This article is based on material authored by members of the news.newusers.questions Moderation Board and nnq-workers mailing list, particularly by Jon Bell (until 2005) and Thor Kottelin (since 2007).
Before you get too far into trying to create a newsgroup, you should first make sure that you really want to do this. Learn about the various kinds of forums that you can create on the net, and decide which kind fits your purposes best.
After that, if you're still set on creating a newsgroup, you need to decide next what kind of newsgroup you want to create. More technically, you need to decide which top-level hierarchy you want to put the group in. That is, will it be a comp group, a rec group, an alt group, a us group, or what? Different hierarchies of newsgroups have different rules for creating new groups.
If the topic is of broad international interest, then the logical place is an international hierarchy such as one of the Big Eight (comp, humanities, misc, news, rec, sci, soc, and talk) or alt.
The choice between the Big Eight and alt is basically a tradeoff between ease of creation and speed of "propagation" of the new group (that is, how rapidly it gets created on the tens of thousands of news servers all over the globe). Creating a new group in the Big Eight can be a rather drawn-out and politicized process (figure at least two or three months from start to finish), but once you've completed the process successfully, most servers will add the new group fairly rapidly. Creating a new alt group can be very quick (perhaps a couple of weeks), but it can take a long time for a significant number of servers to add the group, and they may need prodding from their own users. Also, some smaller servers don't carry alt groups at all.
If the topic is basically of local or regional interest, you should look for an appropriate national, regional, or local newsgroup hierarchy. We list sources of information for some of these below; for others, look for a *.general or *.config group in the hierarchy and look for, or ask about, the proper procedures.
Fundamentally, no matter what the hierarchy, the process of technically creating a new group starts when someone posts a newgroup control message. This special kind of message asks news server administrators everywhere to create the group locally on their servers.
Depending on which hierarchy the control message is for, and on who sent the control message, and on how a particular server is configured, the server may do one of the following:
Most hierarchies have a designated maintainer who, by general custom and/or agreement, is the official source of newgroup control messages for that hierarchy. The single most important exceptions are the alt and free hierarchies, where (in principle) anyone can post a control message. In most cases, there is a widely-accepted procedure which one must or should follow in order for an official control message to be posted, or before you post a control message yourself.
The Big Eight management policies were reformed in 2006. Guidelines for creating new groups are available on the Big Eight management board's web site.
In the alt hierarchy, you post a proposal for the group in alt.config, and give some justification for it. Listen to suggestions and advice, and make any changes that seem appropriate (e.g. regarding the name of the group). When you get to a point where there are no significant objections, post the newgroup control message yourself, or ask someone in alt.config to do it for you.
There is no official source of newgroup control messages in alt. If you post a newgroup control message against significant objections, you can expect that someone will post rmgroup control messages (requests for servers to remove a group) to try to block the effects of your newgroup messages.
You should read alt.config for a while and see what happens there, before you try to make a proposal yourself. You might also want to read the "So you want to create an alt newsgroup" FAQ written by David Barr.
The biz hierarchy is for commercial and business-related newsgroups. See the biz FAQ.
free is a hierarchy where the only rule is "do whatever you want as long as you're not destroying somebody else's words". Consequently, there are no rules against creating new groups. Of course there is neither any guarantee that any news server will carry your group.
More information is available in the free FAQ.
The de hierarchy is for newsgroups with discussions in the German language. It is not restricted to Germany-specific topics.
The fr hierarchy is for newsgroups with discussions in the French language. It is not restricted to France-specific topics.
The newsgroup creation process for fr is explained - in French, naturally - on the page Comment créer un forum fr.
The aus hierarchy is a national hierarchy for Australia.
The be hierarchy is a national hierarchy for Belgium. The primary languages are Dutch (Flemish) and French.
The es hierarchy is a national newsgroup hierarchy for Spain. The primary language is Spanish.
The nl hierarchy is a national hierarchy for the Netherlands. The primary language is Dutch.
The sfnet hierarchy is a national hierarchy for Finland. The primary language is Finnish.
The uk hierarchy is a regional hierarchy for the United Kingdom (of Great Britain etc.).
The us hierarchy is a national hierarchy for the United States of America.
If you are thinking of creating a moderated newsgroup (in which all postings are automatically forwarded to a moderator for approval before being posted), you should read the following: