Your Internet Consultant - The FAQs of Life Online

5.9. What are the most heavily used newsgroups?

You can find out which Usenet newsgroups have the highest volume of messages by checking the newsgroup news.lists. This newsgroup features fascinating up-to-date statistics about Usenet use. In particular, the periodic posting called Top 25 News Groups for the last 2 weeks will tell you what newsgroups that passed through UUNET had the highest volume of messages.

The following list ranks newsgroups by number of kilobytes posted, not the number of articles. Digitized pictures and sounds use much more bandwidth than basic text messages, so it's not surprising that numerous newsgroups featuring pictures top the list. During this two week sample, erotica, politics, and sound effects were prominent. 

         No. of        $ Cost  % of  Cumulative
Rank  Kbytes Articles per Site Total  % of Total  Group
   1 82465.2    2369    217.62  6.6%     6.6%
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica
   2 43757.3    1402    115.47  3.5%    10.1%
alt.binaries.pictures.misc
   3 26838.1     552     70.82  2.1%    12.2%
alt.binaries.sounds.misc
   4 19887.1     541     52.48  1.6%    13.8%     news.answers
   5 18882.2     478     49.83  1.5%    15.3%
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.male
   6 16203.2     403     42.76  1.3%    16.6%
de.alt.binaries.pictures.relay-party
   7 15739.7     765     41.54  1.3%    17.9%
alt.binaries.pictures.supermodels
   8 11900.2     236     31.40  1.0%    18.8%
alt.binaries.sounds.movies
   9 10786.6     429     28.46  0.9%    19.7%
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.orientals
  10  9357.1     369     24.69  0.7%    20.4%
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.female
  11  9160.6     199     24.17  0.7%    21.2%
alt.binaries.pictures.fractals
  12  8597.6    3722     22.69  0.7%    21.9%     talk.politics.misc
  13  7784.2    4383     20.54  0.6%    22.5%     cbd.procurements
  14  7680.7     732     20.27  0.6%    23.1%
alt.binaries.pictures.utilities
  15  7652.5     248     20.19  0.6%    23.7%
alt.binaries.pictures.tasteless
  16  7624.3     190     20.12  0.6%    24.3%     comp.answers
  17  7398.5     285     19.52  0.6%    24.9%     alt.binaries.pictures
  18  7155.4     189     18.88  0.6%    25.5%     rec.answers
  19  7098.0    3078     18.73  0.6%    26.0%     alt.fan.rush-limbaugh
  20  6684.4    3592     17.64  0.5%    26.6%     talk.politics.guns
  21  6056.4     165     15.98  0.5%    27.1%     alt.sex.pictures
  22  5991.6    4229     15.81  0.5%    27.5%     ncar.weather
  23  5931.0     518     15.65  0.5%    28.0%     alt.sex.stories
  24  5824.5     133     15.37  0.5%    28.5%
de.alt.binaries.pictures.female
  25  5138.0    1975     13.56  0.4%    28.9%
soc.culture.indian

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