-net.de.  Contact news@shalom.cid-net.de or Daniel
  Joehrens <news@linux.rz.fh-hannover.de> for more information.
fur.*
  For Furrynet use only.  Contact fur-config@taronga.com for more
  information.
ibmnet.*
  For internal use by IBM Corporation (ibm.net) only.  Contact
  news@ibm.net for more information.
inprise.*
  For Borland's Enterprise products. You can access the inprise.*
  newsgroups via the forums.inprise.com news server, or through
  http://www.borland.com/newsgroups/.
iconz.*
  For the Internet Company of New Zealand.  Contact usenet@iconz.co.nz for
  more information.
krst.*
  Local hierarchy for the Committee for Clean Monitors in the Terminal
  Rooms (yes, that's what I was told), University of Oslo, Norway.  Feeds
  are restricted.  Contact Jan Ingvoldstad <jani@ifi.uio.no> for more
  information.
manawatu.*
  For the Manawatu district of New Zealand.  Contact news@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 - the
  New Zealand net administration prefers that we don't feed regional
  distributions through it, and so all manawatu.* groups are blocked from
  being fed to the net at the manawatu hub."
mcom.*
  For Netscape Communications Corp.  Contact bpolk@netscape.com (Ben Polk)
  for more information.
metropolis.*
  For use by Worldonline, Inc (worldonline.nl) only.  Contact
  newsmaster@worldonline.nl for more information.
ncf.*
  For the National Capital Freenet in Ottawa, Canada.  Contact
  news@freenet.carleton.ca for more information.
netins.*
  For use by netINS, Inc, only.  Contact kevin@netins.net (Kevin Houle)
  for more information.
optonline.*
  For use by Optimum Online only.  Matthew Sachs <matthewg@zevils.com>
  sent a worldwide newgroup for optonline.discuss that he had thought was
  limited with a local distribution, but it had not been.
planet.*
  Used by both the PlaNet FreeNZ Cooperative in New Zealand and Planet
  Systems Inc in Tennessee, USA.  Contact office@pl.net or
  news@news.planetc.com for more information.
powersoft.*
  For use through Sybase's news server only.  Configure your news reader
  to use forums.powersoft.com as an NNTP server, or access the groups via
  http://support.sybase.com/newsgroups/.
prima.*
  For Prima e.V. in Germany.  Contact admin@prima.ruhr.de for more
  information.
psu.*
  For internal use only by the Penn State University in the USA.  Contact
  barr@math.psu.edu (Dave Barr) for more information.
rpi.*
  For Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY.  This hierarchy used
  to be publically available until 1994.  Contact usenet@rpi.edu for more
  information.
sybase.*
  For use through Sybase's news server only.  Configure your news reader
  to use forums.sybase.com as an NNTP server, or access the groups via
  http://support.sybase.com/newsgroups/.
tele.*
  For Tele Danmark Erhverv (Tele Denmark Internet, tele.dk or tdk.net).
  Contact usenet@tdk.net for more information.
termvakt.*
  Local hierarchy for technical support personnel at the Department for
  Informatics, University of Oslo, Norway.  Feeds are restricted.  Contact
  Jan Ingvoldstad <jani@ifi.uio.no> for more information.
uva.*
  For the University of Virginia, USA.  Contact usenet@virginia.edu.
worldonline.*
  For use by Worldonline, Inc (worldonline.nl) only.  Contact
  newsmaster@worldonline.nl for more information.  As of 1 Oct 1996
  Lennard voor den Dag at worldonline told me, "The hierarchy is available
  on news.worldonline.nl:119, but is not really interesting for the
  outside world, and in Dutch only."

==========================================================================

The following is a list of hierarchies that had a newgroup or checkgroups
message sent worldwide from them.  I sent the person who issued the
control message a query regarding the hierarchy's availability, but
received no reply.  Therefore I consider the control message to have been
an accidental leakage by someone who didn't really understand what was
going on, and the hierarchy is not listed here.  There are _many_ _many_
hierarchies that fit into this catergory, but I have not had time to go
through all my email folders identifying them all to add here.  There's
also a whole slew of hierarchies that only had Collabra newgroups that I
gave up even sending a message to the originator, because I pretty much
never received replies from Collabra admins.

The presence of a name in this list generally means that someone,
somewhere is probably using the hierarchy name, but its current status is
not entirely clear.

