In article ,
Lee DeRaud wrote:

....

Question for the assembled multitude: is there actually a reason why
this group is "rec.woodworking" and not "rec.crafts.woodworking"? Or
conversely, why is the turning group not "rec.woodworking.turning" or
just "rec.woodturning"?

Or is this just one of those "just because" things?

No actually because rec.ww is a very -old- newsgroup. It predates the
rec.crafts hierarchy.
Years ago (I forget the, maybe 10) I ran a straw poll about splitting
this newsgroup. A lot of the, well, macho types didn't want the
newsgroup to end up in the rec.crafts hierarchy (a reorg would have
eliminated this group). They thought of "crafts" as sewing, etc. I kept
pointing out the metal-smith newsgroup (rec.crafts.metalworking) and
crafts-MEN.
The overall opinion of the poll was no. Personally I started out
neutral, but ended up convinced it had to happen. The newsgroup was just
too big (it had lots and lots of posts per day).
Well, what happened then was the turners still wanted their own group,
so they formed one. A bunch of the hand-tool types formed an e-mail
list. Then (lastly) some web-based forums opened. The result was, rather
then a clean and organized set of newsgroups, we ended up with what we
have today.

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