History
The first post to talk.origins was a starter post by Mark Horton, dated 5 September 1986.
In the early 1990s, a number of FAQs on various topics were being periodically posted to the newsgroup. In 1994, Brett J. Vickers established an anonymous FTP site to host the collected FAQs of the newsgroup. In 1995, Vickers started the TalkOrigins Archive web site as another means of hosting the talk.origins FAQs. It maintains an extensive FAQ on topics in evolutionary biology, geology and astronomy, with the aim of representing the views of mainstream science. It has spawned other websites, notably TalkDesign "a response to the intelligent design movement", Evowiki, and the Panda's Thumb weblog.
The group was originally created as the unmoderated newsgroup net.origins as a 'dumping ground' for all the various flame threads 'polluting' other newsgroups, then renamed to talk.origins as part of the Great Renaming. Subsequently, after discussion on the newsgroup, the group was voted to be moderated in 1997 by the normal USENET RFD/CFV process, in which only spam and excessive crossposting are censored. The moderator for the newsgroup is David Iain Greig (and technically Jim Lippard as alternate/backup).
Read more about this topic: Talk.origins
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