agora.*
  On four separate occasions (19 Feb 1998, 2 Jun 1998, 7 Jul 1998 and 6
  Dec 1999) I have sent email inquiring about worldwide newgroup messages
  for this hierarchy.  All but the first time went to news@news.agora.it,
  which is the address on the control messages.  The hierarchy is
  apparently for "Agora - Internet Solution Provider".
ait.*
  Message sent to news@cs.ait.ac.th regarding newgroup of ait.language on
  17 July 1996.
amda.*
  Message sent to dounuts@amda.or.jp (Hiroshi Sawada) regarding newgroup
  of 7 amda.* groups for the Association of Medical Doctors of Asia in
  March 1998.
archiworld.*
  Message sent to news@cna.archiworld.it on 25 Jun 1998 and 7 Dec 1999
  regarding eleven and 43 newgroups, respectively.  Seems to be associated
  with the non-responsive people who have been doing the agora.* groups.
att.*
  Message sent to newsadm@bgtnfc01-news.ops.worldnet.att.net and
  newsadm@worldnett.att.net regarding newgroup of att.tech-trial.onemail
  on 15 Sep 1998.  As this is the only att.* newgroup from an AT&T domain,
  it appears that the hierarchy is private.
bathspa.*
  Four Collabra newgroups from postmaster@bathspa.ac.uk in July, 1998.
cargill.*
  The only worldwide newgroup for anything in this hierarchy was clearly a
  test message, sent on 29 Jul 1998 by jeff@cargill.com for a group named
  cargill.me.  I did not even bother asking whether this was meant to be a
  worldwide group.
chuvashia.*
  Two Collabra newgroups from the cap.ru domain in Autumn, 1997.
consulting.*
  A Collabra newgroup from rknowles_sysop@mhtonline.com on 27 Dec 1997.
corel.*
  Message sent to drawtech@corel.ca on 9 Dec 1997 regarding ten Collabra
  newgroups.  As usual, there was no reply, and seven more Collabra
  newgroups from the same address were sent during the following week.
corelsupport.*
  Message sent to jimm@corel.ca regarding his 28 Collabra messages of the
  Spring and Summer, 1998.
cslab.*
  A batch of newgroups in November 1998 and another in July 1999, both
  sets from network-admin@cslab.co.jp., for a handful of groups intended
  to be used by the organization "C's Lab, Ltd.".
cstech.*
  A Collabra newgroup from news@moe.cstech.fr on 20 Nov 1997.
cygnus.*
  A newgroup for cygnus.project.gdb.future was sent by fche@cygnus.com on
  27 August 1998.  This has been (to date) the only newgroup seen for a
  hierarchy devoted to Cygnus Solutions.
dds.*
  Message sent to jeroen@mlc.nl about Collabra newgroup.
discreet.*
  A Collabra newgroup from news@discreet.com on 11 Sep 1997.
education.*
  Two Collabra newgroups from news@vulcan.pnl.gov on 27 Jan 1998,
  apparently for existing alt.* groups but missing the alt prefix.
ejb.*
  A Collabra newgroup from newsadmin@tsai.es on 2 Oct 1997.
epm.*
  A Collabra newgroup from msantand@eeppm.com on 2 Jan 1998.
forum_interne.*
  Two Collabra newgroups from postmaster@getima.mutuagri.tm.fr on 21 Oct
  1997.
glbs.*
  13 Collabra newgroups from newsadm@deere.com in September, 1998.
gsm.*
  Two Collabra newgroups for gsm.uae on 11 May 1999 by
  newsmaster@emirates.net.ae.
hec.*
  A Collabra newgroup from eddy.beliveau@hec.ca on 10 Oct 1997.
hphc.*
  Three Collabra newgroups from steve_toupin@hphc.org in Winter, 1997-1998.
ifdef.*
  Message sent to news@sunburn.snds.com regarding newgroup of six ifdef.*
  groups on 7 May 1998.  All were generated using Netscape Collabra.
