Usenet II
A 1997 attempt at a Usenet where every server promised to behave — a clean network running inside the dirty one.
By the mid-1990s Usenet was drowning in spam, forged posts and unauthorised cancels. Usenet II was the answer from a group of veteran news admins: a separate network of "sound sites", servers that committed to shared rules, verified senders and refused to pass on forgeries. It reused the old net.* prefix, vacant since the Great Renaming.
The technology worked; the network effect ran the wrong way. Anyone who wanted to be read posted where the readers were, and the readers were on ordinary Usenet. Usenet II became a small, well-kept neighbourhood that few people found, while the rest of the network made do with NoCeM and killfiles.