  Message bounced "User unknown".
installshield.*
  This hierarchy was brough to my attention by someone who directed me to
  http://support.installshield.com/nwsgrps/default.asp.  The groups are
  available on the news.installshield.com NNTP server, and on 8 Feb 2000 I
  asked the folks at installshield.com whether they should be listed in
  the ISC's active file.  No answer yet.
ils.*
  13 Collabra newgroups from news@coho.ils.nwu.edu in autumn 1997.
islam.*
  A Collabra newgroup from newsmaster@emirates.net.ae on 27 Oct 1998.
hkjc.*
  Two Collabra newgroups by news@cit.org.hk on 20 Mar 1998.
kmc.*
  Three Collabra newgroups from ccchen@cc.kmc.edu.tw and
  www@mail.rm.kmc.edu.tw in Nov 1997.
libertymutual.*
  Seven Collabra newgroups from tjlanoie@infoserver.lmig.com in February
  and April, 1998.
list.*
  Four Collabra newgroups from news@corp.g2networks.com on 20 Jul 1998.
lk-net.test
  A Collabra newgroup from t.vaquet@meier-edv.de on 15 Jan 1998.
mortgageflex.*
  A Collabra newgroup from dwang@hsa.com on 5 Mar 1998.
o-d-n.*
  Newgroup by tecias@cyberdude.com (Tecias von Alcadious) (Organization:
  Altavista personal user) on 12 Jul 1998 for o-d-n.misc.tmp.
oloon.*
  Newgroup from Remco van de Meent <remco@oloon.xs4all.nl> on 22 Oct 1997
  for oloon.test.blah.
pandora.*
  Two Collabra newgroups from news@afrodite.telenet-ops.be on 11 Feb 1998.
paulp.*
  A Collabra newgroup from paul.pink@twi.com for paulp.firstpost on 12 Nov
  1997.
recar.*
  A Collabra newgroup from postmaster@stardivision.de for recar.service on
  9 Jan 1998.
reseaux.*
  A Collabra newgroup from lelievre.remy@getima.mutuagri.tm.fr on 17 Nov
  1997.
servodata.*
  Seven Collabra newgroups from news@proton.servodata.co.at in early 1998.
shadowclub.*
  A Collabra newgroup from jwiseman@netsite.com on 20 Jan 1998.
sit.*
  A Collabra newgroup from news@news.sunyit.edu (SUNY Utica/Rome) on 25
  Sep 1997.
sq.*
  A Collabra newgroup from joe_wright@compuware.com on 10 Jul 1998.
sva.*
  A Collabra newgroup from news@news.krefeld.schulen.net on 29 Sep 1997.
takefive.*
  A Collabra newgroup from postmaster@messe-nt.stardiv.de on 17 Mar 1998.
telepac.*
  Six Collabra newgroups from news@www.icp.pt on 25 Nov 1997.
tigr.*
  Three Collabra newgroups from dmaas@tigr.org in Nov 997.
tfx.*
  A Collabra newgroup from vik@netnow.net on 17 Jun 1998.
tu.*
  Two Collabra newgroups for tu.private from news@garcia.towson.edu on
  24 Nov 1997.
trw.*
  Three newgroups on 24 Apr 1998; query sent to news@trw.com,
  news@news2.trw.com.
twelvenet.*
  A newgroup for twelvenet.support from news@twelve.net (well, "From:
  spam@browser.org", which I did not even try) in August 1998.
ul.*
  A Collabra newgroup from joe_wright@compuware.com on 10 Jul 1998.
utc.*
  Two Collabra newgroups from christoph.haas@lgm.lion.de on 16 Dec 1997.
utwente.*
  This hierarchy is for the University of Twente in the Netherlands.
  Messages sent to newsmaster@utwente.nl on 23 May 1996 and 30 Jun 1997
  received no replies.
vsi.*
  Two Collabra newgroups from cmalatesta@corp.borland.com on 5 Aug 1998.
wbband.*
  A Collabra newgroup from news@mercury.adc.com on 28 Sep 1997.
zelenograd.*
  "Dmitri N. Beloslioudtsev" <dnb@orgland.ru> sent two newgroups, one for
  zelenograd.test and one for zelenograd.test1, on 4 Sep 1998.  No other
  newgroups have appeared for the hierarchy.

==========================================================================

The following are miscellaneous notes I have about various hierarchies.
"It should be removed," is shorthand for, "It should be removed from your
local list of active groups unless you have some special need for having
it, such as a private local hierarchy by the same name."

acay.*
  Appears to be a private hierarchy for an Australian ISP.  See
  <http://www.acay.com.au/member.htm>.
alive.*
  It is not clear to me what the status of this hierarchy is.  My latest
  messages to Sander van Minnen <mattew@pobox.org.sg> (or
  <mattew@hacktic.nl>) asking for more information regarding what the
  hierarchy is about and what its current groups are were not answered.
  It is, however, listed in the ISC active file based on the list of
  groups I got in January 1997, and a half-dozen newgroup messages since
  then.

  The USENET Config Files FAQ's version of control.ctl says that this
  hierarchy is defunct and people should contact thijs@kink.xs4all.nl or
  mattew@xs4all.nl for more information.  It should be removed.
alot.*
  Misspelled "alt.ziopino" as "alot.ziopino" in a forged newgroup on 5 Aug
  1998.  It should be removed.
america.*
  Forged newgroup for "america.sucks.scotland.rules.we.made.tv" on 13 Sep
  1998.  It should be removed.
apc.*
  13 Collabra newgroups in Summer of 1998.  It should be removed.
au.*
  This Collabra newgroup was apparently a typo for aus.ads.jobs by
  joe_wright@compuware.com on 10 Jul 1998.
bes.*
  A semi-public hierarchy for discussion of the Beijing Spectrometer,
  originally coordinated at Stanford University.  The hierarchy went idle
  and was declared defunct in September of 2009.  It should be removed.
betanews.*
  Tests from Microsoft were escaping around the world.  It should be
  removed.
blackbox.*
  Newgroup for blackbox.doof, apparently a joke, sent worldwide on 25 Jan
  1998.  There *may* be a legitimate blackbox.* hierarchy (the control
  message was posted to blackbox.test) but I have seen no other references
  to it.  Cf. at.blackbox.*.
bofh.*
  The Bastard Operator From Hell hierarchy.  Feeds of it are restricted to
  those who can figure out how to get a feed.
bugtraq.*
  Forged newgroup on 29 Dec 1999, apparently without any support of the
  Bugtraq administrators.
cny.*
  A newgroup was sent for cny.general, for the Central New York State
  region, by Will Pierce <willp@dreamscape.com> in May 1998.  In January
  2000, Mr. Pierce reported to me that the only group that existed in the
  hierarchy was cny.general, but it did not propagate very far and
  received an insignificant amount of traffic.  It should be removed.
cronkite.*
  Joke newgroup for cronkite.misc, "Miscellaneous discussion of Walter
  Cronkite" by bedwarm@cycperspace.org (Bobby Tendinitis) in April 1998.
earth.*
  Newgroup for earth.crisis "Discussion of crises on Earth" by Bobby
  Tendinitis <bedwarm@mail.dotcom.fr> on 21 Oct 1997 without any
  discussion, support, followup, or other groups in hierarchy.
fa.*
  This hierarchy is defunct since the late 1980s.  It stood for "from
  ARPAnet" to reflect that it was for messages gatewayed from ARPAnet
  mailing lists into newsgroups.  It should be removed.
foad.*
  Newgroup for foad.rant by abby@foad.org on 2 Dec 1997; see
  ftp://ftp.isc.org/pub/usenet/control/foad/foad.rant.  The hierarchy was
  apparently stillborn.
fr2.*
  This appears to have been some sort of protest against the policies or
  personalities of fr.*.  There were three newgroups in July of 1998 and
  nothing seems to have come of them.
god.*
  Apparently an attempt to create alt.god.jesus and
  alt.god.jesus.holyghost that failed to include the "alt.*" part (the
  bodies of the messages use the alt prefix), two newgroups were sent in
  August 1999 and were quickly followed by a half-dozen joke newgroups.
  It should be removed.
ibm.*
  Originally for internal use by IBM Corporation (ibm.com) only.  The
  ibm.software.* hierarchy was available via news.software.ibm.com for a
  while, but was then closed by IBM on 2009-12-31.  The ibm.software.*
  portion of the hierarchy was redistributed to other servers and may
  still have usage outside of the original IBM source.  It is unknown if
  ibm.* outside of ibm.software.* is still in use inside IBM. ibm.* groups
  other than ibm.software.* should be removed.
jessica.*
  Newgroup for jessica.config on 5 Nov 1997 by uhclem@usit.net, apparently
  as some sort of joke.
local.*
  This name occurs at many sites for their own local hierarchies.
  Distributing a hierarchy by this name off of a single server is a very
  bad idea because of the high likelihood of leakage between the unrelated
  groups of different sites.
microsoft.*
  Microsoft does not maintain their hierarchy via Usenet control messages.
  I receive a list of changes to make every week directly from Microsoft
  via email.
mod.*
  In the mid-1980s this was how all moderated newsgroups were identified.
  The mod.* hierarchy was removed in the Great Renaming in 1986 when
  support for moderated groups by any nme was incorporated into B News.
  Some people have considered restarting the concept of this hierarchy
  (which I personally think it is a bad idea), but as yet it has not been
  done.
muenster.*
  A regional hierarchy for the city of Muenster in Germany.  The original
  contact, Lars von Olleschik <lars@von-olleschik.de>, is no longer
  involved in running the hierarchy.  The organization buene.org may
  still be involved.
nc.*
  This hierarchy is in use as a regional hierarchy for North Carolina but
  has no active maintainer.  Tim Seaver used to manage hte hierarchy but
  said around 2002 that he'd had no dealings with it in over two years and
  the hierarchy is basically "open to anyone who wants it."
net.*
  This hierarchy is only meant to be carried by sites that live by a
  strict set of rules meant to keep down abuse of Usenet and improve the
  overall quality of groups.  See http://www.usenet2.org/ for more
  information about this hierarchy.
openprojects.*
  Robert Dinse <nanook@eskimo.com>, who responded to my message sent to
  news@eskimo.com (the sender of the newgroup for openprojects.linpeople),
  says, "I am trying to find out who did this; it looks to me like someone
  forged a control message.  'eskimo.com' is not a news server; it's our
  shell server.  Normally, when we create groups, we would have used
  ctlinnd on the news server and 'eskimo.com' would not have shown up in
  the path."
pubnet.*
  This hierarchy used to carry groups about publically available Unix
  systems, but fell into disuse.  It was formally removed for lack of
  traffic in the summer of 1991.  it should be removed.
sdnet.*
  This hierarchy is for discussion of and within the Greater San Diego
  Area, California, USA.  It was formerly maintained by William Kronert,
  but he stepped down as hierarchy maintainer and no one else
  volunteered.  It is therefore now frozen, but the existing groups are
  still in use.
slac.*
  This hierarchy was for discussion of the Stanford Linear Accelerator
  Center.  It was a local hierarchy that was distributed to various
  partner sites and hence became semi-public.  After a long period of
  declining usage, it was shut down by SLAC in September 2009.  It should
  be removed.
stardivision.*
  This hierarchy was for the company that made the StarOffice business
  suite software.  It was renamed to staroffice.* in September 1999, and
  the old stardivision.* hierarchy should be removed.
t-netz.*
  This was a German language hierarchy for gatewayed email lists something
  akin to alt.* in that anyone could create newsgroups in it.  The
  hierarchy is now defunct, having been moved to z-netz.alt.* in a
  reorganization in 1996.  Contact lutz@jena.thur.de (Lutz Donnerhacke)
  and/or dirk.meyer@dinoex.sub.org (Dirk Meyer) for more information.  See
  also zer.* in this file.  It should be removed.
to.*
  A pseudo-hierarchy normally used for the propagation of ihave/sendme
  control messages and test messages.  For example, SiteA and SiteB might
  each have a to.sitea and to.siteb on their machines to facilitate a
  special kind of news transport mechanism.
um.*
  This hierarchy was used for internal groups at the University of
  Maryland.  Their internal news server was shut down on 22 Dec 2008 and
  rmgroups were issued for all groups in this hierarchy.  It should be
  removed.
www.*
  Apparently someone who thought a newsgroup name and domain name should
  be equivalent.  Newgroup for www.wilhelp.com on 7 Jul 1998.
zer.*
  This was a German language hierarchy for gatewayed email lists like
  t-netz.*, but was somewhat more structured regarding creation of groups
  within it.  There was a bit of a problem with gateways directing the
  same articles to both the zer.* hierarchy and the z-netz.* hierarchy,
  with the resulting message-id collisions causing a mess with
  propagation.  The hierarchy is now defunct, having been moved to
  z-netz.* in a reorganization in 1996.  Contact lutz@jena.thur.de (Lutz
  Donnerhacke) and/or dirk.meyer@dinoex.sub.org (Dirk Meyer) for more
  information. See also t-netz.* in this file.  It should be removed.
zipnews.*
  This appears to have been a discussion hierarchy for Zippo's news
  service, a now-defunct organization.  It was declared obsolete in a list
  of hierarchies posted in January 2000 and there has been no subsequent
  information about it.  It should be removed.
